The world of trading just got easier with Benzinga’s weekly podcasts, a Traders Journey. Uploaded to our YouTube channel, Benzinga’s own Customer Success Director, Ryan Faloona, interviews professional traders on how they got to where they’re at today and any tips they’d like to offer. Today, we’ll summarize some of the key takeaways from these interviews. Check out our previous blog post for even more trading tips from Pro traders! Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, tune in every Sunday you can learn more about the world of trading!
Trading Tips from Sean Catena
Sean’s career as a trader began in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada from a job posting from Day Trade the World at his university. Sean became interested by the job posting but began to have doubts of actually pursuing this path due to the time he invested at Wilfrid Laurier. However, he decided to take a chance despite his parents’ wariness. After experiencing the energetic environment Day Trade the World offered, he decided to take the job offer despite having zero knowledge about trading.
Most Valuable Advice: Sean’s most valuable advice he can give to traders is to have a plan. Sean says, you need to not only know what you’re looking for but why you’re looking at that specific trade. Find the advantages and what situations you are best suited for. Sean said that working with other traders at a young age allowed him to learn many different strategies, which was advantageous for someone just starting out. It’s hard to focus on yourself and your strengths when you see others being successful, but your road to success won’t be found being clouded by “FOMO” (the fear of missing out). Take the advice from the educated and use it to formulate your own plan.
What He Would Tell His Past Self From Day 1: Sean wishes that at a young age, just starting out, he took more risks. He was too focused on making the ‘right’ trades that he ultimately was unable to learn from mistakes. He says that nervous feeling, those “butterflies”or in Sean’s case his “spidey sense”, teach you to trust your plan of action. After taking those risks and dealing with those feelings you’ll be able to hold thousands and thousands of shares.
Trading Tips from Roland Wolf
Roland began his career as a professional soccer player, playing throughout his college career and eventually moved to Europe to pursue his passion. However, due to an injury, he was forced to move back to the United States. Roland eventually met his wife and started a family, the only problem was that he had no college degree and no money to support his growing family. Roland then stumbled upon the world of trading as means to support his family. At first, it was a side hustle that soon turned into his full-time career. Roland now specializes in day trading, specifically small cap stocks.
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The Secret to Success: Roland says there’s not one secret. It’s a collective of strengthening multiple skills over time and using those skills together. The most important qualities a successful trader possesses is patience and adaptability. Don’t go into this profession thinking that you can make money right away. In the short-term this may be the case, but if you’re in this for the long run, you’re going to need more than luck. He also says that understanding your risk tolerance is key. Don’t compare yourself to others’ successes and losses. Adapt to what works best for you.
Everyone has weaknesses… even professional traders. With many strengths Ronald also has weaknesses. Ronald recognizes that he is unable to size up to his desired goal, but this may be due to his current situation. As a father he realizes that he can’t take as big of risks as others in this field, which is why he says it’s so important to understand your own risk tolerance.
Trading Tips from Dennis Dick
Dennis, unlike our other guests, actually began his trading career in college trading his parents money in retail. After graduation, he began his professional career right away at Bright Trading. He is now CFA, proprietary trader and market structure analyst at Bright Trading.
Important Lessons to Learn as a Beginner: Dennis says that the most important thing to remember when starting out is to admit when you’re wrong. You can’t always be right on your trades. Your losers teach you how to do better. Adapting to these losses can teach you how to adapt and diversify into other markets. Additionally, you should have the discipline to “cut your losers quickly and let your winners run.” Paying more attention to his losers versus his winners has proven successful for him for 21 years.
Thinking About Long-Term Investing: There’s a different mental game when it comes to long-term investments versus trading. Dennis being in this field for many years still has a hard time with figuring out how to successfully think about long-term investing. His most useful advice though has been to take the Warren Buffett Approach. Buy into something that you believe is a good company, with a good story, and one that you believe in; don’t engage in active trading and selling. Dennis describes a story where he invested in PayPal years ago in 2011, but began to see other competitive banking apps. Scared that these short-term headlines would affect his investment he decided to sell his PayPal stock at $40, now that stock is worth around $200.
Trading Tips from Kenny Glick
Like many others, Kenny didn’t begin his trading career until after college. He was enrolled in university for TV programming, acting, and did stand up comedy on the side. After one of his shows, a stock broker approached him with a job offer thinking he would do well selling stocks because he was so humorous. After a while in a boiler room, Kenny decided this was not the right path for him until discussing with a friend the new way of the stock market. He now educates others about his journey as a trader as the founder of Hit The Bid.
How Kenny Deals with Getting Stuck in a Rut: What does he do? Spirit walks. Kenny takes a very holistic approach as he describes this field as being a very stressful one. He has said the only way he has been able to deal with the ups and downs is to allow himself to take a walk and clear his head to allow himself to sort out what he’s doing wrong and how to go back to what was working. He advises to not feed into the bad trade and stay focused on what’s working and stick with it. Let your successes branch off from your main successor. This leads us to Kenny’s most important tip for beginners.
The most important thing for beginner traders to remember is… Find something that works and stick with it. Don’t stray away from your path. Changing strategy constantly can make it tough to find a groove to perfect. If you have something that works and is making you money, branch off from that idea. Finding this niche is the most difficult part of trading.
Trading Tips from John London
John London got interested in trading through initial curiosity. After watching the movie The Big Short, he became curious about where “all this money was floating around” and began Googling about the world of trading. From there, he began his career in day trading and now is the founder of Beginner Trading, a free trading website to help beginners and experts.
Dealing with Emotions and Trading: John says that trading is one of those things that takes time and patience. In order to be successful, you have to learn what helps you the most when days are more stressful than the last. John deals with trading stress by simply stepping away. He also believes that you shouldn’t get tangled up in the misconception of trading to “get rich quick.”
Best Advice for His Beginner Self: If John could go back in time he would tell his beginner self to focus his energy on risk management. Starting off, he believed that he began trading way too big and felt discouraged as a new trader. Every trade you get into you should calculate your risks, “know what you’re going to get into and where you’re going to get out,” he says.
Final Thoughts:
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