Millionaire TradersQ: Do you know how lucky you are?
A: Hey, I mean, I married a gem. I had three-and-half years, and
I quit selling copiers about a year and half into it and went back
to doing stocks but this time on broadband using a cable modem.
I got the stuff and got it all hooked up but then I started to learn
that E∗TRADE was brutal.
Q: They are intermediaries. They weren’t direct access, execu-
tion brokers.
A: No, they were horrible. They were eating up my profits. I
put the order in and it didn’t get filled for a minute, Then you
come back and it’s already gone up a half point. At that time I
was more of a quick in and out guy. So that wasn’t working. Then
in November 2004, I went to my cousin Andrea’s wedding and
I met a guy by the name of Chuck Hays. She married his son
and I was picking up chairs on the beach and Chuck’s wife asked
me what I did. I said I trade stocks. She said, “Well, you should
talk to my husband, Chuck, he trades futures.” All I knew about
futures was that they were very hard to trade and, like in options,
you could lose all your money quickly. That’s basically all I knew
about it. So I went up there, and he said, you know, I have a chat
room, and he told Andrea to give me the password at the end of
weekend. I got in there and asked Chuck more and he told me
you’ve got to open up account and you’ve got to do this and that.
That’s kind of where it was born. He was hooked up with a guy
who knew all about computers. So I set up five screens in front
me. I’ll never forget that first day when I looked at this ER2 thing.
I just couldn’t believe it. I’m like, “How in hell are these guys
trading this thing? It’s impossible. There’s no way.” My analogy
was like being a high school quarterback going to the pros and
just the game being lightning fast. It started to slow down after a
while and I started to do paper trades. Then I went and did the
simulator mold and, in January 2005, I did my first trade and I
made .70.