15 questions interview for pro trader

F

forexmam

Hello, I am simply looking to get answers to those questions to know more about professional traders. This is an interview related to my studies.

You can send in your answers to forexmam@hotmail.com or post them here! Let me know your name and location also.

Thanks!

Questions

1- Is most professional traders’ income really unstable or do most of them manage to keep things steady?

2- What schedule do you have for your trading?

3- Do you allow yourself some vacation?

4- Did you receive personal training from other traders or did you mainly educate yourself on your own?

5- What do you consider the best type of education for a trader?

6- Do you ever do any traveling related to trading?

7- For how long have you been trading?

8- How were your first steps in the trading world?

9- What do you dislike about your job?

10- What trading strategy do you prefer over others?

11- How much time does it take to become a profitable trader?

12- What is your favorite market? (Forex, stocks, futures etc.)

13- Did you ever consider quitting trading for a standard job?

14- Do you create your own strategies or use the ones that already exist?

15- How do your family and friends react toward your job?
 
Quote from forexmam:



Questions

1- Is most professional traders’ income really unstable or do most of them manage to keep things steady?

Independent prop traders will have a few elephant winners and a few bad losers which define their year, everything in the middle is fairly stable. Keep your head above water most of the time and hit the few big opportunities hard enough for them to count.

2- What schedule do you have for your trading?

10-11hrs a day screen time watching flow

3- Do you allow yourself some vacation?

yes you need to let go especially after a bad run to come back fresh or allow the market time to change behaviour again, tends to be 6 wk cycle of price action and then the rules change again

4- Did you receive personal training from other traders or did you mainly educate yourself on your own?

You see what others are doing but you learn your own variation

5- What do you consider the best type of education for a trader?

Screen time, watch every order for 11hrs a day for a few years because that's what the guys you're up against have done. You can then feel comfortable with fading or riding panic in a particular market, you learn its behavioural extremes

6- Do you ever do any traveling related to trading?

Only for tax purposes

7- For how long have you been trading?

6 years full time

8- How were your first steps in the trading world?

3 months day trading futures on a simulator

9- What do you dislike about your job?

After a bad day you think i could have bought this and that instead of going to work today. On your way home you know everyone around you made more money than you today even the beggar on the street.

10- What trading strategy do you prefer over others?

Quick highly leveraged outright futures trades

11- How much time does it take to become a profitable trader?

Give it 2 years of full time attention beyond that i'd be thinking about something else

12- What is your favorite market? (Forex, stocks, futures etc.)

futures

13- Did you ever consider quitting trading for a standard job?

yup, cold streaks will make you think all sorts of things

14- Do you create your own strategies or use the ones that already exist?

Look at what's out there and use a combination to find your own niche, it's a lot of trial and error

15- How do your family and friends react toward your job?

family supportive friends outside trading can be skeptical
More...
 
Let me short circuit this. Trading is a terrible job. No security, months of steady earnings can disappear in a flash of poor judgment or lack of discipline. You cannot really construct a reasonable scenario for doing it.

Some people though just have it in their blood and really have no choice in the matter. If you don't, be honest with yourself and find an easier life.
 
Answers (forgive me for not repeating the questions, as others do without regard for space):

1- Pro traders use steady systems over time, but that is not to say that any system is without dry spells.

2- Weekdays, no Fridays, 0930-?

3- Long weekends every week. A few weeks a year away from the computer.

4- Learned stocks and options from Investools. Learned futures by scouring the web for data, then backtesting for a few years.

5- Best or most critical? Best would be applying what you learn before trying to learn it all. Most critical would be stepping out of the sim zone to learn how cash trading is different.

6- I attend a few private conventions in Vegas and other spots.

7- Started in 2001.

8- Unprofitable. Blew my small account a few times because I should have been on a sim, but let my ego take control of my trading.

9- My job is trading. I love it. I can work at will or take the day off. I can even work while sitting on the pot (I trade on a laptop).

10- Scalping. I do not allow my money out of my sight or control more than seconds to minutes.

11- Until your own systems are consistently profitable, you are able to adapt them to different markets over time, and you are disciplined enough to follow your own rules and subdue emotions in trading.

