Trading Stocks for Freedom. How I Learned to Get Over the Wall and What May Help You.
A quick post on my stock trading story – the pain I experienced learning how to become a consistently profitable trader and how it may help you in your journey to being part of the “Freedom Traders” club.
Updated July 15, 2018. We have come a long way since this article was originally published. Our first machine trading Generation 1 Algorithm Models are being released at the end of July – it has been an amazing 18 month journey. The last six months we have locked in win rates over 90% (recorded and published live for transparency) and the next six months will be a process of rolling out those new machine models that nearly never lose. And yes, you will have to investigate our results for yourself. The report will be released before the next gen models are at the end of the month (or simply ask for a private tour of our time-stamped, recorded, live alerted trading alerts).
My Trading History in Brief.
I preach never give up w/o hesitation because no matter how long it takes, even if you start back at zero, when you get it, you are free.
I started trading when I was twenty-one (so almost thirty years ago) – things were a little different, but the same too. I worked for a large promoter on the markets.
At twenty-one years old I worked with a team of thirteen that engineered IPO’s from ground up then doing road shows presenting to the investor community the offering. So my learning curve was quick – the inner-mechanics of the markets was intense. But that doesn’t help you “get over the wall” to learning how to be a consistently profitable trader.
I went on to various businesses and over time invested those earnings in to the stock market. “Investing” for me is easy, and should be for anyone in my opinion. “Seeking Alpha” or beating alpha isn’t difficult. Investing is not what this post is about.
Then I went on to Swing Trading with success (you will find my trading set-ups / calls / alerts top shelf triple digit annual returns – all publicly posted, recorded, time-stamped for transparency) – so this isn’t even what I call “that difficult”, although it takes more skill / study than investing.
I then went on to daytrading and algorithmic modeling and more recently in 2018 machine trading with significant success ratio, again recorded, time-stamped, live alerted results nearing high 90% win rates depending on the financial instrument (more on that on our website).
And more recently I have looked at taking on options and shorting more – but that’s a whole other topic.
What Got Me Over the Wall to Freedom Trading.
WHERE MY INFLECTION POINT CAME was when I started trading algorithmic model trading. In other words, I went from a 60% win rate (variable with wild swings in performance) to between 60% to 97% (yes near 100% in most categories and few instruments now less than 80%. With oil related for example I have a near 97% hit win rate, again all publicly shared for transparency, recorded and time-stamped).
So what was it about getting in to algorithmic modeling that changed my win rate?
Simple, it became vivid that having a “process” that I can “rely on” over a series of trades “always” had me on the winning side (over-all). That overall winning (over a series of trades) then provides the “confidence” needed to execute trades without “emotion”.
So it isn’t the algo charting that did it – it was the understanding of technical set-ups (the structure of the chart representing the financial instrument) that did it and knowing that if I compromise the “process” I would lose.
So I now have a process I refer to as PTPTRR. Price, Trigger, Power, Trade, Risk, Reward. More on this in a future post.
I Blew Up Two Accounts – Bad! Very, Very Bad and VERY Painful.
I will tell you that late in my trading life – long after I was twenty-one and a noobie, long after I was investing and swing trading, I blew up two accounts and I blew them up bad at a very bad time in my life. Learning how to day-trade was excruciatingly painful – my wins were huge and my losses even bigger.
Read somewhere that becoming a successful Professional Trader is akin to becoming a Brain Surgeon … degree of difficulty is very high
When I blew up two accounts it was during a time in my life where I couldn’t lose, I couldn’t gamble the nest-egg I had – but I did. I literally gambled my whole life (and the financial well being of my family). I was all in (at least 90% all in on the first blow up), and it wasn’t long ago. I took 90% of our wealth and gambled and lost. THEN! To make matters worse I took the last 10% and did the same. True story. Very painful.
So I had two choices, learn how to really trade (vs. long swings and investing which I know isn’t the wealth building vehicle I was looking for) or put my tail between my legs and go back to normal life as a loser (a loser as far as I’m concerned – I’m stubborn).
