23 year trading route
I was recently asked about how I got into trading. The follow on questions went something along the lines of "how did you start, what did you trade and so on. This got me thinking of many of the 'notable' trades, some funny events and change of strategies along the way.
I thought some of you might find it interesting?
So my trading journey actually started a little while before I started trading, somewhere around 1998. In school we were studying the Wall Street crash as part of a history lesson. Lucky for me, my history teacher was fascinated by the market and spent most of his time reading the times after giving us an assignment. He had managed to wangle a school trip to Washington and New York - big deal for us in the UK!
I was lucky to get a spot on the trip, so off we went.
During the trip, we spent time doing all the touristy things. JFK and the war graves, Lincoln statue, up the Empire State building. But the one key thing that stood out for me, was a trip to the stock exchange... NYSE
What a privilege, what an experience. Keep in mind, at this stage my exposure to trading was purely the outline history lesson of the Wall Street crash.
When we got home, nearing Christmas our teacher came up with a game. He bought the class each a copy of the financial times. We had to assess the double page spread and with $10,000 of Monopoly money, we had to pick some trades. This could be all in on one stock, $1,000 on each or less per stock and even more stocks. The idea was after Christmas he would announce the winner.
Well I won that by going all in on one stock. Vodafone, keep in mind the time period, Christmas and everybody's Santa's list had a mobile phone!
This got me thinking, picking stocks was easy!!!
So a couple of months later, I leave school at 15 prior to the exams and start out on my own. (Not as a trader) well not as such. Long story, but got into trading about 6 months after that.
=======================================================================
How I started trading, my father had an engineering company I really wanted to take on, he had set it up with his father and naturally I wanted to be a third generation in the family business. As I left school, he sold it. So I started my own, the issue was I was still only 15. So I would take my pushbike to the premises and on my way I would stop and pick up a 'times' paper for later. Everyday I'd read that paper from front to back, until I saw an advert "Trade stocks now"
Another long story, but I managed to convince my mother to come to the bank with me, my local bank manager to have a proxy account and there it began.
Most days I'd read the stock prices, noting things down and then seeing the price again tomorrow. As I got a feel for these little black n white numbers I would take a punt based on other factors or stories. I guess it's now what I know to be fundamental analysis. I often tell people I would by yesterday's price today as all I had was the paper. I'd go to the bank, the cashier who knew how to order stocks (only one as it was a tiny branch and I'm sure I was the only trader in town) She would note what I wanted to buy or sell and call the broker. I'd then get a physical certificate in the post a few days later!
=============================================================================
I traded like this for some time, only buying large blue-chip stocks; the strategy was simple. If the newspaper said something like "home development company growing" I'd look at last couple of days for companies in that sector that hadn't changed all that much. Buy them and wait.
=============================================================================
I did this for around 3 years, little buys, little buys until I had a pile of mail come through on Vodafone. It turned out they had sent all my info to the bank, my bank hadn't processed it and what I had was a pile of "cheques" Checks for you Americans. This was new to me! The concept of dividends.
If you ever read the intelligent investor or know a guy called Warren Buffett, you would know why this was exciting!
=============================================================================
Around the 4th year, I had a nice little portfolio, I was lucky and dangerous.
I saw another advert in the same paper for trading 'Penny stocks' I took this to the broker in the bank and she said she would find out from upstairs and get back to me. A few days later, she said I needed a W8BEN form to trade US stocks. Foreign to me at the time, I signed it and off again! This time, it was buying stocks nobody had heard of. The internet was now a thing for searching stuff like this. I ended up buying a couple of stocks, that after watching the Wolf of Wall Street - made me think, these things and this market was potentially the original pump n dump playground.
I remember one trade in particular "Clean Coal Technologies" I literally got the bottom and the top of the pump. In by chance, out due to an awesome broker. My broker called me and said something along the lines of " I was telling my colleague here about your entry in this little stock and showed him the chart, seeing it rocket I wanted to call you as I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised" We sold out there and then, less than 8 hours after buying!
The same broker got me out of a bad position a few months later - I had signed up for every advert in the paper, I had people phoning 24/7. One guy said put 5k into our managed service and we do this buying n selling penny stocks for you. I thought I'd take a punt, they got me in or so I believed, a stock - a few days later it's up 10%, they asked If I would commit more to the pot. But something felt slightly off, so I called my regular broker about something else - he asked was there anything else I was looking at? I explained this service "He said NO, NO, NO.
