Trader Interviews

One of the things that Paul and I (Trader 333) are hoping to do is to make the Articles section more dynamic, relevant and interesting to as broad a section of the community as possible. With this in mind, we're looking at a new initiative based on a series of trader interviews and also interviews with people working in the trading and investment industry as a whole (but not necessarily as traders). For the most part, these interviews will be recorded and uploaded to the site so that members can listen to them. Fear not, for those of you that prefer virtual ink on paper, written transcriptions will accompany the MP3 files.

The trader interviews will be very comprehensive; please see the list of trader interview questions (next post) and feel free to suggest questions you’d like asked or deleted because they’re not interesting or relevant. For the interviews with market professionals, we’re considering the tried and tested format of 'A Day in the Life of . . .' The idea would be to cover as many of the jobs / roles that we can think of that exist within the industry. A few obvious examples include:
A Day in the Life of an Equity Analyst
A Day in the Life of a Broker
A Day in the Life of a Prop' / Arcade Trader
A Day in the Life of a Hedge Fund Manager
These interviews will complement the trader interviews and, over time, build into a collection that will provide a window into corners of the industry to which only the privileged few currently have access.

Together, both the trader interviews and the 'A Day in the Life of . . .' interviews will give members real insight into the industry as a whole. You can help us achieve our objectives in three ways:

1. By suggesting individual traders that you know who we could interview. If they’re not T2W members, please PM their contact details to Paul or myself. It’s easy enough to draw up a dream list of famous traders you’d like us to interview, but contacting them might not be so easy! So, if you suggest the likes of George Soros, furnishing us with his personal mobile number or e-mail address would be appreciated!

2. By suggesting industry jobs / roles that you want to know more about from a professional actually doing the job.

3. By adding to (or deleting from) the list of trader interview questions (see next post) and/or to the list of 'A Day in the Life of . . .' interview questions (post after next).

Thanks for your help everyone!
Tim.

Because (most of) the interviews will be recorded conversations, not all questions listed here will be asked and, conversely, questions not on the list will be asked. Therefore, the list is just something to hang the interview on – a kicking off point - nothing more.

INTRODUCTION
1. How did you get into trading and how successful were you to start with?
2. Are you self-taught or have you received tuition along the way? (If so, who from?)
3. Are you a discretionary trader or a mechanical trader and what’s your opinion of the other?
4. Is trading your primary income source and how long have you been consistently profitable?

THE EARLY YEARS
5. Do you remember your first trade or have any memorable early experiences?
6. Do you still trade the same market(s) now that you traded in the early years?
7. How much starting capital did you have then and how much would you say a new trader needs now to trade the same market?
8. What were the key lessons that you learnt early on that have enabled you to survive and prosper long term in the markets?
TRADING PHILOSOPHY & BELIEFS
9. Can you give a broad overview of your trading philosophy and trading style? (E.g. someone who is very risk averse, trades conservatively to avoid the risk of ruin and to preserve capital, so that no matter what happens they remain in the game.)
10. What are the common denominators of successful traders and what are their character traits?
11. Do you think successful traders are born with natural ability or is trading a skill that can be learnt (i.e. nature Vs nurture)?
12. Do you bounce ideas of other traders or get advice from forums like T2W, brokers and tip sheets etc., or are you completely self sufficient?
13. Do you spend much time researching the markets, reading company reports, broker reports, press reports and news announcements etc. (if so, please list)?
14. What makes you think / believe that you’ll continue to be profitable in the future?
15. Do you have a written trading plan and do you keep a trading journal?
16. A few years ago, price action was king and indicators were a dirty word. Now charts are getting a hiding because, allegedly, institutional traders don’t use charts. What’s your view?

TRADING STRATEGY
17. What markets and instruments do you trade - and which timeframes do you trade etc?
18. Do you use fundamental analysis – or are you purely T.A. based?
19. Do you use any technical indicators at all – if so, which ones? (MACD, Stochastics, RSI etc.)
20. What is your basic approach to analysing and trading the markets? (Breakouts, pullbacks and reversals. Fading the trend, trading with the trend or channels in rangebound markets etc.)
21. Can you outline your trading strategy – is it simple or complicated? (Setups, entries and exits)
22. Can you describe a typical trading day / week?
23. Do you ever trade more than one instrument (or market) simultaneously?

