"Traders shouldn't have to lose money to learn how to trade." I love that attitude and was anxious to ask this interviewee more about how he learned how to trade. Today's interviewee uses off-the-shelf software to scan for stocks that meet his criteria. In this interview, Pradeep freely shares his scan methods and tells us exactly what the software is looking for to find great trades. We discuss the types of stocks he favors and how he does his homework in the evening to spot trades he will be taking the next day. Pradeep also explains his intraday scans and provided us with a chart that shows exactly where he enters and exits a typical trade. Finally, we discuss a few specific trades he had recently and how he found them and managed them from start to finish.
"Trading profits made with stupid decisions never feel good." A great trading quote to start 2012. Brian is an experienced full-time trader who trades stocks and 3x leveraged ETFs. In this interview he explains the various levels he is plotting on charts and why these levels help him make better trades. We also discuss the time frames he monitors and specifically how he drills down to his "execution" time frame to decide where to get in and out. Brian reveals the indicator that is most important to him and describes exactly how he uses it on stocks and ETFs to spot great trades. Finally, he explains how he sets his profit targets and stops and gives you an objective way to determine these before you enter any trade. Finally, we discuss lessons learned in trading and the one thing he had to overcome before becoming confident and consistent.
"Trading is like a bench press contest." I love it when good traders have great analogies to describe their methods. In this case, Seth is talking about how option traders should size their positions properly. We talk about why he is almost always on one side of the market and how simple (and sometimes complex) option spread trades have helped him make a living trading options for many years. Seth starts off with the basics but we quickly move into his favorite option trading strategies that he describes in detail, including the "heart friendly butterfly" that make up his foundation of money-making trades. I don't get a chance to talk with many option traders, and I really enjoyed speaking with Seth - you'll learn several great trading methods in this interview.
Martin Rimes has been trading full-time for seven years and has developed a very specific method for finding entry and exit points - and he shares the entire system with us here in this interview. Day trading during the morning and managing swing trades during the afternoon, Martin explains exactly what he's looking for on short-term charts to spot profitable trades. You'll also learn the one indicator he relies on to help predict future movement and the one book he recommends to his friends and family who want to learn how to trade. Finally, Martin talks about why he settled on this strategy and the markets on which it works best.
Michael Patak started his trading career in the pits trading Mini Dow Futures and now trades crude oil futures. Michael is an intuitive trader who says that while 40% of his trading decisions are based on technical levels of previous highs and lows, 60% is based on gut feel and his read of supply and demand. In this interview we hear how he makes his trading decisions using those levels and intuition and how his view of trading as a "battle between buyers and sellers" helps him find profitable trades.
Matt is a true daytrader that holds his positions for about 5-10 minutes. As he will tell you, he knows within the first few seconds of a trade whether it will make money or not. In this interview, Matt describes exactly how he trades and how he combines price action, order flow and charts to spot great opportunities. Matt explains how he decides which stocks he will be trading for the day and why he favors those that have specific characteristics. Using a recent trade as an example he takes us through each step of his decision-making process and shows us how he spotted the trade, entered it, and exited for a profit. He describes what he is looking for on NASDAQ Level 2 or the depth of market (DOM) screen and the clues he sees that tell him the market is ready to offer him a money-making trade.
Frank is a full-time trader who uses a combination of candlestick charting and pivot point zones to find money-making trades on a regular basis. A full-time trader for many years, we discuss the specific ways he uses pivot points and specific candle patterns on a chart to spot areas where turns are likely. Frank also tacks on a specific type of volume indicator that helps him get early confirmation. This indicator is available to anyone on almost every trading platform, yet surprisingly few traders use it (or understand how to interpret it properly). We also discuss Frank's specific entry and exit strategies and the objective way he determines where his stop loss will be. This detail-packed interview will help any trader to make better trading decisions. Listen in and make a money-making trade doing the same thing he does this afternoon.
Chris is a full-time trader that specializes in day trading (and sometimes swing trading) liquid ETFs. A reformed stock day trader, he found that the ETFs offered the patterns and liquidity he wanted for his specific trading style. Chris is a momentum trader who looks for areas in the market where panic is setting in. He then steps in slowly, scaling in with more size as his position moves in his favor. In this interview we discuss how he watches charts, volume and time & sales to get a confident read on the market. He explains the time frames he watches and why his style of trading takes patience and discipline. Chris also gives a surprising answer about a turning point in his trading and what he started doing that made all the difference. Watching one specific area of the market helped him make consistent profits and he credits it for helping him make a living as an at-home trader.