I didn't mind the idea of losing the capital, but despised the idea of being scammed - (possibly why I put a lot of emphasis on scammers and influencers these days). I ended up with a plan, I'd buy the next couple of stocks these guys recommended and pretended that there was bank issues with the next investment. As they would tell me things like "If you had only done it yesterday, the company we wanted you in has blown up 50%" The plan was simple.
I would use my trusted broker and buy whatever crap they told me. We would wait for the price to rally and then sell out quickly to recoup the initial investment. This worked wonders after a couple of quick in n outs, fell out with the guy after not investing.
=============================================================================
Around this time I was investing long term in Blue-chips, playing penny stocks and long term buying the New Zealand dollar interest rate. Look at this;
Vs
The thing was simple, rollover accumulation. Buy, sit n wait.
========================================================================
It was about this time, I found out about Forex - I loved what the Penny stocks give in terms of fast paced action and volatility, but had very little visibility on what was going on. It was the dive into Forex that got me into technical analysis. Being an engineer at heart, I wanted to understand the logic, why things do what they do.
To cut that story short, I started off with all the basics RSI, MACD, Bollinger bands and Moving Averages. This didn't really go well, my stock trading kept things alive for me here. But I was fascinated by Forex. What I got to realise, was 90% of traders lose money, yet 90% of traders all using these simple tools. Down the rabbit hole I ventured into Footprint, Delta, DoM's and anything trying to find an edge.
I actually made a stream recently on the Delta and Footprints.
tradingview.com/streams/TW6mFuxhxg/
======================================================================
I spent a couple of years still stock trading and working up a plan to profit in Forex. My other business had led me down a path of technology manufacturing that led to an investment in a thing called Bitcoin this was 2011.
======================================================================
At this stage I had been trading "Volume" profile and Footprints for some time, I had learned a strategy called Elliott waves and found myself in the Wyckoff pit. Kinda moved away from using volume tools as back in the day you would pay hundreds per month just to have a profile on the chart. It was at this time I found myself on TradingView
My other work kept me busy on the tech side, I had a conflict of what I could and couldn't post here. During the same time period, I had spent some time with a good friend and we decided to start our own forex education company. This was all bums of seats, physically training people in a class room.
The strategies then was always seek a 3:1 RR, use systematic entry techniques and even If your wrong 50% of the time, you had steady growth. These were the good times, Bloomberg feed surrounded by screens, world clocks on the wall.
I remember spending hours in front of the chart. And watching E-trade baby Superbowl ads!
anyone else remember them? Go find them, their fantastic!
2014 - Moved to France, started to unwind. To be honest it's kinda felt like a 9 year holiday and still feel privileged each day. However, it meant that I stopped bums on seat training.
For the next couple of years, in essence de-vested from most of the long term stocks - added to the physical silver collection for the future. I made a promise when my son was born to hand him a key to safe of silver and gold when he turns 18. On that note - a funny story;
I had bought my first Bitcoin in 2011 and by mistake sent my grandmother the details of the transaction instead of my bank account for birthday money for my son. When she said she had sent it, we couldn't find it anywhere. I asked her for the details she sent it to. When we finally found it - it was for more Bitcoin with the same reference as my purchase. So again he can have those at 18.
===========================================================================
During the next couple of years 2014 > 19 I spent a lot of time on the other business, trading but mostly in tech investments.
When Covid struck, I had the time to unwind and using developers to build a pinescript code for me of a strategy/technique I had now used for years. This got me looking deeply at the market, Youtube and Twitter was insane, the amount of scammy people, influencers with clearly no clue! This is what led me back to education.
Think now, I showed recently how you can use Chat GPT to make a pinescript indicator with zero experience.
I spent most of my days playing around on Tradingview one way, shape or form. Wrote a lot of content as you can see inside this post below;
Jump forward another couple of years and still writing content, still trading FX and even have a book published in the trading space. (link in signature)
==============================================================================
I really wanted to share my experience here, although a lot of things I have had to jump over for the sake of the length of the post! It's been a good old road. Still using EW and Wyckoff Techniques with a blend of volume profiling. Also back with most of my days being on Tradingviw ;-)
On that note, here's the link to the tradingview show I did with scheplick earlier this month.
tradingview.com/streams/WDxxroSNgb/
Anyways, hope some of you enjoyed the read as much as I've enjoyed the trip!
Disclaimer
This idea does not constitute as financial advice. It is for educational purposes only, our principle trader has over 20 years’ experience in stocks, ETF’s, and Forex. Hence each trade setup might have different hold times, entry or exit conditions, and will vary from the post/idea shared here. You can use the information from this post to make your own trading plan for the instrument discussed. Trading carries a risk; a high percentage of retail traders lose money. Please keep this in mind when entering any trade. Stay safe.