RISK & MONEY MANAGEMENT
24. What is your attitude towards risk and how do you manage it? (Conservative or aggressive)
25. What percentage of total equity will you risk on any one trade?
26. Do you advocate tight stops, wide stops or no stops at all (a.k.a. ‘Spanish’ stops)?
27. ‘Cut your losses and let you profits run’ is one of the great axioms of trading. Do you subscribe to it and, if so, how do you make it work for you? (Easier said than done for most!)
28. Do you use pre-defined stop loss and profit targets and do you always exit trades at those points?
29. How long – on average – do you hold on to each trade?
30. Has your trading ever seriously gone off track and, if so, what measures did you take to get it back on track?
31. Have you ever - or would you ever - consider averaging up/down on a trade? (Adding to a losing position, thereby reducing the amount price needs to reverse in order to reach break even.)
32. What (other) specific money and risk management rules or techniques do you use?

WINNERS & LOSERS
33. How do you cope with losing periods and slumps? (Reduce size, stop trading, hibernate etc.)
34. Have you ever chased the markets or overtraded in an attempt to recoup losses?
35. What’s the biggest losing trade and/or drawdown on your account you’ve ever experienced?
36. What’s the biggest winning trade?
37. What is your long-term Success Ratio? (Number of profitable trades Vs the number of losing trades.)
38. What is your long-term Profit Ratio? (Profit on winning trades Vs the loss on losing trades.)

HEAD STUFF (PSYCHOLOGY)
39. Do you get emotional when trading and do you find trading stressful (ever)?
40. How do you insulate yourself from your emotions to prevent them from clouding your judgement? (Wishing, hoping, praying, fear and greed etc.)
41. What are your trading strengths and weaknesses?
42. How do you handle losing trades – do they ever worry you – do you need to be proved right?
43. Trading can be very isolating (especially day trading). Do you find this and how do you combat it?
44. Has the market ever humbled you and what lessons has the market taught you?

EDUCATION & CLOSING COMMENTS
45. What’s you view on trading gurus, mentors and coaches? Are you one yourself and are there any you admire and recommend?
46. Are there any books, videos, newsletters or websites that you recommend that have helped you progress over the years?
47. What would you do differently today if you were starting out afresh - what advice would you give to new traders?
48. What are the biggest mistakes that new traders make that cause them to blow up their accounts and what steps can/should they take to avoid such disasters?
49. What do you say you do (for a living) when you meet someone for the first time?
50. Lastly, what are the best and worst bits of T2W and what could be done to make the site better?

As with the first list, (most of) the interviews will be recorded conversations. This list is much shorter and more generic in nature, as the actual questions asked will necessarily be tailored to each interviewee and their respective job. Please suggest questions that are not on this list.

1. What is a . . . (Broker / Hedge Fund Manager etc.) and what do you do?
2. How did you get started in the industry?
3. How long have you worked as a . . . (Broker / Hedge Fund Manager etc.)?
4. What qualifications are required to be a . . .?
5. How is a . . . remunerated and do you get paid a bonus?
6. What are the hours like? (Do you drink Cristal Champaign in Soho nightclubs every night?)
7. Do you have people working under you and who are you responsible to?
8. Talk us through a typical day
9. How has the credit crunch affected your sector of the industry?
10. Are you affected by the various rescue packages and new legislation regarding the activities of financial institutions?
11. Does your role attract much media attention and, if so, is it warranted?
12. What advice would you give to someone who wants to become a . . . ?

tim

gonna be a long conversation maybe what about breaking it down into, say, 10 minute bites and if possible doing some of those bites in video form (eg: trading strategy could be a "chart" video with voice over)

cheers

jon

Spanish89.

as a general comment the questions seem more geared towards a retail trader but you give the impression you're looking for professional traders to interview.

Fair point arabian.
But, please list the appropriate Q's to ask the pro's. This is precisely the purpose of the thread!

In principle - we're happy to interview people like 'spanish'. Interviews with wannabe's starting out could be just as interesting and informative as interviews with ol' time pro's. However, I suspect that interviews with banned members won't happen anytime soon!

Jon,

This will be much harder to implement as I am expecting most interviews to be conducted by either Skype or MSN so using video is going to be tricky. Your point about it being very long is taken and in my view 60 minutes is about as long as anyone I have previously interviewed could take. Also converting the conversation to transcript if too long becomes very time consuming. At present both Tim and myself are engaged in this on a limited part time basis.


Paul