The All-American TraderQ: Which translates to 70 dollars on one contract.
A: You got it! Minus$5.40 commission [laughter].
Q: So you were paper trading and simulator trading for how long
approximately?
A: Three months.
Q: While you were paper trading, were you keeping a diary and
analyzing your style?
A: Yes. On paper. I really didn’t have a style yet. I was kind of
doing scalps. I was very jittery. As soon as it got up, I’d sell it. I was
overtrading. You know I traded probably 20 times during the day.
Q: But this was all on simulator, you had a lot of data.
A: Yes.
Q: Then what happens, how do you get a little more comfortable
with the instrument?
A: Then I added a couple little things to my work and my can-
dlesticks and slowly but surely developed a style. There was a guy
by name of Daniel in our room, a.k.a. “Jazz.” I was very impressed
with how he would get these plus fives and plus fours. I was more
Chuck’s style—the quick scalp. So I really developed a system that
was a little of Chuck’s style and a little of Jazz’s style, which holds
longer for bigger trades. Using moving averages and candlesticks,
I started trading in parts, selling a third of a position at .6, selling
a little more, and then just keep lowering my stop by using the
candlesticks.