Transcription
A trader who quit his $165,000 a year job 25 years ago and started trading from home and made $5 million in publicly documented profits without a single losing year.
I think all trading is gambling to a certain extent. But it's not gambling like you're going to a bookmaker and you're putting your last pound in a slot machine. Successful traders have some kind of an edge. And I think the most important thing is your plan, especially what are you going to do if it starts to screw up? Where are you going to get out and are you going to get out?
Introducing Robbie Burns, aka the naked trader. A full-time trader, a best-selling author, and one of the few traders in the world that has been trading profitably every single year from his home office with no team and no shortcuts.
In this episode, Robbie reveals the exact strategy that led to him making $330,000 in a single trade across four weeks and why it was the easiest trade of his life. And therefore, this is why he believes that 95% of traders fail, but nothing to do with their technicals or strategy.
We have a few playbooks. You've given the names dash for cash, go against the crowd, play dumb to make smart money, tame black swans. So there's a long list. What are you looking for first of all to define a playbook and should you only trade things that you've defined as a playbook?
My one rule is um when I left my job, people are going, "What are you doing trading? You're making 150k a year. What do you think you're doing?" And I said, "I'm sitting here opposite this boring carpet warehouse in the middle of the A4 on the way to Hero Airport. I'm bored. I'd rather take a risk with my life and do something with it and sit looking at this carpet warehouse any longer." And the first thing I did was actually place a short on that carpet warehouse cuz I couldn't see anybody going in. I got £80,000 out of that trading idea. That's hilarious. Take the risk. If you want to do it, do it.
We have a list of emotions that I want to read to you. You call it the eight deadly emotions. Excitement, desperation, greed, fear, ego mania, stubbornness, anger, regret. A lot of emotions here. Which one would you say is the most detrimental or the first to address for a trader?
I'm going to give you absolute definitive answer. I'm just going to pause to make it more exciting. Is that right? And we'll find out the answer after the break. No.
Um, ladies and gents, welcome back to another episode. Robbie, it's very nice to sit in front of an author and a and a trader predominantly primarily. But with that, I have a lot of ammunition today and I'm going to throw a lot of things at you. But reading through a lot of your literature, something that stood out to me, I'm going to read it back to you because it is unique. It says, "I'm pretty certain the main reason I've been able to make a lot of money trading over the years is I've trained my brain to be more like a character out of a 1960s science science fiction." Now, what is it in a 1960s character persona that helped you find success in the markets?
Okay, this character, I know a lot of your viewers are kind of younger, so they might not know this character. It was a show called Star Trek. Did you ever get into Star Trek?
Familiar, but not never got into it.
Not quite. So in the original series there was a guy who came from the planet Vulcan and unlike humans he was very logical. Everything he did in his life was logic. There was no emotion. He didn't get involved with any emotions. He didn't get angry. He wouldn't cry. Everything was this is my decision I have to take. Which makes him a great trader because traders just get very emotional and overroought. I'm sure you've had that in your part of your trading journey. Whereas if you're uh what's called a Vulcan, you are completely unemotional. And so I treat every trade I make as completely unemotional. It's just a business. I don't care about the trade itself. If it doesn't make me money, I get rid of it. If it's making you money, I might stay with it. But every decision is completely unemotional.
I'm curious on this topic because initially in my younger trading years, I thought emotions equals bad because it was a feedback loop of every time I got emotional, I would I would uh deviate away from the plan.
And then uh later on, I know in your book we have eight main emotions in the market. But if I was to let's say summarize all of them, I'd condense it down to fear of an undesirable outcome. It's just and it can stem from fear, greed, regret, whatever it may be. But that's kind of the sentiment that I want to end at. So if I have a fear of an undesired outcome that means I must remove my emotion but then I started to realize I cannot I'm a human or and then it became a northstar of like remove emotions is it felt unattainable. So then I tried to understand speaking to many how can I use my emotions or use them as a tool because they are signaling something to me. So should actually the goal here be to be as stoic as possible or robotic as possible or is it learning how to harness one's emotions?
Oh, I agree. You can't be totally unemotional cuz we I'm not a Vulcan. I'm I'm a human being. But I think quite a lot of people that I've met over the years of traders where they've screwed up is when something is happening in their life. So maybe they've had a r with their partner or they're pissed off about something, they're angry. It I would say don't trade that day because if other emotions are coming into you, you really are going to trade very badly. And I would say just forget about it. Go and do something else. Relax. Um, I think that's probably the major point. Don't don't let emotions get in the way.
Okay. Now, I I read amongst one of your things the idea that if you you had a three strike policy that if you take three losses on the same instrument or assets, uh, that you won't look at it. Now, this is an ordinary thought. If I take a backto-back losses, I'll close my laptop for the day or I'll come back next week. But your policy seems to be if I take three backto-back losses, I shut it for 6 months. Now, why 6 months? Is that the due time it needs to recalibrate and recenter your emotions?
Well, it's more emotionally your mind says, "I've lost the money. I'm going to get that back." That instrument or that share or whatever you're trading, that's lost me money. I want to get that money back. So, it's feelings of revenge. That's really, really bad. And so, third time, literally, I'm out and I find if I take it off my screen, that's it. I don't have any reason to go back and say, "Okay, I'm going to get my money back off this bloody share or whatever it was." And nearly all the time when I came back six months later, that instrument have done really badly. So, it was it was a great move.
Curious to know. So, uh obviously in your beliefs is we know the common sentiment that 95% of retail traders lose money and majority of retail traders are day traders. Majority of day traders are technically based. Uh and they're usually trading a couple of asset classes. Um so the ability to walk away from their their baby whe whether it's gold or it's GPU USD uh is not really feasible. So if we can go down that cascade of majority of retail traders are losing majority are day traders majority are technically based majority trade a few things are these cardinal sins that we can just avoid to help shift the odds in our favor.
That's a tricky one. I mean you said 95% lose. So you've got to be very focused to be in that that top 5%. And I personally couldn't be in that top 5% of day traders. I know I don't have it in me. I don't have a particularly great concentration span for that. Um, so I concentrate on assets that I can understand and value. For example, I would make a rubbish gold trader because I don't understand why gold is going up and down. I don't I don't really follow the news on gold or why gold is going up and down. So I would be completely lost. So I think you have to find your own way in the markets and sometimes you will start one way and it doesn't do it for you and then suddenly you'll go after three or four ah this works for my brain because our brains are all completely structured differently. What works for me might not work for you and vice versa.
Are we implying here let's say the momentum of an asset or how are we tying affinity to a certain instrument? Is is it based on understanding or liking it? Like I like iPhones, therefore I should trade something that I'm familiar with.
