Featured Blogger Traders: December's Picks!

Happy new year everyone!

A bit late but for December, we are featuring traders who blog and are really active on the social media grid.

If you’re looking for a trader you can follow online, learn from, or just be friends with, these are people we highly recommend!

Just read up on their answers below and see if you have any specific questions for them or if you just like the stuff they wrote! We included links to their websites so you can easily check them out, bookmark them or even subscribe to their RSS feeds. :slight_smile:

We also added an extra question in there to add to the ‘reflection’ time we all should be doing as to how our 2010 went. Pretty interesting answers!

Here goes! Everyone, meet [B]Yohay Elam[/B] from forexcrunch.com, [B]Casey Stubbs[/B] from winnersedgetrading.com and [B]Rafael Rosa[/B] from MyInvestmentAnalysis.com!

Yohay Elam

1. How long have you been trading and how did you get into forex trading?

I’ve been trading for over 5 years. It began with a friend telling me about a forex course, and I got hooked. Since then, I’ve been on and off the market, taking breaks due to losses at first, and then due to other commitments.

2. What’s your most memorable trading experience?

My most memorable experience was waking up one morning and seeing that my GBP/JPY position hit my Take Profit goal before turning around. This was an exceptionally good experience, and it gave me the feeling that I knew what I was doing, gaining control of the “dragon”. Unfortunately, this gave me too much confidence, and sent me losing money in the trades that followed.

3. Was there ever a time when you suffered a huge drawdown and thought of giving up? How did you get through that phase?

Sure. It happened more than once. I indeed took a break, got over my negative emotions and eventually took the time to look back and those bad trades and analyze them instead of run away from them.

After learning my lessons, I gradually got back to trading and made positions with lower leverages - meaning I risked less of my account each time - allowing for more constant, careful and eventually profitable trading.

4. What’s the most challenging part of trading for you?

The most challenging part is getting my nose out of the screen. Forex can be addictive, and it’s hard for me not to stay attached and watch every movement. It takes time to develop a discipline for that.

One of the “tricks” I’ve adopted at first was to do the dishes. Yep. I did in the university when I didn’t feel like studying for an exam, and afterwards I’ve applied it in forex trading as well.

5. When would you say you feel you are successful as a trader?

I feel successful when the monthly balance is positive, and when the number of trades I made was reasonable. This means I was successful at trading and also enjoyed life. As aforementioned, trading can be addictive and can consume a lot of time. Having a super successful month, but losing touch with reality means you’re likely to be depressed and lose too many trades afterwards.

6. Do you think anyone can become a successful trader? Why or why not?

Not everybody can become a successful trader. Some people find it hard to develop the necessary emotional control. But the only way to know is to give it a try.

Forex trading is becoming more mainstream - systems are more user-friendly, brokers are monitored in better ways and there’s lots more available education resources out there. So, forex now appeals to a much larger audience than just 2 or 3 years ago. It’s easier to get started.

7. How does your personality match your trading style?

My personality is rather solid and calm, looking for the big picture. So also in trading, I tend to focus on long moves, rather than short ones. This means I take less positions than others, but this fits me better.

It’s important for every trader to have a significant correlation between his personality and style. It may take time to find it, but it’s worth being aware of this at an early stage in your trading career.

8. If you could give just one piece of advice to newbie traders, what would it be?

Money management. Don’t risk too much of your account at once. That’s the fast lane to burning out. Risking less means gaining more experience and becoming more profitable. Experience with trading on a live account is no less important than acquiring knowledge of technical indicators and no less important than knowing what moves the markets fundamentally. So, giving yourself enough margin for error means that the margin call will be further away.

9. Describe your typical day as a forex trader.

I usually check out the prices of my favorite pairs (AUD/USD leads the pack), check out the news, and see if there’s an opportunity that combines both fundamentals and technicals. After hitting the button, I limit myself to checking out the prices only at certain times a day. I tend to close the positions early in the afternoon, before they reached the stop loss / take profit limits.

10. Who’s your favorite Forex character?

In my site, forexcrunch.com, I combine both technical and fundamental analysis and I love to linking to others. One of the people I often link to, and combines both technical and fundamental analysis is Kathy Lien, head of currency research at GFT. I also tend to agree with her insights on many occasions. So, I could say that she tops my favorite forex characters, but there are lots more…

11. What were the most significant events that affected your trading in 2010?

The European debt crisis is definitely the most significant event, and it’s likely to continue into 2011, at an even higher magnitude. The first week of May 2010 was very exciting. QE2 played only second fiddle, and didn’t provide enough trading opportunities.

