Professional trader / investor looking to chat with like-minded members

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Hello everyone,

I’m an American that’s been living most of my adult life in Europe. I built up a Management Consulting business over a decade and I’m currently in the process of transforming it into a family office.

My first taste of the financial markets started back in 1989 (yes, I’m old! :rofl:) during a high school stock market paper trading contest. I had no idea what I was doing but I went all in on Southwest Airlines that was on a parabolic run at the time and ended up making a huge of amount of paper profits after 6 weeks.

My obsession really took hold about 15 years ago. I tried everything from scalping, day trading, swing trading, position trading and investing. I must have read close to 500 books, trying out just about every trading system I could get my hands on. During this time, I blew up several accounts paying a pretty hefty “tuition”. The markets don’t spare anyone and certainly didn’t spare the rod in my case, lol! :rofl:

Since then I’ve turned things around and have been doing this as my sole profession for nearly 3 years. I developed my own way of looking at markets, trading and investing in nearly all asset classes. I manage a portfolio with 40+ positions across stocks, bonds, commodities, energy and forex rotating capital in and out of assets as the underlying macro changes.

I usually hold positions for years, making less than 10 trades a year, it seems the less I “trade”, the more profitable the portfolio. Having said that, I do occasionally take shorter term trades when low risk opportunities present themselves. As you probably guessed, most of my days consist of watching paint dry for an 1 hour while boring my wife to tears talking about inverted bond yields and sovereign debt levels.

So why am I here? While I enjoy golfing and beaches as much as the next person, they don’t provide the sort of intellectual stimulus I need. So it’d be nice to chat with some like minded individuals.

Please understand that I’m not here to sell anything, give stock picks nor mentor anyone, but I’d be more than happy to answer any questions if I can.

Apologies for the long-winded intro, just happy to be here and meet everyone! :grin:

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Hi @Dollar_McGavin - Welcome to the site.

Can I just say, you’re boring your wife to tears (which is as it should be) but she is still your wife. I’d say therefore on these grounds alone you are a successful trader.

Keep up the good work.

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Thanks @tommor

Can I just say, you’re boring your wife to tears (which is as it should be) but she is still your wife. I’d say therefore on these grounds alone you are a successful trader .

Yes, I tell her this all the time when she yawns but I don’t get much of a reaction! :rofl:

All kidding aside, yes it’s massive to have a family that supports and believes in you.

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That’s life. You know this.

Actually it’s taken years of hard work to ensure that my wife does not react to things I say, you have to work at it.

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Welcome, and thank you for sharing your story with us. Your trading experiences will surely be valuable to the community. See you around!

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Welcome, @Dollar_McGavin.

It’s always nice to have new members with experience in the markets, such as yourself, to add value to some of these threads.

I have been trading for about 7 years now and like you, have paid my tuition in full (I hope). I completely understand the work/trade balancing act as well because I currently work a full time job, which I must prioritize for the time being.

My grandfather made a good living in the stock market, but unfortunately I didn’t get into it until shortly after his death, at which point it was too late to learn from him, so all his knowledge disappeared with him.

Great to meet you and hope you stick around for a while.

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Hi @MattyMoney,

Thank you for the warm welcome and your kind words.
Yes, it was a challenge for me with the 9-to-5 work/trade balancing act, which I didn’t handle very well, if I were to be honest. So I completely understand where you are coming from.

Sorry to hear about your grandfather’s passing, sounds like he was a very wise man.

The most valuable advice I can give to anyone in your situation is if you learn to love the process then the money will take care of itself. You should also continuously tweak and improve your process to fit whatever lifestyle you desire, this way it’ll be something you enjoy (as opposed to forcing yourself to) doing every day.

Pleasure to meet you as well.

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Hello and welcome! Enjoy your stay and looking forward to hearing more about your trading journey.

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