The trader I interviewed for this episode uses a combination of pattern recognition and momentum indicators to find excellent swing trades he holds for 3-5 days. Frank seems to have perfected a very calm and confident way of trading short-term trends. In this interview we discuss in detail the scans he runs each evening to find his basket of tradeable stocks, why he likes a specific kind of equity to trade and his favorite chart indicators. He talks about what area of the markets he finds the most profitable long trades and the sector he avoids entirely. We also discuss how he sets his profit targets and why he only uses mental stops. Finally we discuss his position sizing techniques and a few of the stock symbols that are offering great trading opportunities now. Frank also explains a few of his recent trades to show how he looks for money-making positions.
"At some point during your trading evolution, the charts begin talking to you." The full-time option trader I spoke with for this interview focuses on one thing and is an expert at it. He finds index ETFs that are going to trade within a range for the next few days and he trades calendar or ratio option spreads on those indexes. He explains how he does it in this episode. JW discusses how he watches volatility, implied volatility and time decay to find great option spread trades that will limit his risk and offer the best chance of paying off before or at expiration. His goal - get the same results as a trader who trades the ETF or stock index outright - but by using just a fraction of the capital it would take to trade the underlying directly. in this detailed interview we discuss how he spots the good trades and has turned those trades into a full-time living.
Jeff is a true tape reader. Take away charts, indicators and news and he could still make money every day in the markets. He truly uses just price, volume and occasionally a Level 2 screen to find good trades each day. In this interview he tells us how he does it. We discuss the types of stocks he day trades and the kinds of things he looks for in the tape to see where big size traders are hiding. We discuss how he finds high probability setups and why ideally he wants a trade to give him a 10:1 (reward:risk) ratio. We also talk about how he sets positions sizes and when/why he scales in and out of trades.
This trader's strategy is derived straight out of the futures trading pits. Tim's way of finding great trades each day is probably one of the simplest and easiest to understand that I've heard. The secret is all in the execution (as most trading strategies are). Here we talk about how Tim follows the first 90 minutes of the trading day in the futures and how he spots good trades with simple technical analysis tools available to anyone on the most basic trading platform. Using a combination of Heikin-Ashi candlestick charts and just one Fibonacci retracement level, this full-time trader explains exactly how he enters, manages and exits every trade.
"I don't predict anything, I just trade." It's a sure sign of an experienced trader when they realize that trying to predict the market is a tough way to make a living. Instead, the Australian trader I interviewed for this episode allows the market to tell him when it's time to buy or sell. Nick trades four automated systems - two in the Australian markets and two in USA markets. The systems are trend-following and mean reversion systems. Nick describes each and talks about how he developed them. Nick employs a computer programmer to help him turn his trading ideas into solid automated systems that simply work. We discuss the pros and cons of automated trading and why he decided it was the best thing for him. We also discuss a few good and bad trades and how his "next 1,000 trades" philosophy helped him grow his trading account dramatically.
Mark is a full-time trader that has enjoyed tremendous success in the markets (his monthly $ goal blew me away). However, it took hard work and discipline to earn that money and in this interview Mark talks about how he did it. He speaks very openly about his strategy (as most wealthy traders do) because he knows it's not some huge secret. These are tools and ways of looking at the market anyone can use and do with a laptop and a trading platform. Specifically we talk about how Mark uses pivot points to find areas of the market that become support and resistance zones. We talk about how he uses short-term pivot points for entry and longer-term pivot points to set his profit targets and stop loss areas. We also discuss how position sizing and proper entry, adding on and taking off of shares has made a huge difference and how doing it correctly marks the difference between a break-even trader and one who enjoys a terrific lifestyle. Finally, Mark talks about the one thing he started doing years ago that made him into the trader he is today and how anyone can do the same thing.
Right away I'll say that this is probably one of the best interviews about Market Profile I've ever done. Jim, the trader I interviewed for this episode, uses Market Profile combined with technical analysis to find money-making trades on a regular basis. Here he describes how he enters and exits trades based on "market balance" and he explains exactly how he looks for it. Jim describes the one thing he began doing years ago that helped him tremendously and how he utilizes that "one thing" to make consistent profits. We also talk about how he sets his stop losses and profit targets. Jim then talks about how one thing is common among almost any trader who doesn't make money consistently and how to overcome it. Finally, we talk about how the setups he looks for become clearer once you know what to look for in the market profile charts in specific time frames.
