Episode 101 ... Siam Kidd (113:27)

"Sitting in my Tesla"
"I love Elon Musk"
0-60 in 2.8 seconds, he says
British
30 years old now, stone broke at age 25
Was pilot in Air Force, station commander can earn 80-90K GBP after 20 years in, realized he had to get out
Joined Air Force at age 18
Had been trading for seven years (since 18), first four years of trading a horror story
"Billy Big Balls Syndrome" -- he'd go on a streak, get overconfident
Online gambling and trading the only ways he could figure how to make "easy" money
Martingale strategy using online roulette, thought he had cracked the system [funny]
Revenge gambled his maxed-out Virgin credit card on online roulette, lost it all
Moved on to trading where he "did considerably worse" [he has a sense of humor]
Opened 2,000 GBP account, lost it within one day
Blew his 2,000 GBP Air Force income every month for four years, all off one minute chart
Girlfriend was supportive of his leaving the Air Force, trusted him to dig himself out [she must be an angel]
Left Air Force with no safety net, ten grand in savings, started trading full time
Made 30% per month for the first few months, then lost half his capital in one month
Shopping in Lidl, could choose cheese or mayo, couldn't have both, rock bottom
Got 16K admin role at some staffing company, had to pay the bills, completely demoralizing
Still trading his 2,000 account, went back to the drawing board
Risk management finally clicked after year seven, went back to the daily charts
"Triple R" ... risk reward ratio must be 1 to 3 and preferably 1 to 8
Van Tharp book a huge help
Wish he had had a mentor who knew what he/she was doing, something more than just googling for answers
Made every mistake he could: strategy hopping, buying black boxes, scalping, day trading
No good or bad forms of trading, all about risk management
New traders should never day trade
"Boring trading is good trading"
Second guessing yourself with every new five minute candlestick
Making more decisions than you need to when intraday trading
Be super selective, don't take many trades
Only 100K traders in the UK, 95% of them losing money hand over fist
Smart traders know how retail traders think and take advantage of them
Stop running is rampant among pro traders and institutions, they seek out the retail orders
Scouring the internet for "systems" ... that's a real rat race
Markets only trend 15% of the time, chop the rest
Trades currencies now, looks at 20 different pairs
He's flat almost all the time, small wins, small losses, and a very occasional huge win
Tries to catch reversals, so he gets stopped out a lot
He will put orders out into space at "support or resistance" and hopes to get hit
Get the best Triple R from this kind of entry
His win rate is 32%
Didn't want to stare at charts all day long
Max risk for him is 0.25% per trade
When trade goes in his favor, he scales in, adds .75% and then between .25% and .50%
Thought Trump would win and markets would tumble, he didn't anticipate rebound and rally
He looks for "coiling" ... volatility drops dramatically, range contracts ... "market compression"
Places "fishing nets" above and below
Gets shorts in during stop runs above [and I presume longs in during stop runs below]
"It's just a numbers game." All about managing risk-reward
Catch a thousand+ pip trade once or twice is year, you're set
Has a lot of physical gold and silver as a hedge
Make things mechanical, don't scare yourself out
Uses two moving averages to manage his stop losses (8 EMA 21 EMA), keeps it simple
Uses round numbers and .50 levels, trails below 8 EMA and these levels
21 EMA gives you enough space to catch the trends
Spends less than five minutes a day trading, adjusting stop losses using 21 EMA
You can do 10,000 hours of chart time and "still be shit at it" ... will take a lot longer time than that if you're not focused
Read everything that Van Tharp has ever written
People quit trading because it just takes too much time to do (screen time)
Uses three screens
If he has to think about it longer than three seconds, he won't take the trade
Once you're back from holiday, trade very small until you get your market sense back
Business is the best "asset class" there is ... best risk/reward there is
Has a stake in 15 different businesses now (says he's down to seven now)
You need a lot of capital to make money trading ... making 30% on a 10 grand account, even every month, doesn't mean anything
You don't want to be rich through compounding because you'll be too old to enjoy it
If you run a business, get out of the weeds (don't get bogged down in the details)
His first two or three businesses failed miserably
Bought silver in bulk, made under 20 grand profit on 1.4MM in turnover ... horrible time-adjusted return
Took M&A course for 7,000 GBP in Mallorca ... shockingly it wasn't a scam
"All business owners are mugs."
BIMBO ... buy in management buy out
Has a very negative outlook on the world
HFT now seeping into the currency markets, already licked the equity markets
Don't try to make money trading unless you already have a large amount of money to trade
Never think trading will get you out of the financial hole you're in
Get your trading record audited so it's "proper legit" ... then easier to raise capital
Find 3,000 people who pay you seven quid a month regularly (with a product or service), then sell it for 2MM
"Never deliver shit"
Dollar shave club dot com a great example
Passionate views on schooling system, did a TedX Talk on topic
Kids being killed mentally by schools
Work 40 hours a week for 40 years and get a pension at 40% of what you made
Kids now have "bugger-all skills"
Has five-month-old child, doesn't want creativity beaten out of him
Wants to create just one school that adopts his philosophy
Wants kids playing with robotics, 3D printing, augmented reality from Day One
He's not a fan of trigonometry [I'm chuckling]
Long summer holidays from school all about the Harvest (not relevant anymore)
Will need 10MM quid to build his school, doesn't want any external funding
"I'm a simple bloke with average qualities from Norwich"
Sir Ken Robinson, big fan of him
He's not naturally a Big Thinker
Do Review Apply ... Air Force saying [reminds me of Netto]
Goal setting is silly, focus on your habits instead
Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill ... big fan of the book
Everyone thinks small, you should think big
You're swimming in an ocean of opportunity
Always think bigger, not "I have to buy a house," but "I have to buy a village"
Humans always adapt, always "up-skill"
But rate of technological change has increased so much, will create future shock for humans
Recommends the book, Abundance by Peter Diamandis
"Sorry for rambling on"
Says some nice things to Aaron in parting
Has YouTube videos
Twitter: @SiamKidd