**Yohay Elam is the author of Forex Trading with a Personal Touch | Forex Crunch



Casey Stubbs

1. How long have you been trading and how did you get into forex trading?

I have been trading since 1994. I was 17, my dad didn’t know how to use a computer so I set up a system for him and taught him how to use one. He showed me how to trade stocks. I didn’t have my own account until a couple of years later.

I got specifically into forex trading about 3 years ago because I saw an ad on the Cnbc.com website and it was the first time I ever heard of it so I got my free $50 account and when I did some research on Forex, I truly fell in love with it and completely left all other types of trading.

2 - 3. What’s your most memorable trading experience? Was there ever a time when you suffered a huge drawdown and thought of giving up? How did you get through that phase?

Yes! I was a struggling trader like everyone in the beginning and after a time I finally started having some success and I went on a 3-month run where I had tremendous success with huge gains in my account. I thought “I made it”! I felt like I was a successful trader at that point. Then I got over confident and had a massive drawdown and it completely destroyed my confidence.

After the initial large loss, I then incurred several large losses in a row. My confidence was shot and it took me another year before finally becoming profitable again. That was a lesson learned and now I know that I have never made it and that I must be on guard with every trade. I never thought of giving up because I tasted success and I knew it would come. It was just a matter of time.

The thing that kept me going during this phase was trading with a small account and treating it like it was a million dollar account. Now I can truly say that for me size does not matter. Whether I trade $1 or thousands of dollars, I trade it exactly the same way.

4. What’s the most challenging part of trading for you?

The most challenging part of trading is to follow my plan. I still from time to time, enter on anticipation rather than waiting for the setup to occur. However, this is much less frequent now.

5. When would you say you feel you are successful as a trader?

I would say I am successful if I get slow consistent growth of my account.

6. Do you think anyone can become a successful trader? Why or why not?

Yes anyone can be successful. Trading is no different than any other area in life and anyone can be successful if they take the necessary steps to be successful. I have done a lot of things in my life and I was successful most times. The key is to have a plan and then execute your plan.

7. How does your personality match your trading style?

I am not sure about this one, I have many personality traits and the one that fits my trading is the one that likes making money.

8. If you could give just one piece of advice to newbie traders, what would it be?

My advice to newbies: keep it small. Too many newbies start with way too much money. I say keep your account size small while you learn.

9. Describe your typical day as a forex trader.

My typical day as a forex trader: I walk to work (my office is in the heart of the city I live in Latrobe, PA). Then I do chart analysis and enter the trade. This takes about an hour since I usually only do one trade at a time. I spend the rest of my day talking on the phone with clients, and business partners. I also plan for my business and I communicate with my employees. I then monitor my trade as the day goes on. I always have my charts up so I can see what is happening but trading is generally done in the background while I do the rest of my daily activities.

10. Who’s your favorite Forex character?

My favorite Forex character… This is a tough one. I have learned trading from a lot of people and I have taken something from each one that I learn from. I read articles daily and am always communicating on Twitter. My favorites are @50pips @neo761 and @sacredfiginv, @fxstorm, @babypips, @isitcoffeeyet, and also @manimohseni[/I]

11. What were the most significant events that affected your trading in 2010?

My good friend Michael Storm was telling people to buy the USD/JPY back in September because of possible intervention. Now the interesting thing is that many experts were saying that intervention was not going to happen and that it was a stupid strategy to hold a dying pair while waiting for a miracle!
But I followed Michael’s direction and put on a small piece and held it. Now the key to this was to only put on a very small position, much smaller than normal so that it won’t hurt you if it never happens.

So against many experts and analysts I held the USD/JPY and then on September 15th there was a news announcement and the price went up about 300 pips in one day and I closed my trade with 203 pips!

So that was very memorable. I took a chance that an event would happen and that was a risk but since the risk was controlled I made sure that the trade would not damage my account. I thought that it was a risk worth taking and this time it paid off, maybe next time it won’t.

Casey Stubbs is the author of Helping Forex Traders See The Light | Winners Edge Trading


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Rafael Rosa

1. How long have you been trading and how did you get into forex trading?

First, thank you BabyPips.com for opening up this space for me. I’m honored to be featured in this newsletter and congratulate all the great work the website has been doing.

I’ve been trading currencies for over two years. While I’ve always been fascinated by how markets work, I started trading during my junior year in college.

I believe my introduction to foreign exchange was quite unusual. I was taking an international finance class and my professor wanted everyone to trade currencies in a demo account. I started doing so and just got hooked.

