Rags to RichesQ: Did you read any books about technical analysis to get a
better grasp?
A: At that point, nothing at all. I became quite successful at
demo trading and that was when I went live, which was when I
got the shock of my life. The first day, I’ll never forget it, it was
a Friday. I placed my first trade on a mini-account, and it was a
nerve-wracking experience, but I walked away with six dollars on
my first trade. On my second one, I made five, and at the end of
the day, I had made 18 dollars in total.
Q: So your friend was basically a mentor to you. How often then
would you talk to him in the beginning?
A: Yes, that’s right. In the beginning, I spoke to him about once or
twice over the telephone and then the rest of our communication
was all done via e-mail.
Q: Would you correspond over e-mail every single day or every
few days?
A: Initially almost on a daily basis. I estimate that it lasted for just
over a month or so.
Q: So it sounds like you traded exclusively on technicals in
the beginning. Did you ever incorporate fundamentals into your
trading?
A: It was probably five to six months down the line before I
discovered the importance of fundamentals. Although Steve was
very good at teaching me technical analysis, he did not explain
the importance of news. I only learned this by knocking my head
several times. To give you a simple example, if I was in a buy
trade, which I’d opened at 9a.m.and suddenly, at 10:30a.m.,
my time, that trade would turn against me horribly, and I could
never figure out why this was happening. At one point I actually