For some odd reason I've had a massive influx of emails recently from people wanting to know more about my day trading station and the hardware I use. All right, so maybe I'm embellishing that "massive influx" a bit. It's actually only been three emails over the past two weeks. Still, in the past couple of years I've only had one such inquiry so I suppose I should take it as some sort of sign and give a little glimpse into what my trading desk and overall setup looks like from my home office here in downtown Vancouver, BC. Read more
When you first started to trade, how did you judge your results? If you're like most novice traders you likely had little understanding of the concept of trading expectancy, so you focused almost entirely on your win rate in the early days. You were probably trying to win 80 or even 90 percent of the time and it was a constant struggle. You may have been able to achieve it for a short period of time, but your small wins just couldn't cover the big losses and once you hit an "unlucky" string of losing trades you just couldn't recover. Read more
For me, day trading has always been about one thing - freedom. I wanted to have the freedom to be able to work when I chose, without employees or a boss, from anywhere in the world. Having that kind of lifestyle flexibility is something that almost everyone says they want, but few have taken even the smallest initial steps towards that goal. Read more
It's simple - if you don't know what your trading edge is, then you probably don't have one. If that's you, then you are basically a gambler because you're most likely allowing the market to hold the edge and are hoping you can beat the odds. Even if you get lucky and start off strong in your trading career, the combination of a negative trading expectancy and limited equity means that the market is probably going to win in the long run. If you're serious about making it in this business, this isn't the kind of professional approach you want to have.
On the other hand, being a trader is all about having a structured and profitable methodology where you know your edge in the market exists through both historic and real-time testing. The trader knows he has a winning edge as long as he sticks to his plan and executes with consistency. Read more
One thing I get asked all the time is if futures day traders (like those at Samurai Trading Academy) are impacted by the Pattern Day Trader Rule that applies to those trading stocks or options. The simple answer is no, because by their very nature futures contracts are short-term due to their expiration cycle. This difference on it's own is a huge advantage of trading futures over other the other markets out there. Read more