TRADERS´ English I September 2013 - page 73

People
73
thinking outside of the box. If it wasn’t for this mentality,
I never would have gotten into day trading.
TRADERS´: Please tell us about the process from first
hearing about the stock market to becoming a day
trader.
Wandering Trader:
When I would visit Washington DC and
Philadelphia to take classes every summer, I often stayed
with my uncle. My uncle would come home and say he
made tens of thousands of dollars that day, lose tens of
thousands of dollars another day, and he consistently
read the Wall Street Journal. Because of that experience
and seeing that day in and day out every summer that
was always in the back of my mind.
After a brief stint living in Italy I came back to the
United States and decided that it was time to do something
with my life. I tried to simulate investing in stocks with a
few online websites and eventually decided to do a bit of
research. I googled Fibonacci automatic trading systems,
bought my first software for upwards of $8000 and my
new day trading career started.
I took out $25,000 in student loans in order to finance
my new business and I lost that
money in a month. I was constantly
in between jobs and was getting
paid no more than eight dollars an
hour. I didn’t know how I was going
to pay that money back but it wasn’t
on my mind either. This was the time
when credit was easy to get before
the crises that we have seen in the
last ten years. I took out more loans,
continued to lose more money and
eventually decided to do my own
thing. Two years later I finally became
profitable and the rest is history.
TRADERS´: What was the most
important aspect in becoming
successful in the market?
Wandering
Trader:
Staying
disciplined and focused. I often
would have streaks of wins only
to be followed by streaks of losing
It is more important not to lose money when day trading than making money. In the chart you can see the
explosion of the amount of points with tight risk management. If you are just losing less money on trades gone
bad your results increase roughly 35 per cent. We started keeping track of the intermediate results which
reflect tighter stops in September 2012.
Source:
F2)
Tight Risk Management Improves Profits
If I wanted to be successful I
needed to work smart, not hard.
trades. Day trading is a performance activity and just like
athletes we have to stay at peak performance.
At first I was very short on time so I wasn’t able to
improve my performance. Eventually I got tired of losing
money. I remember the change in mentality vividly. It
was a Friday around 6pm and that was the moment when
I looked myself in the mirror and I said “ENOUGH”! I
decided to get rid of all of the indicators and software
and only pay attention to what was important.
In order to keep myself focused and disciplined I
would talk to myself while I traded. This would force me
to pay attention to what was happening in the market and
not miss anything. It is quite hysterical as I travel around
the world and trade from cafés in countries like Rwanda
and Colombia. There are people at the cafés turning
around thinking that I was crazy.
TRADERS´: At what point did you decide to both travel
and trade for a living?
Wandering
Trader:
I
was
day
trading
in the morning from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
or 1 p.m. and would work full time at a bank from 2 p.m.
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