I thought some of you might find it interesting?
So my trading journey actually started a little while before I started trading, somewhere around 1998. In school we were studying the Wall Street crash as part of a history lesson. Lucky for me, my history teacher was fascinated by the market and spent most of his time reading the times after giving us an assignment. He had managed to wangle a school trip to Washington and New York - big deal for us in the UK!
I was lucky to get a spot on the trip, so off we went.
During the trip, we spent time doing all the touristy things. JFK and the war graves, Lincoln statue, up the Empire State building. But the one key thing that stood out for me, was a trip to the stock exchange... NYSE
What a privilege, what an experience. Keep in mind, at this stage my exposure to trading was purely the outline history lesson of the Wall Street crash.
When we got home, nearing Christmas our teacher came up with a game. He bought the class each a copy of the financial times. We had to assess the double page spread and with $10,000 of Monopoly money, we had to pick some trades. This could be all in on one stock, $1,000 on each or less per stock and even more stocks. The idea was after Christmas he would announce the winner.
Well I won that by going all in on one stock. Vodafone, keep in mind the time period, Christmas and everybody's Santa's list had a mobile phone!
This got me thinking, picking stocks was easy!!!
So a couple of months later, I leave school at 15 prior to the exams and start out on my own. (Not as a trader) well not as such. Long story, but got into trading about 6 months after that.
=======================================================================
How I started trading, my father had an engineering company I really wanted to take on, he had set it up with his father and naturally I wanted to be a third generation in the family business. As I left school, he sold it. So I started my own, the issue was I was still only 15. So I would take my pushbike to the premises and on my way I would stop and pick up a 'times' paper for later. Everyday I'd read that paper from front to back, until I saw an advert "Trade stocks now"
Another long story, but I managed to convince my mother to come to the bank with me, my local bank manager to have a proxy account and there it began.
Most days I'd read the stock prices, noting things down and then seeing the price again tomorrow. As I got a feel for these little black n white numbers I would take a punt based on other factors or stories. I guess it's now what I know to be fundamental analysis. I often tell people I would by yesterday's price today as all I had was the paper. I'd go to the bank, the cashier who knew how to order stocks (only one as it was a tiny branch and I'm sure I was the only trader in town) She would note what I wanted to buy or sell and call the broker. I'd then get a physical certificate in the post a few days later!
=============================================================================
I traded like this for some time, only buying large blue-chip stocks; the strategy was simple. If the newspaper said something like "home development company growing" I'd look at last couple of days for companies in that sector that hadn't changed all that much. Buy them and wait.
=============================================================================
I did this for around 3 years, little buys, little buys until I had a pile of mail come through on Vodafone. It turned out they had sent all my info to the bank, my bank hadn't processed it and what I had was a pile of "cheques" Checks for you Americans. This was new to me! The concept of dividends.
If you ever read the intelligent investor or know a guy called Warren Buffett, you would know why this was exciting!
=============================================================================
Around the 4th year, I had a nice little portfolio, I was lucky and dangerous.
I saw another advert in the same paper for trading 'Penny stocks' I took this to the broker in the bank and she said she would find out from upstairs and get back to me. A few days later, she said I needed a W8BEN form to trade US stocks. Foreign to me at the time, I signed it and off again! This time, it was buying stocks nobody had heard of. The internet was now a thing for searching stuff like this. I ended up buying a couple of stocks, that after watching the Wolf of Wall Street - made me think, these things and this market was potentially the original pump n dump playground.
I remember one trade in particular "Clean Coal Technologies" I literally got the bottom and the top of the pump. In by chance, out due to an awesome broker. My broker called me and said something along the lines of " I was telling my colleague here about your entry in this little stock and showed him the chart, seeing it rocket I wanted to call you as I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised" We sold out there and then, less than 8 hours after buying!
The same broker got me out of a bad position a few months later - I had signed up for every advert in the paper, I had people phoning 24/7. One guy said put 5k into our managed service and we do this buying n selling penny stocks for you. I thought I'd take a punt, they got me in or so I believed, a stock - a few days later it's up 10%, they asked If I would commit more to the pot. But something felt slightly off, so I called my regular broker about something else - he asked was there anything else I was looking at? I explained this service "He said NO, NO, NO.
I didn't mind the idea of losing the capital, but despised the idea of being scammed - (possibly why I put a lot of emphasis on scammers and influencers these days). I ended up with a plan, I'd buy the next couple of stocks these guys recommended and pretended that there was bank issues with the next investment. As they would tell me things like "If you had only done it yesterday, the company we wanted you in has blown up 50%" The plan was simple.