Oh, no. I would say I would say definitely not. So, because I think if you trade something you like, you're already biased towards thinking that's going to be a very good trade. So, I tend to avoid things I like. And I am literally more of a numbers person. So, I go into the asset and go, what is this asset? What is this company doing? Is it going well? Is it likely to go well over the future, the near future, the medium-term future? If not, why am I why am I buying it in the first place? Just because I like it doesn't mean to say I should get it. I'll give you one very good example. This was the very start of my trading career. I love coffee. And this was early 2000. Starbucks was was starting to become everywhere where I live in the UK. And there was a company called Coffee Republic. Oh, I love the coffee. I thought I'm going to buy the shares in this company. So, I bought some. The shares kept on going down. I thought the shops are full. Bought some more. Kept on going down. Bought some more. No, I'm going to buy some more. Kept buying it. And in the end, I was going into the shops. I was buying a double espresso instead of a single to try and get the price up, which is completely crazy. On top of that, I was drinking so much caffeine, I was going a bit nuts. I thought, "What have I done here?" And I thought, "This, you've been a complete idiot. Sell the whole lot. You bought it because you like coffee. You didn't do any research. You didn't plan your trade. Get out. I lost about £10,000, but I learned a big lesson. Don't get involved with something because you like it.
Would you attribute this to be a confirmational bias?
I was totally I was totally biased. All I could see when I was going to the coffee shop was, "Oh, there's lots of people here." And I was going to the staff, can you put the muffins and the quissants on top because that's a better margin than anything else. Um, I I was totally totally taken with that company. And it was the biggest mistake I made right at the start.
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What you're describing here seems to be you were getting a pulse on a on a business based on what you saw in real life and therefore it was a version of sentimental analysis.
Yes.
Now I've I've had on a few traders that are entirely sentimental based. Uh one of them specifically would absorb everything they can find in the comment sections of YouTube or Instagram or Tik Tok and generates a bias trying to be ahead of it and completely unique. But uh generally speaking, if I'm to put three pillars of of trading strategies, it would be fundamental, technical, and sentimental. And I think most are a ven diagram of fundamental and technical. Most are skewed towards technical, but sentimental feels like an afterthought. Is this uh something that we should be weighing higher, you think?
I I really don't feel sentiment should play any part actually. So I don't know if that's against other people you've had on maybe, but I was I was way too sentimental on that one. So I think often you get story versus the numbers and I'm a numbers. So I look at the numbers of whatever I'm buying first and then the story comes next. The numbers I like the numbers and I like I think it might look value then I'll go into the story of it but it's the numbers first because whenever you read anything in any online newspaper magazine or whatever it's all about the story because it's written by a journalist. There has to be a headline and they they hardly ever mention the numbers in these. It's always about, oh, this company's got this great new AI whatever that's going to take the world by storm, but it doesn't give you the numbers. And I never buy anything where I read a company report and the way they write it is the story is all up the top and the numbers are all down the bottom somewhere.
The numbers are the most important thing.
So here we described a let's say a bad scenario of a confirmational bias. But I'm curious on the topic because confirmational bias, we can look at it, let's say rolling a dice and uh you roll it and let's or flip a coin is probably a better one. We flip a coin and let's say you flipped it five times, four times as heads. So you might start to think, oh, you know what? This coin is is hot. It's getting heads. I'm going to I'm going to bet more on it being heads next time. Now, the odds are still 50/50 on each independent uh flip of the coin, but you may feel like there's a skew. So that's let's say the mathematical side. That's one argument. The other argument that I see is you're throwing a basket basketball into a basketball net and you you just uh hit a lot in a row and that's just form. So then the likelihood of the next one going in is actually improved. Yeah. Is because it's skill based. So therefore I am curious in the markets where you know there is a baked in edge. Let's say your win rate is fixed but then there is an idea of being on form or you're you're have a bit more clarity. So confirmational bias it seems like we could put it into two camps. uh how would you orientate yourself here?
Well, yeah, confirmational bias um as a whole is something that I see when I do the retreats and the seminars. I see it all the time. Somebody has an idea in their head and it's almost impossible to shift that idea out of them or make them take a different path. I think um a couple of examples would be um traders that I've met at retreats. So, they've bought an asset or they bought a company and it's been going down and they're losing money.
Both of them have bought the same thing. Actually, one of them I said, so I said to both of them, I said, "Just please get rid of them. Get rid of it. It's going to get worse. Please get rid of it." One could do it. He said, "Okay, I'm just going to get rid of it." So, I said, "How do you feel the next day?" I feel so good. It's like a weight is lift off my shoulders. It's brilliant. And as it happens over the next three or four days, it it carried on going down. The other guy didn't. He said, and this is this is the statement I hear a lot, it's going to come back. This is the one thing everybody says about a losing trade. It's going to come back. And I said, well, what if it doesn't come back? He said, no, no, it's it's going to come back. He's absolutely certain. I could see and the other guy could see that it's going to carry on going down. He all he saw was upside. And there's nothing I could do to shift him at all. I knew he's going to keep it and I believe he kept it for another six months and lost a significant sum of money. It's literally I couldn't I couldn't shift his bias.
It reminds me of a story. I forget which book it's from. Um just to briefly explain this. The idea of two monks that made a vow to each other that they will never interact or touch a woman and they live up in the mountains and then they were making a journey and along the way they saw a bridge had broken and there was two women trying to cross the water. So they they had the choice either they you know helped the women cross and and pick them on their backs and cross and uh without deliberation one of the monks just assisted one of the women. So the other monk uh just took his lead and did the same. And then they carry on their journey. Hours have passed and um you know the second monk is a bit worked up. He's like we made a vow to each other. This is our religion or whatever. And then um uh he he confronts the other monk. He's like look we made a vow. What happened here? We weren't supposed to do this. and he said, "Look, I left the woman at the riverbed. You're still carrying the weight of her right now on your shoulders." The and the analogy being like once you've taken a loss, you can can now ruminate in it or you can put it away. Now, rumination and feelings around your loss is very common. But the the reason I think of this and your analogy or your your experience with the confirmational bias is we know what we should do especially after the circumstance with the benefit of hindsight, but the feeling is harder to shake off. So we know it was a mistake but holding the mistake still or letting go of that mistake feels hard. How can we turn it into something actionable which is the weight of a loss? How can we reduce the time that it it affects us?
So you mean like the feeling you have in your weight on the shoulders that you mentioned you've got this you mean after you've sold it?
Gosh. Well, I've I've learned always take these losses as quickly as possible so it doesn't I I don't find I'm affected by them. the guy that I I told you about. But well, actually, he got over it really quickly. He was happy as okay as Larry. He was he became from somebody who started the retreat like feeling miserable. He's like we thought, "Oh god, this guy's going to be miserable for the next three days. Why why is he coming on?" The last day he was like, "Yeah, hands up in the air. Let's all party like we don't care." And all and he was and the other guy was still miserable as hell because he couldn't he couldn't take it. So I think maybe if you're a newer trader I do agree it is harder to take that loss on the chin because you go why did I do it why did I and you'll ruminate on it. How you get over that? I'm not sure. How what do how do you see how how do you think people get over that?
In my experience and I can only speak on my own. I feel the only way is to and it's u immersion therapy. You know, the more you're exposed to a stimulus, the less it affects you.
Uh and just uh overall market experience. I think these two your market experience more to the effect that uh one loss is not the be all end all. And when it's your third loss in your career, that's one/ird of your trading career that that is a big impact. But after 100 losses, it's just another just another day in the office.
