Millionaire TradersWe took an afternoon to talk to Roland over the phone and he
was kind enough to share his tricks of the trade.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
A: Sure. Actually I don’t trade full-time. I do it on a part-time
basis so that makes it a little easier for me. It takes the pressure off
because I have a steady income. My work is scheduled such that
I’m able to trade the markets just about all the time. I would say
most days during the week or any time there’s market moving news,
I’m available to trade it. I work a lot of Saturdays and Sundays, so
I don’t have to make a certain amount of money. I feel like I’ve
done well because of that. If it was my only source of income, it
would be a little bit scary, but it would still be manageable.
Q: So what do you actually do as your full-time job?
A: I’m a systems engineer for a large bank. My work doesn’t
relate in anyway to trading.
Q: Were you ever exposed to trading when you were younger?
A: I basically came across it by myself. My family is very, very
conservative in that regard. They believe in saving money, just
putting it in the bank. My dad does have a 401(k), but that was
about it. So it wasn’t discussed very often. It was actually when I
moved to San Francisco during the tech boom, to take a job there.
Everyone around me was trading stocks such and I felt completely
lost. I didn’t know what was going on. So I felt like I wanted to be
involved in those conversations and started doing my own research
and finding companies that I liked. Once I found those companies
and started learning a little bit about them, I would invest small
chunks of money in them.