Interview with Adam Dulovec

Quite a fair amount of people is trying to trade. However, not many of them will decide to stick with it. Can you recall your beginnings? What made you decide that you will not stop?

I started trading at the end of 2010. It was my freshman year at the university and I was spending my evenings at the dorm, trying to come up with a way to earn some money on the internet. At first, I tried online betting on sports then it was online poker but after all, I ended up reading websites about online trading on financial markets. I couldn’t help but recall a movie with Eddie Murphy called Trading Places and imagined how would it be like to be a stock exchange trader. I was blown away by that idea and started to read and study every piece of information about trading I could get my hands onto.

Since then, I was devoting my time between studying and paper trading (trading on the demo account with virtual capital). I spent 2 years on the demo account and in rearview I see it as a waste of time. That’s because of the transition to the real capital which changed almost everything and I felt like I had to learn from scratch again. At that time, I was doing nightshifts at the hotel reception and I had quite a lot of time which I spent on trading. I was learning a lot and traded on Asian session during morning hours.
 

Eddie Murphy as one of the trading motivators, that’s not something you would hear every day. Is there some kind of turning point in your trading career?

JI am glad that you asked. Because I know exactly what was a turning point in my career. It was when a friend of mine offered me to try working in one brokerage firm. I was so excited that I didn’t hesitate for a second. This moment changed a lot and I see it as a turning point and a step towards my success in the world of trading. After all, hundreds of interviews with clients and colleagues while being in contact with markets on a daily basis, that was something which showed me the right way. I was learning not only from my own mistakes but started to analyze also about the mistakes of others which saved me a lot of time and undisputably also money. Whereas, when speaking about my biggest success I must mention the ability to learn how not to be greedy and how to focus on consistent results.

Is there, on the other hand, a moment you wish that would never happen?  

There were a few of these, I’m not gonna deny that. However, I have never lost more than half of my account balance. All these failures had one thing in common - breaking of set rules and following false beliefs. Sometimes, I also listened to my friends who were very good traders, yet sadly their tips didn’t work at that particular moment. I’ve learned to trust myself only and focus on what works for me and especially - to follow set rules.

What do you like to trade the most?

There’s not only one favorite but if I have to name one, it would be DAX which is phenomenally volatile and offers many opportunities to intraday trades. Next in order would be exotic currencies that I trade positionally or currency pairs consisting of currencies of economies from different time zones. For example, AUDUSD is affected by the Asian session in the morning and by the North American session.
 

Sounds interesting, can you tell us more about it? Do you have a specific strategy?

I try to keep my strategies as simple as possible. I take a lot from fundaments and statistics. What suits me well is to let the market act on its own, not to check it all the time. I set up my trades in the morning, and if there are no alerts about ongoing activity on my mobile platform during the day, I check the trades when the evening comes. I have tried many approaches and styles since I started trading and sometimes when the time is right, I go to one of my smaller accounts and do a little bit of scalping. But that’s just for fun I cannot say that it’s a regular profitable activity. I would say, to each his own - everybody should choose the approach that suits him best.

Thanks for the sneak peek into your trading. Could you tell us something about yourself? What do you do when you are not trading, what are your hobbies?  

Aside from work, I spend a lot of time with my family, and in our garden. I cook frequently and when the summer comes I grill almost every day. When I am alone I often read or listen to music. What’s most important for me is being able to rest not only from markets but also from all the screens. That’s why I try to stay completely offline during weekends watching only matches of my favorite football team on TV when absolutely necessary. Being able to start off a new week with a clean head is really important in trading.