I would use my trusted broker and buy whatever crap they told me. We would wait for the price to rally and then sell out quickly to recoup the initial investment. This worked wonders after a couple of quick in n outs, fell out with the guy after not investing.
=============================================================================
Around this time I was investing long term in Blue-chips, playing penny stocks and long term buying the New Zealand dollar interest rate. Look at this;
Vs
The thing was simple, rollover accumulation. Buy, sit n wait.
========================================================================
It was about this time, I found out about Forex - I loved what the Penny stocks give in terms of fast paced action and volatility, but had very little visibility on what was going on. It was the dive into Forex that got me into technical analysis. Being an engineer at heart, I wanted to understand the logic, why things do what they do.
To cut that story short, I started off with all the basics RSI, MACD, Bollinger bands and Moving Averages. This didn't really go well, my stock trading kept things alive for me here. But I was fascinated by Forex. What I got to realise, was 90% of traders lose money, yet 90% of traders all using these simple tools. Down the rabbit hole I ventured into Footprint, Delta, DoM's and anything trying to find an edge.
I actually made a stream recently on the Delta and Footprints.
tradingview.com/streams/TW6mFuxhxg/
======================================================================
I spent a couple of years still stock trading and working up a plan to profit in Forex. My other business had led me down a path of technology manufacturing that led to an investment in a thing called Bitcoin this was 2011.
======================================================================
At this stage I had been trading "Volume" profile and Footprints for some time, I had learned a strategy called Elliott waves and found myself in the Wyckoff pit. Kinda moved away from using volume tools as back in the day you would pay hundreds per month just to have a profile on the chart. It was at this time I found myself on TradingView
My other work kept me busy on the tech side, I had a conflict of what I could and couldn't post here. During the same time period, I had spent some time with a good friend and we decided to start our own forex education company. This was all bums of seats, physically training people in a class room.
The strategies then was always seek a 3:1 RR, use systematic entry techniques and even If your wrong 50% of the time, you had steady growth. These were the good times, Bloomberg feed surrounded by screens, world clocks on the wall.
I remember spending hours in front of the chart. And watching E-trade baby Superbowl ads!
2014 - Moved to France, started to unwind. To be honest it's kinda felt like a 9 year holiday and still feel privileged each day. However, it meant that I stopped bums on seat training.
For the next couple of years, in essence de-vested from most of the long term stocks - added to the physical silver collection for the future. I made a promise when my son was born to hand him a key to safe of silver and gold when he turns 18. On that note - a funny story;
I had bought my first Bitcoin in 2011 and by mistake sent my grandmother the details of the transaction instead of my bank account for birthday money for my son. When she said she had sent it, we couldn't find it anywhere. I asked her for the details she sent it to. When we finally found it - it was for more Bitcoin with the same reference as my purchase. So again he can have those at 18.
===========================================================================
During the next couple of years 2014 > 19 I spent a lot of time on the other business, trading but mostly in tech investments.
When Covid struck, I had the time to unwind and using developers to build a pinescript code for me of a strategy/technique I had now used for years. This got me looking deeply at the market, Youtube and Twitter was insane, the amount of scammy people, influencers with clearly no clue! This is what led me back to education.
Think now, I showed recently how you can use Chat GPT to make a pinescript indicator with zero experience.
I spent most of my days playing around on Tradingview one way, shape or form. Wrote a lot of content as you can see inside this post below;
Jump forward another couple of years and still writing content, still trading FX and even have a book published in the trading space. (link in signature)
==============================================================================
I really wanted to share my experience here, although a lot of things I have had to jump over for the sake of the length of the post! It's been a good old road. Still using EW and Wyckoff Techniques with a blend of volume profiling. Also back with most of my days being on Tradingviw ;-)
On that note, here's the link to the tradingview show I did with scheplick earlier this month.
tradingview.com/streams/WDxxroSNgb/
Anyways, hope some of you enjoyed the read as much as I've enjoyed the trip!
Disclaimer
This idea does not constitute as financial advice. It is for educational purposes only, our principle trader has over 20 years’ experience in stocks, ETF’s, and Forex. Hence each trade setup might have different hold times, entry or exit conditions, and will vary from the post/idea shared here. You can use the information from this post to make your own trading plan for the instrument discussed. Trading carries a risk; a high percentage of retail traders lose money. Please keep this in mind when entering any trade. Stay safe.
Related publications
Disclaimer
The information and publications are not meant to be, and do not constitute, financial, investment, trading, or other types of advice or recommendations supplied or endorsed by TradingView. Read more in the Terms of Use.