There's one thing I would say to that is is what what's your pot of money? Can you are you serious? Can you seriously afford to lose some of it? Because I think the pressure comes if you can't pay your bills and you're using trading to pay your bills, the pressure is then on you to have profitable trades. So when I started trading, I literally sold loads and loads of mobile phones where I got commission on the sales. So when I left my job, I knew I had enough money coming in just from the commission on those sales that I had done previously or and all my bills would be paid even if I lost all my money. And that gave me the freedom to uh make losses um and made me feel okay myself. I think if I was struggling to pay the bills, I would definitely be a much worse trader. So I think if you're thinking like I'm going to be a full-time trader, have you got enough money? And even if you feel you've got a big pot, do some freelancing. some money coming in.
In the background. I think
Love the advice. I I read another book and it was the idea was what we're describing here is let's say an insurance policy that you have a run rate you know that okay I've got a burn rate of 6 months at this spending and I've got this saving pot. So I've got six months to figure it out but at the same time it is uh you are counting down the clock and and you know as you approach that cut off time the feeling can intensify. So having a something coming in of course would assist and uh in the book this uh this author argued that it's not necessarily the money or or you know these kind of things that are more let's say rational. It was this idea of having let's say a childlike mind is the way he described it.
You know if we if we had a child in this room right now he'll probably jump on the table. He'll probably make a scene. and he'll make noise understanding the norms and customs of a podcast because he has a open serendipitous flexible mind and with age and with you know life you do become more rigid and uh he was he was saying let's say neuroplasticity or neuro lack of neuro frigid uh whatever flexibility um was was was a reason people would get stuck in their own thought patterns your mind would become an echo chamber and uh you would you know talk yourself into a losing streak uh curious because I know your your partner but also yourself has spent a lot of time with psychology. Does having a curious, playful uh mind help or is it more the academic mind? Because I know a lot of the people at your retreats are of the academia side.
That's very interesting. Academia versus nonacademia. I am I would say I'm non-academic.
I left school. I wanted to be a journalist. I I didn't go to university. I went straight to journalism college for a year. um I wasn't interested in academia, but I've been able to to make it. Um and I think a lot of traders are are rebels. Maybe they don't want to go to university. Um they often um they often have ADHD. They're often uh as you think quite wild. You might find ADHD traders that are brilliant. They can come up here and dance on the table and still do very well because they've actually got that superpower that maybe the academics don't have. So I think you could have academics that would really struggle with with trading because maybe they want everything to be just so or they think they can have a plan whereas the ADHD people they could bounce around their room dancing to music and still make money just being focused for a small amount of time.
Do you think more information more studying more back testing more you know just academia approaches to the markets helps or hinders?
Well, interesting is that I find the people that are the worst at traders or accountants, they are terrible because what they do is they look in so much depth they scare themselves. So any asset they look at they go, "Oh no, I've seen something there. I've seen the uh asset test net asset value blah blah blah isn't quite right. I just can't bring myself to do it." And they're very anxious people as well. Whereas sometimes if people are I often find the the funniest people make very good traders, you know, they got a great personality. They're really really good at it.
I heard a quote and it was that traders need to be arrogant. And the reason being is because you're taking a bet with your money that you know something that the market doesn't know and you need to be right more often than you're wrong. Therefore the idea being that uh the person that is analyzing it well if if majority people can't see it you haven't you know you're trying to carve out an alpha you're trying to carve out a pocket of opportunity and the guy that's hyper analytical he's just going to end up in an analysis paralysis because you need to have a bit of guts or blind spots or courage or whatever it may be. Um but going back to the reason I bring this word up is because we have a list of emotions that I want to read to you um because you you call it the eight deadly emotions. Excitement, desperation, greed, fear, ego mania, stubbornness, anger, regret. A lot of emotions here. Which one would you out of this list would you say is the most detrimental or the first to address for a trader?
Goodness me. Hang on. Read them out again because that goes
Yes. Excitement, desperation, greed, fear, ego mania, stubbornness, anger, and regret.
Interesting. Well, I would start with greed. I mean, greed and fear. Oh, there's two fairly boring ones. Yeah. Yeah. Fear and greed. Greed's very interesting because I think if you are younger and you look online, there's always some 18-year-old with a Lamborghini in the background. It's all about um I'm trying to show off to my mates. Um I suppose that's not exactly greed, but it's more the showing off. Whereas what you're buying with your trading is time, not assets. So, I don't I I like I like walking left on a plane and I like going to explore different places and that's great, but I don't buy rings and Lamborghinis because that's just show showing off. So, you shouldn't worry about what other people think of you, you know. But I suppose that's a bit off off topic there.
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Do you think this ties back to uh a lot of traders are doing a non-conformist path? Most of us, I mean, there's not really a specific way to become a trader. Some people can do it from their bedroom. Some people can take a quant route, whatever the roots may be, but if you want to become a doctor, there's a route and it's established and it's respected, it's understood. So if you are deviating away from the norms to become a trader, you have a different mindset. You are a maybe slightly rebellious as you were saying. But then when you go through periods where your parents doubted you, your friends doubted you, you you retreat into isolation uh because you feel like the people around you don't understand you. Then when you finally find an inkling of success, the first thing you want to do is like see I told you and therefore you know that materialism can be a symbol of I was right and look at this and XY Z. And the reason I specifically bring this because that is not the only way we can express this feeling of see I was right. It can also be with in the prop firm online proper world is uh you go through the evaluations and you get a certificate you get a leaderboard. Now these are just vanity metrics. That certificate has no value. It's not even money. It's just you passed a little exam but then that becomes status. that becomes hey mom and dad look do you think this uh externalizing of your emotions because we were a non-conformist who entered this route in the first place is uh something that we can look to talk about and address.
Yes. I suppose there was something in that me because I left when I left my job. People are going what are you what are you doing? You're going to go trading. You're making 100k 150k a year at Sky TV. What what do you think you're doing? And I said I am sitting here not really enjoying what I'm doing. Maybe the same with you when you were you were a dentist. I'm sitting here opposite this boring carpet warehouse in the middle of the A4 on the way to Heathro airport. I'm bored. I'd rather take a risk with my life and do something with it and sit looking at this carpet warehouse any longer. And the first thing I did was actually place a short on that carpet warehouse because I couldn't see anybody going in. And over three years I got £80,000 out of that trading idea literally because I was sitting looking at that.
That's hilarious. carpet. It's actually the company was called Carpet Warehouse. Actually, it went bust eventually and I did I did a lovely short on it and um people people at my job were going um oh yeah, we're we're going to leave to do our own thing sometime. They're still there 20 years later, bored to hell.
I really enjoyed what I've done. I think I I'm glad I took a risk. So, I would say to anyone out there, take Especially if you're younger, take the risk. Do if you want to do it, do it. Don't don't be scared. which is where we come back to fear I guess which is fear of actually starting trading in the first place. You can do it.