So I figured it out. And since then, I have publicly traded every trade with transparency to possibly help others along on the journey. It’s a karma thing for me. And I know I know I get people asking, well why do you charge etc… but if you knew the overhead in our start-up you’d be like… oh I get it. We’re simply trying to fund the lift of a democratized platform that we think will be increasingly valuable for the average trader not just for learning on their journey but we see a future not far off that will leave many behind (the rise of the machines). So it’s a bit of a Robin Hood thing. I know, sounds corny but that’s what it is (a give-back thing is our motivation – a few computer scientists and entrepreneurs).
Five years (mark this tweet) u will not find a winning trader that has not embraced #AI #IA Machine Intelligent Assisted Trading. It’s already here. And I’m not talking about the cheap rip you off bots retail can buy. Retail can’t buy the real service. They won’t sell it to you.
A quick note here… we have given up on the idea of the general retail market helping to fund our platform and mission to bring world class machine trading to the everyday investor… we are still bringing it, in fact we haven’t missed a beat… but retail isn’t coming near funding the costs (at best 2% to date). So how are we funding it? Refer to our win rates, investigate our win rates, roll over those rocks and then you should know how we are funding it. At this point… we are nearly never losing. We’re funding 98% + of this roll-out. And yes, if you’re a retail trader that wants access I believe you should at least put a foot forward (have some skin in the game, even if it is a nominal amount of money). Why? It’s simple, if you don’t have at least some skin in the game it has zero value to you and you should have to reach a bit for it – for it to have any value. It’s a reciprocation thing. And don’t forget, 18 months ago I was exactly where any retail trader is today reading this, we reached, we believed and we’re doing it. We’re just asking for folks to reach a bit. Mark my words here now… when our results are published before the first generation of our new machine trading models are launched at the end of July – everyone, and I mean everyone that looks in to our verified record of alerting trades will know that we just do not lose now – very rare
So in summary (as far as this quick note update today is concerned), we still believe we have a mandate to bring this to the general public but we aren’t trying to push that anymore. If people want to get it they can, if they don’t that’s fine, we’ve let that part go. We are publishing at the end of the month our 2018 results to date and then we are going to absolutely conquer our trading environment over the next six months of 2018.
When 2018 is complete, there will be zero doubt that our transparent roll out and development of competing against the largest most sophisticated trading firms in the world has been a success and we will have been the only team to publicly and transparently share the start up process and spawning and development of that complete process to the general public. None of the other firms in our work have done that. Every single group like ours has either gone dark right from day one or shortly thereafter. This has never been available to the general public.
The last quick note here is that much of our current work (the machine trading generation models being introduced soon) is not transparent – the technology and coding we are using, but the trading alerts and subsequent success etc is shared and the process is shared and always will be transparent. The specific machine trading technology is proprietary and will remain so.
Okay back to the quick story…
So I will spare you the very painful details of the story – but I can say without a doubt short of losing a loved one or experiencing a divorce it was the most painful part of my life. Changed almost everything.
But learning how to trade with consistency, knowing that you are going to be on the winning side also can change everything — it is literally financial freedom (and with that many other freedoms), even if you lose it all and start at zero. It is something nobody can take away from you and it is yours for life and that equals freedom – maybe not today, but freedom is then inevitable. It is only time.
“Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will.” – Nelson Mandela
How to Always be on the Winning Side in Trading – Getting over the Wall.
Below I will share a few pointers or rules that I used to get over the wall, but the truth is the topic is massive. Because it is a series of disciplines and everybody is at a different place in their learning, I will simply share a few key pointers below.
This week we have decided to start sharing every trade I execute via short video posted to YouTube and copied to our social media feeds on Twitter, StockTwits, Facebook, Google+ etc. Then learning traders can view these shortly after they occurred intra-day. We do record our complete trading room session also FYI and to see them live you need to be in the room. But if you are not for whatever reason you’ll be able to view the videos near real-time and they will be snippets (1 min to 5 min videos) that will explain every detail possible of the set-up, process during the trade and closing the trade out and why. This will be our method of helping other folks over that wall to freedom.
A Few Things That Helped Me Trade for Consistent Profit.
Number 1: You need a process that over a series of trades always puts you on the winning side.
You will never win every trade, and in fact I know traders that win less than they lose, but their winners are better than their losers.
