Tim: Hello traders. Today's interview is a bit different in that the trader I talk to is very much a gut-feel trader. He started out as a floor trader and now trades electronically near the pits. Traders who make their decisions intuitively because they just have a feel for where the market is going based on their experience in the trading pits, those are a bit tougher to interview because how do you really explain how your gut or your intuition helps you make good trading decisions? It's not really easy and yet I think this interview still has a lot of value because it's just one more way that you need to understand how traders are making decisions to buy or sell. So while this interview isn't particularly packed with specific ideas on trading and trading strategies or technical analysis, I think you'll find that there's still something here you can use in your own trading. So, keep an open mind and with that, here's the interview. Hello everybody and welcome back to TraderInterviews.com. Thanks for joining me for another episode. So, today, my guest today is Michael Patak and he is a trader we're going to talk to. He's got a website we'll mention at the end too and we're going to find out how Michael approaches the markets and finds good opportunities each day. So, first of all, Michael, thanks very much for joining me on the phone today.

Michael: Hey, thank you for having me.

Tim: All right. So I know before we started recording you said you were on the floor. Where do you trade and what do you trade?

Michael: You know, I've been on the floor for about over 10 years. I've traded the Dow futures pit since I'd say the beginning. In about '02, I started to trade the Dow futures, but now I'm sitting outside of a desk, outside the S&P. The old conversion from floor trader to electronic is kind of what I've done now....

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