I think a lot of youngsters now are turning towards trading because of the online things that we see. But also the barrier to entry has only got lower with time because now you can trade with leverage and with these online prop funds you can uh get started with just you know $50 let's say whereas previously you would need I don't know a family office and you need a liquidity provider and you need a lot of cash and that that has always come down. I wonder because we do see the statistic that 95% of traders lose but do you believe that it's because it's so hard to make it in this because it is just a difficult endeavor or is that when you lower the barrier to entry you bring in people that should not be here people that are looking to gify exploit gamble uh they don't give it the due process whereas if you look at um it's analogous to how many people that play football in high school that want to be a football player make it to the league or you know basketball players that want to make it to the NBA everything in life worth having could be pay 5% make kids 95% lose but it's just that this one is more in our face because anyone can start to anyone can open an account and trade today and call themselves a trader. Do you think it's the barrier to entry that is the issue or it is actually something extremely difficult?
I do think trading is extremely difficult. There's no doubt about it. As you said you can do it for next to nothing. Leverage is is is fantastic now and you can buy an asset class. You can buy £10,000 worth of asset class for 50 quid or 100 quid in in your account, which is great in one way, but also your losses are magnified if you get it horribly wrong. So I suggest people just be a bit cautious as a lot of we don't use all the leverage. Well, particularly if you haven't got the money to cover it, that's that's the road we're in.
What I would suggest to the younger people here because I know most of the people listen listening to this today will be a lot younger than me would be if you've done well you've done you've you've been in that top 5% and you've made money day trading please don't give it back don't because in effect you are playing a casino but the good news is you have an edge because you made it and that's a brilliant thing about trading if you find your edge you're not really in a casino you can actually take some of the cinos chips what I would say is if you made a lot for god's sake bank some of it now have a plan B with the money that your for your future and think about how can I make smaller amounts of percentage wise on that other figure. So let's say you made I don't know you made a hundred thousand dollars or pounds or whatever it is uh day trading and you go right I'm I'm going to cash in some of my chips. I'm going to put 50 of that aside for my future and all I need to do with that is make 20% on that a year. That's all I'm going to do. I'm gonna buy uh you're gonna become Warren Buffett and you're gonna you're gonna be Warren Buffett for that other money. So, you're going to have I've got my exciting day trading. As I make more money, it's going to drift into my Warren Buffett uh fund. I'm going to buy Nvidia or whatever it is, uh shares and companies that pay dividends. I'm just going to make 20% on that every year. And that pile in my plan B is going to start building uh for my future to pay for my family. And I can continue the day trading to try and generate money. Now, if the market changes and you go, "Oh, I was quite good at day trading. Do you know I'm starting to give it back a bit. It's not so bad because I've got my I've got my account here which is just doing the 20%. No, that's not very exciting. But actually, when you take compounding into effect, boy, the money can really raise.
This is this is a can of worms that I'm going to slightly open because it's a conversation I've had with myself lately because of the situation in Dubai. So, just a bit of context. uh for 10 years I was manually discretionary trading and and building up a a pot and and of course there is this idea that you pull out pay yourself invest it whatever but I just thought the larger my account size can be the more profit I make the you know each percent is worth more so for me it was just a chase to infinity let's say I didn't have an end point or I didn't have a destination and then uh summer last year or just before summer last year I decided to pull out a lot of my uh accounts because I knew that there's leverage there uh and I just put it into right at tariff drop, I put it into the right things and and I just had a V-shaped recovery and everything made 30 40 50% and I felt like the king in the world and obviously it's not realistic to make those gains but with Trump in office and that recovery uh it worked out and then with that I I bought some properties in Dubai and then you know I I mentally checked out of manual trading and and I just like well there's the alpha that I have the profit that I can make with my skill-based trading but the beta as you're saying if you park it into the right things and you let compound interest know you know you can be set for life if you have enough enough in that account and and that was my uh uh sentiment towards the end of the year and even coming into this year I wasn't really trading and then this whole thing happened in Dubai and uh I started to realize well my assets are down the stock market is down uh bitcoin crashed gold started to tank my properties that I invested in which is only in the UAE have come down so my nest egg this great plan that I had all kind of collapsed in front of my eyes now crazy amounts but there is a there is a retracement let's say and then on top of that with the conversation of AI and maybe where the world is headed and that can get a bit dystopian but it just left me to the conclusion that well the only thing left really is skill-based trading it's the alpha you can create of course have you exposure to beta
And now you've had a career how long has your trading career been
25 years
25 years and I'm sure along the way you could have checked out exited I made enough let me just park it into investments yet you you remain ained for this duration. Do you think if you find an edge and and you enjoy it specifically that you should do this for life or is there a end goal? Is there a retirement plan? Like should you phase out of the markets?
I think if you enjoy it, carry on for the rest of your life. Why not? And this is something you can do forever. You could be I don't know how old Warren Buffet is. He must be 95. He still enjoys it. Why not carry I I don't feel any more uh any lack of energy from now than 25 years ago. I feel exactly the same. feel the same amount of energy and I enjoy it exactly the same. Now I don't need the money anymore but I love the detective work and the you've got ah I did a fantastic trader that's lovely. Although what I have found is, and maybe you have, this is when you are starting to brag to your friends and go, "No, I've made a lot of money in the last six months. For God's sake, sell some because that's exactly the time it's going to go down." And if you're feeling pissed off and you're going, "Oh god, I lost so much money." It's probably the time to buy, which is always very difficult, you know.
Can you walk me through your uh ISA uh approach? Because I don't know if you have other accounts, but the you know, putting money into an ISA and and benefiting from the taxfree components, it might just be a UK thing. I'm not sure, but uh it's not something I've really come across. So, but it seems like you're one of the few that have really made the most out of this. If you could elaborate on what
Well, it's a UK thing. We're very lucky in the UK. We can put in 20 grand, 20,000 a year taxfree. And there's no, you don't have to write your trades down. You don't have to pay any tax whatsoever on that money every year. And I worked out that if you put in your 20,000 a year and you just go for 20% a year, you're a millionaire in 13 years. Some of the people watching here are probably 20 21. be in your early 30s and you have a million pounds just on 20% a year. It's quite staring how that can build. And so I started off all I ever put in actually when I started you can only put 5,000 in. So um I now have about 3 million in in that taxfree
And you and you've been putting it in since 25 yearsish.
But not even every year. No. So I've made it from very actually quite small sums
Because then maybe your to your principal the total amount you've put in not even adjusting for inflation but it's probably 300 grandish 400 grand.
No be less than that I think probably maybe a couple of hundred thousand probably something
Because you didn't do it every year. So actually uh yeah you've got a Is this because you benefited from the compound interest component or
Yeah because most of the stuff I buy has four or five% in interest you get every year on it as well. But I didn't just do that. So this is where maybe this is slightly more day traderish kind of. So in the UK, I don't know if you've heard of spread betting.
Yes.
So I have spread betting accounts and I also like going short on companies. So if I find a company that's crap like Carpet Warehouse, absolutely happy to short it and I make a lot of money. So I think if you're a trader, even on the Warren Buffett fund, even if you call that, so you can I can go long in my Iser and I can go shorten the spread bets. So if the market's going down, And it's taxree as well. I I don't have to pay a penny. I've never had to pay penny tax on anything. It's all tax free. Very lucky in the UK.