For example, I have a swing trading process (see my most recent Swing Trading Quarterly P/L Review), I have a day trading process (see my most recent Day Trading Quarterly P/L Review), we have an Algorithmic Chart Modeling Trading Process (the Quarterly Report will be out soon – and it destroys my day-trading and swing trading results), and then I have my personal trading account trades that I don’t share because I use it for high risk representing a small percentage of my trades (I wouldn’t want to encourage others in that way or be responsible for that) and I also use it for learning (options and shorting and the like). BTW I can trade along any averagely decent options or short seller, but I don’t want to share it with the public until it is locked in and extremely predictable (again I don’t want to be responsible for the possible losses).
So get a process! How do you get a process? Well from folks like us, learning on your own, or various other ways I suppose. Be cautious that the service you pick suits your personality and goals, and be sure you investigate it well (I get notes daily about how much folks spend for services and feel guilty because it was either misguided or didn’t fit with their goals). Check their calls, back check all of their calls and see if they are successful. Be sure the calls are transparent with time stamps. Talk to their clients.
What is my process? My process is structured trading. I know the natural trading structure of each instrument I trade. This process is also my edge and frankly with-out this “tool” – structured trading, it will be very difficult for any trader in the near future to win. The machines are here and it will require a change in the mindset of traders. But here again, more on that in a future post.
But the bottom line remains the same, structured trading wins. I am updating this post today (July 15, 2018) while we I am reviewing our profit loss performance statements… the results from the last six months are stunning. We are releasing them soon (before the end of July when our next Generation Machine Trading Algorithm models are released). The point is…. you can’t compete with a trader that knows the natural historical trading structure of a financial instrument over all time frames (from 1 minute charting to weekly). It just isn’t possible to outperform that trader (the intelligently assisted trader #IA) – with the only exception being the machine. I can’t beat the machines. But I employ them to help me.
There is a reason our win rate is so high. Ask for a tour of our live swing trading or oil trading alert feeds (that are time stamped) – you will see win rates in the high 90% range over the last six months and we welcome folks to visit our free public chat room to ask around about our performance. We put it out in the open. Swing trading and oil trading are our best results being over 90% but our other instruments are also doing exceptionally well also – just not as high.
All that winning alert feed success can be directly attributed to a winning process, that we have near perfected that is in our instance what we call structured trading. Knowing the historical structure on all time frames of the financial instrument that we are trading (assisted by machine data and charting) provides us an edge over the majority of traders in the marketplace.
Number 2: You need risk management. You cannot be a consistently great trader without extreme discipline in risk management.
This post was motivated by the many replies I got on the weekend to a simple tweet (that became a series of tweets) about the pain one goes through to get up over the wall and to the side of freedom in trading. It actually touched me, seriously. The number of folks that messaged me about their stories blew me away. I was an emotional a wreck, and risk management (next to the importance of a “process” seemed to be a consistent theme).
Risk management is knowing where your risk reward lies before you enter a trade and adhering to that with-out fail. Now, I compromise this myself at times, primarily however because as conditions change I will change my threshold. But, you HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING before you start flexing on this rule. Study out risk management online because this is intended only as a brief post.
Number 3: Turn off the noise.
Did you know that many of the people telling you about great stock picks on television etc are paid to or have paid the broadcaster for the opportunity to do that? In one way or another there is a payment transfer, it doesn’t have to be in direct payment for service form either. I personally have been invited to a number of programs, I did one recently on premarket show with Benzinga see: PreMarket Prep for December 30: Wrapping up 2016 with our best call of the year, and since I haven’t done one (we have many that have asked – especially to look at our algorithms). I do have some others booked and will do them in the future, but I am being selective for this very reason.
So I won’t get in to all the details, but media (all things considered) should be at best a very light part of your study. You need to know your basic technical information and set-ups – the fundamentals aren’t as important because stops deal with that. Get your technical set-ups in order. Hence why we are going to start publishing every trade intra-day for traders.
Number 4: You need a good home – a trading coach, mentor, trading room or newsletter service (with coaching add-on).
The number of traders (in our service and out) that DM, email or message me in some form daily is becoming astronomical. And I do everything I can to respond to each and every one daily. I say this not to be like oh I am so important, I say this to say that I know with-out a doubt that the average learning trader needs a coach. Good coaches aren’t cheap but they will bring you return (or value) that nothing else can.