12- Futures. Forex has its attractions, though, like foreign girls...

13- Only every time I blew out my account in the beginning.

14- I make my own so I can change them or abandon them in the future, if needed.

15- They like long weekends. They like me not commuting to work. They like four-day weekends after I have a losing Wednesday. They like dad raising them with mom helping him. I am on the West coast, so they really like me being done with work in the morning, so I have all afternoon and evening with them. They like knowing even if they rebel against their mother, they get to wait until AFTER dad trades before they get spanked. What the hell good is ANY job if you spend half your life away from those you love and/or enjoy? Friends sceptical when I started now ask for stock tips. LOL
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

Let me short circuit this. Trading is a terrible job. No security, months of steady earnings can disappear in a flash of poor judgment or lack of discipline. You cannot really construct a reasonable scenario for doing it. Some people though just have it in their blood and really have no choice in the matter. If you don't, be honest with yourself and find an easier life.
More...

If a trader is so careless to lose months of earnings, they deserve a lashing with a cat of nine tails, then banishment to the doghouse.

Agreed that some traders are simply not happy in traditional employment or self-employment, and are wired to do this and nothing else.
 
dog fish you serioulsy watch the flow for 10 - 11 hours a day?
holy crap.. what an opportuniyt cost.

Heed this statemnet my friends...

You are better off trading a week at a time instead of a day at a time. Do your home work at nihgt and make adjustments on the computer while you build a business or get a salary somewhere else... even the brightest minds of wall street at one time or another lose almost everything, but the difference is they have millions socked away in real estate and t-bills.. so they are just fine unlike the average mortal who will be bagging groceries when he si 60 years old... oops .. i mean on the street now that many groceries are scan and bag yourself.. whats an old loser trader going to do for work now?
 
Quote from forexmam:

Hello, I am simply looking to get answers to those questions to know more about professional traders. This is an interview related to my studies.

You can send in your answers to forexmam@hotmail.com or post them here! Let me know your name and location also.

Thanks!

Questions

1- Is most professional traders’ income really unstable or do most of them manage to keep things steady?

You are asking for a trader's opinion of what OTHERS do. You should ask the responder what is YOUR situation, as a trader?

2- What schedule do you have for your trading?

Trading hours. although take breaks for errands or blow off steam.

3- Do you allow yourself some vacation?

Yes, but not really in a predictable pattern

4- Did you receive personal training from other traders or did you mainly educate yourself on your own?

I would guess that most traders probably started with someone else. My original exposure to futures was (god help me), Ken Roberts. Then I researched over a thousand systems. And read a heck of a lot of books, trading mags, reports, etc. etc.

5- What do you consider the best type of education for a trader?

As the other responder - screen time.

6- Do you ever do any traveling related to trading?

Only for a nearby conference.

7- For how long have you been trading?

Since 1986. I made $5000 on the Oct. 19, 1987. I bought in at the end of the day figuring, its GOT to go back up the next few days.

8- How were your first steps in the trading world?

like most. You usually pay a lot of money in "tuition" learning how to trade. Data feeds, courses, books, lost trades, etc.

9- What do you dislike about your job?

honestly, you spend huge amounts of time looking for market inefficiencies, and they often only last for a few months. That is why learning price action is imperative.

10- What trading strategy do you prefer over others?

PA

11- How much time does it take to become a profitable trader?

most people who claim profitability are only so on paper or in their heads or only make small amounts or are only profitable for less than a year. The true number of longterm very profitable traders is small. To attain THIS, I agree with the numbers of perhaps 1-2% achieve this. How LONG it takes might be a year or two, up to 10 years. It depends on how gritty, determined, and focused the learner is.

12- What is your favorite market? (Forex, stocks, futures etc.)

Futures.

13- Did you ever consider quitting trading for a standard job?

The other way. I went from job to trading.

14- Do you create your own strategies or use the ones that already exist?

Not really strategies at this point - learn PA from lots of screen time.

15- How do your family and friends react toward your job?

Don't discuss it much, but they usually find it interesting. Face it, becoming a trader is an appealing thought
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