And I love also trying to find companies and assets that look crap. And I'm pretty certain they're going to go down. Uh probably my best one was Aston Martin. Everybody was buying Aston Martin. Oh, supercars. I thought, ah, supercars. Okay. And all the all men, oh yeah, I must buy some Aston Martin. I looked at the numbers. Okay, it made a profit of 200 million. And I went, it's got a net debt of two billion. I went, "This isn't worth anything." So, the shares were 20 pounds. Well, they're now 45p and I shorted all the way down. I actually just kept the short open for two years and added to it and literally just brought in the money. Still got a bit of it open at 63p or whatever it is now. I've done it with uh with loads of different companies and I I find that a brilliant thing a brilliant and also you can take advantage of black swan events like COVID. So, COVID was I mean that was fantastic. I think I made about well over a quarter of a million in four weeks almost like day trading just by shorting the day on the footsie. You probably know during four or five weeks it literally just kept on going down. I set a stop loss quite three or 400 point stop loss on the footsie and with a Dow it has to be a couple of thousand otherwise you get stopped out. So the Footsie I started I didn't even start at the top. I started at 75 it went down to five. My stop loss was then about 53 54 started going back up. Bingo. I bought a swimming pool. Uh, I enjoyed spending that money because that was money I wasn't really expecting.
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I'm very curious here because my mindset is I'd rather buy an index or gold or something that you know with time will appreciate because uh money is uh printed out of thin air let's say so that's going to trickle into the you know the big companies into gold and you would have that capital appreciation so I'm always skewed towards uh a rising tide raises all ships and I just want to put it in something long-term that's going to go up but it seems like your mentality is find weaknesses and short it all the way down. Do you think that's because you you get more gain? Is it asymmetrical reward or is it a personality?
Huge gain. Plus, I know this sounds awful buying companies going down, but it's kind of like it's more fun.
Okay.
I know it sounds really weird, but um so for example, now you can short companies where AI are going to I'm having great fun shorting companies, which sounds really cruel and horrible because people are going to be out of jobs. I kind of wish I hadn't said that now because people are going to go people are going to write in the comments that bastard's sitting in there. No, but I don't think it's seizing an opportunity is not a reflection on the you're not in control of that. That's the the founders of the company. But it does make me think um shorting or shorting something that you believe is overvalued. Um is this idea that uh I spoke to someone else. He was basically arguing that Tesla has no reason to have the valuation that it does. And he listed a long list of of of valid academic reasons based on revenues and the markets and the and China and XY Z. But he said at the end of the day if I acted upon the data I would have lost money because uh the markets there's that famous saying that the basically the the markets are right when the market is right longer than you can remain solvent.
Yes. Exactly. Something to that effect. True. And is the idea being that headlines sentiment uh narrative maybe would be a greater play than uh the numbers on a balance sheet. How do you then time this correctly to know there's I'm sure there's a lot of things that are overvalued and the numbers look off but knowing this is the one to short and more importantly it's time to short it now. How would you build that framework from idea to execution?
Okay. So I would literally just plan it. Uh I would literally use a stop loss. So when you go short your stop loss has to be higher than the current price. So for example carpet crap house whatever it was called can't remember what it's called. Carpet warehouse. Yeah. I think it was £7 a share and I said, "Okay, I'm willing to take a loss up to £8." So, I just put a stop loss up at £8 and I think on my first trade it went there. I go, "Okay, stopped, took a loss, looked at it again. No, still over. I'll give it another go." That one worked and then it kept on going down £7, £6 keep shorting as it then once it's in a once it starts to tumble as I'm probably sure you've had these kind of trades. it just literally just keeps on going down and you can continue shorting.
But I think it's important to have your plan and I totally agree. You could be in the worst company ever, but sentiment will keep it up. You could think Tesla is a load of rubbish. It could it could still be up there two years' time. It could the share price could be higher.
So in in the list of emotions we had, one of them was ego mania. Now you didn't write ego, you wrote ego mania. So I'm curious on the mania part, but secondarily ego as a word is is curious to me because ego can be like overzealous, think you're better than others, superiority complex, god complex, stubbornness, you know, all of these things can be ego. But then there's also a part of the word ego that I think self-worth, self-preservation, uh, and I deserve this. I put in the time. Uh, so it's confidence based. So ego is it is is it a bad word? Is it something we should look to get rid of?
Oo, it's very difficult. Particularly men. Men have ter women uh female traders, there very few of them around. If I do a hotel seminar for 50 people, it only be three women. Usually, they're usually a lot better because they will literally cut their losses. They don't have that ego. And the ego comes from I've if I cut a loss, I've solidified I've made that mistake. I've crystallized my mistake. If I don't sell it at a loss, I still I'm still fine. I didn't I didn't make that mistake. And most men will then buy more at a lower price rather than getting out. So it's crystallizing a mistake. I made a mistake. I am vulnerable. I'm a human being, not this fantastic person that doesn't make mistakes.
Mhm.
And uh the other one was anger and regret. Now this is obviously probably when you've taken a loss and then you you ruminate and you feel the emotions. So we had this one example of walk away from the asset for six months. Uh what is other things we could do of specifically anger and regret specifically because traders these days majority are using prop firms and therefore the anger and regret is not necessarily about losing money it's that you failed the evaluation you didn't get the funding and you know that now there is milestones in place that are not just about the money it's it's the infrastructure of these profits so then these feelings can get very loud uh but we I mean most traders don't have the capital to then put into a deposit so then they have to go back to these profits they can't really walk away for 6 months how can someone uh navigate these very normal emotions.
That's very difficult, especially as we discussed earlier, most traders are rebellious. You don't really want to go with a prop firm. You want to be your own fund manager because at the prop firm, you got a boss who's looking over what you're doing. And most people absolutely hate that. How on earth do you get rid of that emotion? Uh is something I wish I knew the answer. But
Fair enough.
Sadly, I haven't got an answer for you.
Fair enough.
Yeah. Uh so the other thing that I have was we have a few playbooks uh and uh you've given them names. Dash for cash, go against the crowd, play dumb uh to make some out money, tame black swans, structuring your portfolio like a football team. So there's a long list. Uh so without getting into each one because I'm sure that becomes quite lengthy. It's more how do you what are you looking for first of all to define a playbook and uh you know what are the criteria to make it a playbook and should you only trade things that you've defined as a playbook?
Okay. One of the I mean you you talk about dash for cash. So this is a uh a screen for companies and the idea behind it is I'm looking for companies that have got great net cash. So you take all their debt, you take all their cash and they're cash positive and over 25 years generally those companies will do will do quite well because they've got a cash they then can buy other companies with that cash and they can grow through acquisition. When you've got big net debt then I will tend to go short and my one rule is um for a short or not buy something is if it makes a profit of uh I don't know 100 million pounds or dollars and the net debt is more than three times that profit.
