Correct me if I am wrong, my impression of stock traders are that they are more or less gambling.
They can make a bundle in some days and lose everything and then some, in other days. So the income that they "earn" is not actually there to be spent unlike the salaries that people earn in normal jobs.
As you are basically "self employed" you also dont have
CPF savings, which is another problem. The employer
CPF contribution can add up to a tidy sum over 30 years of employment, not to mention the accrued interest! Many of us when we quote our salaries do not include the employer
CPF contribution which comes to another $15K pa or $472K over 30years of employment.
Would you be confident to depend on your trading income of $100k pa if your wife wasnt working?
It is different if it was passive income. When we retire, we will only have passive income to depend on. We aim to grow our passive income through stocks (not through trading) to our target of $100k pa by the time we retire.