Yeah its tough to trade the US stock market when youre working 9-5. Im a stay at home dad so this suits me atm. Routine for me is go bed at about 9pm....set alarm for 12:30am...create my watchlist and start trading at 1am....go to be at 2-2:30 am.
I know IB allow for trading in the European markets. To be honest ive never looked into them for a few reasons. Firstly, the US stock market is the biggest. More chance of finding the 1-2 stocks that are moving big with momentum. Stocks that dont have enough volume dont cut it for me....thats why i couldn't trade the ASX, just not enough volume for my strategy.
Secondly, in order to find the stocks to trade i need a very good stock scanner. (the US market has over 4k listed companies...impossible to day trade without some scanner) Trade Ideas is the best for this. The vast majority of traders (in the US) use this. Unfortunately they only scan the US stock market. You could use the inbuilt stock scanner IB provides for other markets but nothing beats the professionalism of Trade Ideas.
Thirdly, i get my trading education from Americans on You Tube. They only deal with strategies geared towards the US stock market.
If you just want to be a 'normal' stock investor then you can choose any market. But im trying to be a day trader......my strategy is in fast, out fast....i need the volume, volatility, momentum and a huge pool of companies in order to find the 1-2 that will good for my strategy.
What i could suggest for you. You could just trade on sat morning 1-2am (thats Fridays trading for the Americans) . Then sleep in that day. Test it out and see if day trading is right for you. unfortunately its a big outlay to trade for just one day a week. I started with $1000 in my IB account and subscribed to Trade Ideas for about $1300 p/year AUD.