I'm out or I'm short because that company is going to struggle to get to get through that debt and you it's amazing how many companies have that big debt and that's how I made the profit on Aston Martin and plenty of other companies the debt just gets too and they start to topple like Aston Martin did even with the Saudis put in tons of money even that all that money all that money went so I think especially if you're going to start your Warren Buffett fund by the way when Warren Buffett came to the UK met the queen he called himself apparently Warren Buffet because sounded you sounded more posh sound.
I'm mad, I'm Warren Buffet actually Warren Buffett so that's.
You know valuations and equities is not my arena but the first thing that comes to my mind when you mention this is of course you have the logic side of you know debt to profit ratio and these kind of things.
But uh specifically of Warren Buffett that we've spoken about if I'm not wrong his belief is not only about valuations and the numbers he believes in brands like Coca-Cola Apple which is a large holding of his and I believe the reason he does this is because you can charge premiums for subpar products because of brand and therefore how do you bring in brand into valuations and decision-making because Aston Martin of course the numbers sound like they were bad but it's you know James Bond it's best of British so how would you navigate this alongside uh you know the numbers on a balance sheet.
Oh well I would literally forget about the brand and look at the numbers the brand is the thing that is.
Propping it up.
That that is propping it up and actually often the especially now I think even in the last couple of years I think brands are start some brands are starting to use lose their power I don't know Yes, exactly. Yes, there quite a few examples. And once they lose their power, people suddenly suddenly go the light goes in their eyes and goes, I've been buying this crap. I I can buy something half as cheap just because it doesn't have that name. So, I think the power of the brand is is starting to Wayne.
And the other thing that stood out to me here was treat your portfolio or structure your portfolio like a football team. What does that mean?
Yeah. Oh, okay. So, you have your your defense. So your Warren Buffett fund will be your defensive your your goalkeeper your uh your defensive players and then your attackers your your goal scorer is your high risk that's going to try. So I guess in a way your day trading would be your your striker and your winger and your attackers and your Warren Buffett fund would be your defense, your goalkeeper and your your defensive. I'm trying to keep hold of the money because it's all very well making money but keeping hold of it is a whole different ballgame, isn't it? H you know what if my trading plan goes wrong the worst thing I think worst feeling in the world is actually making it and then losing it.
All again and then trying to start again. What I see very often is the people advise traders that you know keep your job as long as possible because it acts as a you know it gives you that mental space to take risk uh and as long as you can balance both you you should do it whereas it seems like you left the job first and then figured out rest the rest later.
Uh which is one thing uh but more that stood out to me is you walked away from a job that had a very high salary relatively speaking so then your opportunity cost of not working or what you needed to make from the markets was not just if I can make enough to pay my bills cuz you could do that with your job. It was I got to make more than my salary otherwise why am I bothering? Does having a greater delta of like you know your opportunity cost of your income make it harder in that case and therefore people like the doctors and dentists that come to your seminars are in a weaker position because their salary is higher than most.
Totally agree for them it's quite hard to become a full-time trader. I mean, you did it from your.
But I did it uh right off the back of graduation. So, I I didn't enter the world. But if I was sitting on 100 grand salary and I had a mortgage, uh I think it would be a lot harder to take a risk. I think youth was on my side there.
I agree. I think I think the older you get, the harder because you you get more responsibilities, you get commitment, you might get a family or whatever. So, it's actually a lot harder. Um, so, I mean, yeah, there's a couple of pe couple of dentists. I mean, it's very very popular amongst dentists trading because you can have a you can go and do a patient and then you can check the check. When I've got a friend who's a dentist, however, if I've got an appointment with him, I never go if I know he's losing money because he's got his drill in his hand. I don't really want that. But yes, I do agree with you. I think if you're making a lot of money, it's very hard. But then you can just do it part-time, can't you? You don't have to do it full-time.
Mhm.
Is this uh ISA route that you you had taken your main uh profit in the markets or was this just it was and why did you take this route? Was it because of the tax tax?
Um I like simplicity and I didn't want to have to start filling out tax forms.
Okay. Who wants to? And I got a little bit of a lucky start because when I started 20200, if you just said you'd started an internet company or you got an internet site, your share price would like double really quickly. So it was fairly easy start for me and then I learned how to go short. I will actually go short in the ISA using an ETF as well.
Okay. Yes.
So black swan event um like COVID I will make a lot of money also. I think if you do that you can hang on to your longer-term ideas. You know they go down a bit but you know you've got a short on which will cover it. I think in your in your world it's probably called hedging or something. Um you're hedging your ideas. In your case, if your total principal is a couple hundred grand, the total profit you have in your accounts is 3 million and uh you you were limited by the amount you could deposit. Um and probably you had the feeling of let's not withdraw it because I have the tax benefits here. Was the the lack of you know not pulling all of it out and spending it. Was that the main reason you were able to grow? It's so large because it there is there is a huge uh rate of return here or or was it more a case of uh skill base or was it more a case of risk? You just risked heavy over time like.
I think that's where the spread betting part came in. So I treated my spread betting as shorter term trading and the ISA as a long-term pot which we kind of discussed the A and the and the A and the B. Uh so with the um spread betting over I think probably three or four years I made I made over a million on that tax free which is how I bought my.
Okay.
So I bought my house I'm living in now literally me and my wife thought is that real money cuz we thought we're going to try and buy this house. So I had four spread betting accounts and we we just started withdrawing the money from each of them. I went my god it's real money. It's because you couldn't quite believe we were buying a house from what is in essence was gambling.
Why do you choose the word gambling?
Well, I I think all trading is gambling to a certain extent, but it's not gambling like uh you're going to uh a bookmaker and you're putting your last pound in a slot machine. You the successful traders have some kind of an edge whether it's day trading or you're trying to be Warren Buffett. You have your your plan and I think the most important thing in any trading is your plan. What especially what are you going to do if it starts to screw up? Where are you going to get out and are you going to get out? Are you gonna stick by that plan? Whatever you do, don't mess about.
I like this topic. So, the difference between a gambler and trader, there probably is a very fine line because there's a lot of similarities, but the what you just mentioned here is as long as you got a plan. The first thing that I think is well gamblers, I'm sure they have a plan. I'm sure they have a strategy. They're like, I'm going to, you know, I've got this approach in the poker table or in the roulette wheel. I'm always going to pick even numbers or whatever. They all have a plan.
But uh they don't make money. Gamblers usually lose money. Uh what is then therefore the difference between a gambler and a trader?
Well the trader will definitely be will definitely have that edge whatever it is. So let's say for example you're going to casino. The only game you can probably make money on a bit is blackjack if you're a very good card counter. But the casino will see very quickly if you're a card counter and you'll be out in your ear. If you have a bit of an edge um as a trader, nobody cares. You can make whatever money you like. Nobody's going to throw you out. And that's the advantage you have as a as a trader. I can make as much. So, let's say for example, I was spread betting uh horses. If I made money on the horses directly against the bookmaker, you're out. So, your account is closed. Spread betting, they don't care because they can just they hedge every position you make. And.
Yeah.
So I can make as much as I like. I think even in the horse betting scenario, you even if you have a bit of an edge or a bit of luck on your side with the fees and the ratios which they've all calculated with algorithms, it is not in your favor.
