Get To Know Your Fellow Bear Bull Traders Members: Interview with WilliamH

Get To Know Your Fellow Bear Bull Traders Members: Interview with WilliamH

1. Chat Name

• WilliamH ADog

2. City/State/Country

• Los Angeles/California/USA

3. How Long have you been trading?

• 4 years

4. When and why did you join Bear Bull Traders?

• Like many of the traders in our room, I joined Bear Bull Traders temporarily after reading Andrews book, “How to Day Trade for a Living”. I was a brand new trader and enjoyed the room, but at that point, I was still wanting to trade completely on my own thinking I could already be an independent trader. I left the room after a few months and went to trade on my own. Through this learning process I experienced significant losses and lessons that I now know could have been completely avoided if I had fellow traders to talk to, learn from, bounce ideas off of, and find support from.  Over a year later, after realizing how hard it was to succeed in day trading on my own, I joined a different chatroom. I quickly became aware that not all trading chat rooms are created equal when comparing it to my experience at Bear Bull Traders. I quickly read Andrews book again, and re-joined Bear Bull Traders once more . . . and the rest is history.

5. Recommended Trading Books/Websites/Videos

• Books:
  • Andrew Aziz: How to Day Trade for a Living & Advanced Techniques in Day Trading. 
  • Brian Pezim: How to Swing Trade 
  • Mark Douglas: Trading in the Zone
  • Brett Steenbarger: The Daily Trading Coach 
• Websites
  • https://www.investopedia.com  I use this website as a resource whenever I encounter anything related to trading that I do not understand.
• Videos
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCtBRsLPmk – This is a fantastic video recommended by another BearBullTrader team member, RobertH. This video helps to give you a different perspective and understanding on how to make trades, when we know the outcome is uncertain.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drIeO7d27QM&t=196s This video helps traders understand the concept of a stop hunt, and might shed light for some into why they get stopped out so often right before the big move they were waiting for. This concept applies to any tradeable security.

6. Top 3 favorite trading setups

• Using Moving Averages on larger time frames to support any specific setup on the smaller time frames
• Reversals that use indicators one at least 3 time frames, such as a 9/20/50 Moving average cross on the 1 minute, with a 5 minute setup such as engulfing or flag, and a new 15 minute high or low.
• ABCD patterns and Flags : This is one of the most basic strategies that Andrew teaches to all of us, yet it is one of the most powerful and easy to spot.

7. Best advice you were ever give and can pass on?

• I was once told a real life story of a very profitable trader that made a killing over the course of 10 months, but lost all of those profits, completely blew up his entire account and had to stop trading, from a single pre-market trading session. At the time, I never fully understood how that was possible as I didnt have the experience with emotional trading and what we are capable of. After hearing this story, the specific advice that I will never forget, and grows so much stronger the longer I trade is this  . . . “We are in the Money Management Business, not the Profit Seeking Business. Manage your money correctly, and if you are a good trader, the profits will follow. If you are a Profit Seeker, but NOT a Money Manager, no matter how good of a trader you are, you will almost certainly fail as a day trader”

8. Most Interesting Day Trading Story?

• Down $3,000 in one day. . . This was my largest loss ever. I blew past my max loss, broke all my rules and truly Hulked out beyond anything I had ever done before. After leaving my trading station, I was able to calm down after a few hours and regroup. I told my self “William I will NEVER let myself do this again, learn from this lesson and become a better trader” . . .  Fast forward to the next trading day . . . After my first trade was a loser, I INSTANTLY lost control of my emotions again, and went on to lose $4,000 the day after losing $3,000.  I thought I had learned my lesson. I thought I would never do it again . . . and in less than 24 hours, I did it all over again but even worse. I stopped trading for a few days and after I truly calmed down I realized a truth about trading I want to share that many of you have not learned yet. . . Whenever we make a mistake in the market of any kind, large or small, we tell ourselves “we learned a lesson and will never do that again” . . . Unfortunately it is not that easy. Ask yourself how often in life do you ever make a mistake only once and never do it again? It is actually the exact opposite.  Once we prove ourselves capable of showing a behavior even one time, it actually proves to ourselves we are IN FACT capable of doing it, and thus are more likely to do it again in the future unless we put in diligent and specific work to eliminate its potential to show up again.