2. What’s your most memorable trading experience?

The comeback from my first large account drawdown. After doing well for a while in 2009, my account went south in the middle of the year. It reached a point where I cut down all my type of trading to scalping intraday only. My goal was to build up little by little again. Pip by Pip, I retraced my losses and went on to really build my FX skills and account. Those two or three comeback trading weeks were my hardest to date. I also feel like that was the period where I became a real trader, having seen the darkness and returned to light ;).

3. Was there ever a time when you suffered a huge drawdown and thought of giving up? How did you get through that phase?

It’s true that every time I make a bunch of bad trades, I feel like an idiot and ask myself whether I should really be trading. However, when I’m on a good streak, I feel like a cassette player reading the market tape.

When I’m deep in the hole, I try to remind myself of how I was “the man” a few days ago, sometimes just a few hours ago ;). Staying positive is the biggest factor for success after drawdowns.

You also have to accept personal failure. Victimizing yourself by blaming the market or creating some manipulation-related conspiracy theory is not the answer. Recognizing your mistake, and believing that you will make a good trade in the future when the same situation repeats itself is the right mindset. And you also need to recognize your mistake in order to avoid doing them again.

Overall, remember that anything that happens in your account is always your fault. You pick the time and size you want to be in the market. You also big your entry and exits (stop losses and exits). If the market is acting “weird” or is being “manipulated” in your opinion, just get out fast and wait for another time.

4. What’s the most challenging part of trading for you?

Beating myself. Contrary to popular belief, I think beating the markets is easy. Being disciplined, doing proper risk-management, and making the right trading decisions are the hard part.

I believe most unsuccessful traders do at least one of the following:

Have no trade plan (i.e. entry, exit, stop losses, etc.), get bad entries on trades because they’re afraid they will lose the move, use too much leverage, overtrade, get into trades without knowing what they’re doing (blindly following other people’s trades), don’t study markets, think they can trade by dedicating just a few hours a week, don’t analyze historical price action of assets, and many more.

All of the above is what destroys most new traders. And as you might have noticed, none of the things mentioned have anything to do with the markets.

In regard to currency trading, pairs such as the Euro-Dollar respect technical levels very well. Learning them is not the hard part. Learning to control your actions is usually the problem.

5. When would you say you feel you are successful as a trader?

When you have a plan that is derived from analysis and you execute it consistently, time and time again. No emotion or bias, just disciplined well-thought out trading.

Every time you get into a trade without a plan, you are failing.

6. Do you think anyone can become a successful trader? Why or why not?

Yes. Like I’ve said earlier, it’s more about beating yourself than beating the market. If you can develop trading discipline and be consistent, you’ll probably become a successful trader.

The second key factor is to put in the time. Some of the top minds in the world are in finance and trading. To think that putting in just two hours a week is going to make you a successful trader is just very imaginable.

7. How does your personality match your trading style?

I’ve always been a big risk-taker. In trading, this translates into me being an aggressive trader. I make many trades and use sizeable leverage at times when I find it suitable.

8. If you could give just one piece of advice to newbie traders, what would it be?

Write out your trading system. Whether on a word document or excel sheet, write out your rules, trade requirements, goals, and details of your specific trades. Additionally, have this document open at all times.
You need to have a plan and follow it consistently. I believe that having it in your face the whole time helps you not sneak in that “different” trade.

9. Describe your typical day as a forex trader.

I usually wake up at 6 30 AM. First, I review charts and then look to update myself on the day’s “narrative” (i.e. the assumed reasoning for market moves and what the day’s expectations are). Besides reading my RSS feeds, I always scroll through my “Friends” stream on StockTwits and look for valuable information.

I then usually trade throughout the day until 2 or 3 PM. I don’t like trading after those times. Throughout the day, I usually share videos, charts, personal blog posts, and overall links on StockTwits/Twitter.

10. Who’s your favorite Forex character?

Ashraf Laidi is my favorite follow on StockTwits. If you can use the information he shares for free wisely, you can definitely improve your trading. Sometimes, people forget that Ashraf’s comments come from an analyst point of view. He shares longer term direction and reasoning and not specific intraday (usually) scalp trades. It’s your responsibility to make your trade and setup your own stop losses and targets.

I see often on StockTwits people asking him for specific entries, stops, and targets. However, that’s your responsibility because he’s not managing an account for you.

Nevertheless, I’ve learned a lot from Ashraf in the last year and have adapted some of his trading techniques. I recommend that anyone on StockTwits follow Ashraf.

11. What were the most significant events that affected your trading in 2010?

Graduating from college was the big shift in my life this year. In general, my schedule and the amount of time I dedicate to trading changed dramatically.

Rafael Rosa is the author of Analysis of Currrency Trading, Financial Markets, and Economic Policy


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