I can tell you for sure cuz I actually I started off as is as a horse in horse betting in the mid '90s. I actually owned horses. I I bought horses and I made money out of it, but I could only make 20 25,000 a year, which wasn't really enough for what I was even with inside knowledge of some of the races.
Interesting. And and therefore the the analogy therefore for me becomes trade like a c try to be like a casino because they have an edge and they don't care if someone makes a million dollars lose a million dollars they're on Facebook because they know over time they have that that edge that pocket. Therefore the trader needs to basically have that edges as your.
You must have it. If you don't have it you then you're in effect just a gambling. You will over time just a matter of time how much money you'll lose.
Where is the easiest place to start looking for an edge? Is it for example you have technicals is it fundamentals? of what you trade abs.
It's whatever you want. My I don't know if it's an edge, but I use the level two order book. I know that you have that in the US. So, I don't buy anything unless I see there's loads of buyers in the background supporting the price. If I see loads of sellers, I'm going ah no, forget about it. So, I've got a little uh technical aspect to my trading in which I don't buy something when I can see in the background there's loads of sellers. So, let's say you think of trading as gambling and it's poker and uh you're the c you're the casino. You've got five cards and I've got five cards. Using my level two screen, I feel I've got a I can see a couple of your cards. And I find that really helps me. So, I've got my final little edge as to when to place a trade. And that's also great because if the asset starts to go down and all those buyers are taken out, that's probably quite serious and I can sell quite quickly.
Mhm. Just get out of it.
When you're looking to the sells, which is against the consensus, uh what are you looking for there? Because you are probably seeing a lot of buyers and price going up, but then you're deciding to go against the the positioning of others. Uh what is there for the opportunity?
I'm just looking I'm looking um not at the current price, but I'm looking to see are there any massive sellers just a little bit higher in the market, and that would that would be my cue to go short on something, right? I say uh you know, the price is going up. looks like it's going up. You know what? It's not really because somebody wants to sell half million pounds worth a couple of pence higher. I'm going okay. Now, we don't know what they know. What we don't know uh insider trading is supposed to be illegal. No one ever gets caught for it. And I feel.
On these order books, you can kind of see a bit of that coming in. You can kind of see.
Is the level two most useful on shorter time horizons or is it is it on bigger, you know, daily charts, weekly chart?
You can you can use it for either really. um the kind of uh I would say very very big companies it's harder because there's so many people getting in and out trying to make a penny here or half a cent there. So the slightly smaller companies a little bit easier because there's less a little bit about a bit you're a bit like being in a side room at the casino rather than the main room with the smaller companies and I find I can read those quite well. So I can kind of see I one example or sometimes it gets me out of a company that's about to produce a profits warning. So I bought something and I was then I looked at the order book a week later it was going down and I was going that wrong should probably sell. I looked at the order book oh my god look at all those sellers in there. I'm out. Three weeks later, profit's warning. It goes down by half.
Do you think somebody can build an entire strategy system and edge from exclusively looking at charts and level two orders or do you think the the whole part of the conversation we had about fundamentals and valuations is essential also?
I don't think any of it is essential. I think you have to build your plan. But I think why not take a look at everything just.
I I always suggest it's a bit like being a detective. detective work. So, you're detecting the asset or company. What's it worth? Is it worth more? Okay. Now, I'm looking at the technical side. Where are people buying? Where are people selling? And the ones I like is when you can, you've got a swing trade. So, you see, okay, you've got the bottom, what's it called? Resistance or support. Support and resistance or whatever. And you know, the asset keeps going between those. Those are the ones I like. So, I can spread those. I can go up.
I can go down. Okay.
And but you can also place a value on it. I can see, oh, I can see why the market supports it at that price. Do, you know, I can see why it's too expensive with that price. Those are the kind of ones I love.
Oh, so you're not really trying to catch a trend. You're you're preferring to play within a range.
I love the range. Give me a lovely range. 50 60 points up and down, up and down. And if you start looking at charts, you'll go, "Oh, I can start to see these." It doesn't even take much technical skill. I can see, yeah, it goes to that point, then it goes to that point. One thing I would say if you're playing that, check when they're about to report a statement because that could throw the range off and especially if you've made a nice profit out of it, it's going to report to. So let's say you made a nice profit out of Tesla, you can say, "Oh, hang on. It's going to report tomorrow. What if it says nobody wants to go into a robo car and they're not selling or whatever, I'll just take my profit the day before." And in the UK right now in particular, when a company reports on a certain day, it goes down even if the report's great because people go, "I'm going to Yeah, yeah, I've done well. I'm going to take my profits off the table." Just take it the day before.
Interesting longevity in the markets. Now, a lot of people probably watching are at the one year mark, two year mark. And uh the earlier you mentioned as long as you enjoy it, you know, why not keep doing it?
Uh does enjoying it necessarily mean you're making money? uh and therefore that is the enjoyment or can you find other ways to enjoy trading?
I think if you keep losing it's you're going to struggle to uh to enjoy. I would say that it isn't for everybody and if you've really tried and you can't do it then don't. I mean there's other professions in life. You don't maybe we're not all we're all that that particular brain set to do it for some reason or other. And I have met people and I think what I would say is they're very very bad gamblers and it's like I met one guy so he came to a seminar and he said oh yeah um yeah I went long of the I can't remember it was the dow or the footy and I said how are you doing? He said oh well you know what happened I lost £24,000 overnight cuz I didn't realize it kept going all night you know I thought it would just d up again in the morning. Yeah. hadn't done his research on it. And I went, "Okay." And he did it again. I went, "You.
There's this old phrase, history keeps repeating itself.
And if you keep losing money on the same thing, you've just got to stop and find something else. And um I know this sounds weird, but I do questionnaires for seminars. This is probably the weirdest thing you've ever heard. So my final question is I I'm a lot of the questions designed to find out is this person a hopeless gambler because uh that comes with self-destruction. Some people have got a self-destructive streak and if you have that in your life you will you almost want to lose money. I know that sounds crazy. The question is um what is your favorite chocolate bar? I know that you're frowning at me. You're going what is he talking about? I know this sounds really weird, but the worst traders put down 70 or 80% organic chocolate bars. Now, you might think, why are these the worst traders? It's because they're very fixed in their mind. I like it's got to be 75% organic chocolate. And I find they're the hardest people to train. They are fixed in their mindset because if somebody just puts, "Oh, I like a Mars bar or a Twix and go, oh yeah, yeah, my kind of person. That probably make a good I know that sounds really weird but every time it's always a red flag for me.
Would that apply to vegans too?
Yeah. Well, I don't know. Vegans might might feel a bit weak to trade. Probably probably getting into a subject we should probably.
Yeah.
You probably get some comments from vegans going, "How dare they say that about vegans?"
Yeah. Um, curious enough then on the flip side of this, uh what would you what signs do you see in individuals that have made great traders in the future?