Short of that, get in to a good trading room or get a newsletter service set-up that will help you with technical set-ups. When people ask me what I do I tell them I do oil changes. Seriously I do. Why? Because it’s the same. You take your car in for an oil change because it is more efficient or it brings a value to you and that’s why you go. You’d rather spend 50.00 on the oil change than do it yourself. That’s what a newsletter service will do for you – for the 50.00 or 300.00 a month or whatever, it will provide you the free time to do other things while someone else is doing the grunt work compiling technical set-ups for you.
Number 5 – Emotional Intelligence.
What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence is simply the identification, tracking and management of your emotions. Emotional intelligence is much more important to your trading success than your IQ because what you do is inexorably connected to how you feel. In other words, emotions are organizing principles of our human system and they cannot be separated from us. In fact, they are, to a large degree, what makes us human as as such this is directly attached to your success or failure as a trader.
Again, because this post is simply a brief I encourage you to research emotional intelligence and what expert traders have to say about it. Study, study, study.
There it is… emotional intelligence. The nemesis I had to beat. Great tweet.
Number 6. Trading With Transparency
Last but not least, in fact I think for me was most important, was when I started trading with transparency. I started publishing trades in trading rooms in 2015 that I was investigating (when I was learning how to daytrade vs. swing trading and investing).
Then in 2016 I began posting my trades in and out to Twitter and Stocktwits and later in 2016 to our service.
Now I post my trades all over the place haha – I have to be cautious how I do that because we have subscribers, but I trade live in our room and post trades to social and our blog. I even post our trading room footage and a transcript daily to Youtube and our blog.
And this week Sartaj will be taking each of my trades and posting them intraday to Youtube and our social networks. This will cause me to have to be more verbal (I have a fear of public speaking) but I will learn. My goal is to broadcast everything I can think of in each trade fo that each video snippet will be very detailed for trader’s learning.
There are many more points or “rules” to trading (number 7 would have been stay away from morning momo stock plays haha).
In Closing
That is it for now. I will write more on this topic in the near future.
It is Sunday and we’re in the lab processing our weekly Swing Trading newsletter, running the charting algorithms for our six models in Oil, $SPY, $VIX, Gold, Silver and the US Dollar and I have to get ready for a big week in the trading room.
We are after all stepping it up a notch in that we are not only publishing the trading room video and transcript at the end of each day going forward – WE ARE PUBLISHING EVERY TRADE to our social networks right after they occur intra-day all day every day for now on! That is a big deal! Why? Because I believe it will be a primary way that traders desiring with all their will to get over the freedom wall, will in fact have another important tool in that endeavor! You can’t follow another’s trade but you can certainly crack open their method and make it yours!
Don’t follow other people’s trades. You don’t know their position size, time frame, stop loss, or exit strategy.
Message me anytime with your story or questions – I WOULD LOVE to hear the stories. I’m being serious here, I have never been that guy, but there is something about this, helping others get over that wall that has seriously inspired me to action.
Peace and best.
Curtis
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About Curtis:
Curtis Melonopoly (@curtmelonopoly) is rated Top 250 Stock exchanges authority, covering also Mathematical finance and Economy of the United States.
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Compound Trading Group Platform: Algorithm model charting for $SPY, $VIX, #OIL, #GOLD, #SILVER, #Crypto ($BTC Bitcoin, $ETH, $LTC, $XRP,) $DXY US Dollar and Swing Trading Newsletter. Live trading rooms for full-time daytraders. Private coaching and live alerts.
Part 1 : My Personal Stock Trading Story. How I Blew up Two Accounts and then Learned How to Trade.
Part 2: Trading Checklist (Rules) I Follow Before Triggering a Stock Trade.
Part 3: Now I’m Inspired. A Struggling Trader That Inspired Change.
Part 4: We Want (Need) You! Apply to Nearest Recruiting Station.
Part 5: Learn How to Trade Stocks (Build a Small Account) Following my Journey.
Part 6 a: Trading Set-ups. How-To Develop a Systematic – Predictable Process.
Part 6 b: Trading Set-ups. Video Explains Predictable Winning Process (companion to part 6 a).
Part 7: How I Develop a Trading Plan Watchlist (Swing Trading and Day Trading). Part 7 a) “Freedom Traders” Series.
Part 8: How to Swing Trade Like the Pros and Win Most Trades.
Get up. Dust off. And never give up.
Article Topics; Freedom, Trading, Trader, Learning, Stocks, SwingTrading, DayTrading.
