Topics:
- Crawling into Trading Futures
- Becoming a CMT – Chartered Market Technician
- Developing Your Own Style
- Process for Technical Analysis
- Not Overlapping Indicators
Guest:
Trent Smalley
Futures Trader & CMT – Chartered Market Technician
Trent’s Resources
Rapid Fire ?
Q. What trader has influenced your life the most and why?
A. Jeff Kohler of Kohler Capital Mgmt. I was in his room for about 4 years and took away a lot of real world trading experience as I learned to trade along side someone with a less than theoretical approach – things a book won’t teach you.
Q. Favorite book about trading?
A. How To Make Money In Stocks by William O’Neil / Van K. Tharp Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom
Q. How has your trading process evolved over the years?
A. I became much more focused on risk management and what could go wrong before considering making money from a trade. I learned the hard way by losing money, and then losing more money. It wasn’t until I found a way to manage risk using technical analysis that I felt like I was no longer gambling. I stopped swinging at a high number of pitches and started focusing on taking only the best setups that worked for my style, time-frame, and risk appetite.
Q. What is one attribute that you believe every trader should have?
A. Humility. I’m hard headed and stubborn in many aspects of life and started that way as a trader. I was always married to a theme or a position and would rationalize letting losers go too far against me. It wasn’t until I put together a plan to tell myself where I was wrong on a trade before I ever entered it that I managed risk properly.
Q. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received about trading?
A. The reason fundamental investors have to have such a long time frame is because their timing is often so horrendous. – Peter Reznicek of ShadowTrader
Q. If you could give the younger you advice after everything you’ve learned about trading and the oil markets, what would it be?
A. Slow down. There are roughly 252 market sessions in each calendar year. Even making $200 a day on average would lead you to a 50k annual salary. Riches will not come overnight, and if they do the probability of losing them is high. Disciplined approach is the only way.
Q. If you had to elevator pitch me your edge in trading what would you say?
A. Without a doubt just the number of hours of screen time put in over the past 14 years. I have a unique ability to find setups that are set to move (up or down) which simply comes from thousands of hours of putting in screen time.
Q. Favorite thing to do when you’re not trading?
A. Love to exercise, weight lifting and keeping in shape. I practice Transcendental Meditation as part of that which is exercise for the mind.
If you enjoyed this interview with Trent be sure to listen to these other episodes:
Evolving As A Trader — Merritt Black
Less About Fundamentals, More About Risk Management – Mark Dow