Oh, perseverance and sticking to their plan. And a lot of it are the women because they don't have the egos. They resolutely stick to their plan. They will do the stop-loss. They will research. They will research their trade. They will do brilliant things. And the men are just I don't know what it is. They just struggle sometimes. I've spoken to a variety of guests on the show and a unanimous common denominator between all of them is the emphasis they put on data and actually knowing the inner workings and the insight of your edge and your performance. That's why I'm proud to bring a partner of the show, Tradzella, the number one journaling, back testing, and all-in-one insight experience created by traders for traders. What Tradezella really gives you is deep insights about your trading that would ordinarily not be visible. Whether it's through understanding your trade types and playbooks or even insights powered by artificial intelligence through Zela AI. Whether you trade forex, futures, cryptos, the stock market, it all seamlessly connects to Tradzella. So there is no additional work. You've seen me reference it dozens of times and all of the benefits I've had in my trading from the insights I found from my Tradzilla. So join myself and thousands of other viewers of the show. You'll get the best discount using the link in the description or code toot for Titans of Tomorrow. The stereotype is that women are more emotional but uh the the more deadly emotions that we spoke about of revenge, anger, ego, stubbornness probably is more of a masculine trait, let's say, or found more in men. Uh do you think the reason we you you find that women are you know more likely to be successful is it's not the emotions that is the issue. It's the type of emotions that men have that maybe is is the issue.
Yeah. I think it comes down to ego again, isn't it? I I've got this right. I can brag to my friends. Whereas women just women are more matter of fact. They go, "Oh yeah, it didn't work out. Okay, I'll just cut it." Men go, "No, no, no. I'm sticking to it. Don't care what anyone says. I'm right all along." And I've met men that were there was one guy who came to a seminar, sat at the back with his girlfriend. His girlfriend rolled her eyes all the seminar because he kept saying he blamed everybody else. It was Donald Trump's fault his trades weren't going. It was somebody else's fault. Wasn't his research. The market was was wrong. Accountability.
He was right. And he wasn't selling it. Everything was going down. And I said, "Just bring your laptop up at lunchtime. I'll sell it all for you. Okay, I'll do it all for you." Guess what? 10 minutes before lunch, he disappeared.
10 minutes after lunch, he came back. Wasn't interested. He he was right. And his girlfriend came up to me and going, "Yeah, I can't I can't change his mind on anything at all."
Why do you think there is uh both traders are bad if women traders could do that?
Oh, that is it's it's got to be 95% I I would guess on the on the people that come.
Um, that's a really good question. Why is it maybe more is it uh going back to the cave days where the the man feels he has to go out and get the woolly mammoth and defeat it and kill it and bring it home and.
The feeling to provide I guess.
Because there is equal opportunity there is equal access there is you know there is equality across the board but there's a heavy skew to Walter Bell. The only reason that I ponder upon this is because even on the show, we've only had a couple of female trainers. The viewers are majority men. So, it is a very male male-dominated industry. The only thing I can think of is risk. Uh the appetite towards risk. Oh.
I should I should give my wife a call. She she's sort of a a psychologist on this. Why Why is it I think listening in on some of her conversations, I think it could be the women are just a bit too nervous because they think it's a male thing. Huh? It's a stigma.
Yes, I think so. Um, but the ones that do it are really good once they've I think they get fearful and and yeah, it just feels like trading is a male thing. I think it's uh they think, oh, the men are the bankers and they go off into their banks and are not worthy. And I think you get a lot of stories of women going into the banks and the men take the piss out of them, don't they? And there's a lot of sexism going on and the women sometimes take legal cases, don't they?
You know, and the men.
The men chat them up or whatever and don't see them as equals. Even I know in the current world we're all supposed to be equal. I'm not quite sure in the real world that's.
Necessarily true.
I I agree. I see it. But it's actually good to good to know that, you know, there could be fantastic women traders in the making as long as this stigma and stereotype kind of in the future improves. I would urge any women out there that are thinking um not worthy enough, you are you're probably going to be better.
So what I would what I would also add this from my experience if you're a husband and wife just trade separately because there's I did a seminar like about six months ago and there's a husband and wife in the front row and they argued the whole of the first half constantly about their different traits. But luckily lad time he went to the back thank god and she was in the front but yeah maybe maybe.
The last topic I had in mind was most people start off as a lone wolf you know they they have their ordinary path in life they become a non-conformist and start this trading journey and no one in their vicinity whether it's their friends family neighborhood no one is a trader so they do it alone.
And then with time you find people you resonate with through online communities or you just find other people that you resonate with and then the obvious decision therefore becomes why not trade together. So you jump on Zoom calls, I did it say or let's live together and then u you trade as a team and you bounce ideas off each other and you know that can lead to its own problems as you're describing here either conflicting ideas or hyping each other up yes man to each other etc or you don't want to take accountability for your opinion so you just agree uh let's say should trading remain a lone wolf endeavor that is your independent thoughts or collaboration is helpful.
I'm going to give you absolute definitive answer I'm just going to pause to make it more exciting is that and we'll find out the answer after the break. No. Um, be a lone wolf.
Yeah.
This might be a surprising answer, but you are literally going to get other people's biases. The people that lost money, I find, are the people that have got a friend. I I get this all the time at seminars. Oh, someone down the pub I had a chat with and they said, "This is a great one. Uh, I found this person online, this tipster, and I pay for this newsletter or whatever." And when I get email, I get email tips all the time. They're usually absolutely awful. So, um, and if somebody chases me, I've had people chase me around seminars with their share that they love, but you should buy this, Robbie. This is fantastic. I immediately look at it and and generally I find if I go short on it, I'm usually going to make a load of money because when somebody's in love with a share, honestly, it's usually bad. And I don't know why they they fall in love with bad things. But, sorry, off a tangent there. Either way, yeah, it was regarded the trading as a team or lots, but we got I would say.
Now I know it's very difficult because it is a lonely thing to do to plow your own for and we're as humans we're pack animals.
We we want to follow somebody else. We always do. Um, but I I find it quite easy. But socialize with people that don't trade. Don't you don't have to have a a friend who's a trader. Be your own person. Be your own man. Be your own woman. go your own way because you will just get confirmation biases of other people and it it won't work.
To end off the episode uh I especially because you've had 25 years of experience, you've done something unique which is uh with the ISA opportunity make disproportionate gains which has been wonderful. So with a lengthy career and a lot of success and also advising a lot of others through your seminars and books, uh I'm curious to know what would be your heaviest hitting piece of advice that you would want a younger trader to know about.
This is I'm going to say something really boring here because it's one of those boring cliche things. Maybe cut the losses, run the winners. What can I say? It it's really boring. It's what every coach will tell you. It's easy to say it's really really hard to actually do. And if either of those two things, cut the losses, please. Because if you cut your losses small, you can have loads of small losses. It doesn't matter. Big big winners will carry you through.
And I feel better in in myself. If I cut a loss, I'm more interested in when I cut the loss, as we talked about earlier, that weight will come with your shoulders and that stress will go.
There we go.
If you keep on with that, if you keep on with those big losses, you'll carry that weight in your body. you will feel terrible and you'll be a bad trader.
Robbie, a wonderful episode. Thank you for your time and the opportunity.
Thank you.