Interview with Strategy Provider - Swing Trading

How did you actually get into trading for the first time? Which markets did you start with?
I was introduced to the world of trading through a friend and I started working with forex, indices and commodities. From the first moment when I started studying the very  first performing strategies in the world, I immediately understood that the profession of trader was the only thing I desired, passion and perseverance were my winning weapons.

If you look back, would you do it again?
I would definitely do it again but I would only work with forex this time.
 

Nowadays, trading in financial markets becomes more and more popular worldwide and we can see a lot of beginners, and even young people trying to beat the markets. What would you advise to these traders who are just starting their journey now?
I would advise those who are new to the world of trading to do only forex, to have a very small watchlist of maximum 5 instruments and to use low leverage. Studying multiple strategies and choosing the one you like the most, insisting on your technique and not overdoing it by opening too many positions in too many markets.

And should they try forex or anything else? And why?
I would work just with forex because the indices have too strong fluctuations and the commodities are explicitly dangerous, mostly the oil which is conditioned every day by news.

How long have you been trading with real money?
I have been trading in real for 11 years, almost 12. After a few months of demo I immediately started with live accounts, small accounts about 5k euro. I started with a live account because there were no emotions on the demo, and you have to learn how to manage the emotions even with a small account.

Do you remember your best and your worst trade? 
My best trade was in December 2016 when I bought EUR / USD at 1.0400 and closed at 1.0800 doing + 40% of the account with one trade. The worst was with DAX in 2014 -9% also caused a gap that amplified the loss.

What does a standard day look like for you? 
For me a standard day begins with overlooking the movements on all the main markets at 9am in the morning, even if not working with the indices and commodities for example, but I need to look at them for the correlations with forex, for example Oil with usd / cad ... Then I check the hourly charts throughout the day to see if there are any sub-trends I can work with. And that is pretty much it. I am not using a time-frame lower than H1 and I don’t do scalping.

Do you consider yourself a “professional trader”? Why? 
Yes, I consider myself a professional trader because I live from trading. When I was a trader as an employee, I was the one who performed most of all. It rarely happens to me to end a month in a loss and my annual performances almost always exceeded + 50% so far. :-) 

Do you trade alone or are you part of some trading community where you exchange ideas and share experiences?
I trade alone because I don't want to get confused with other trading ideas or strategies.

Swing Trading is quite a new strategy in our offer and doesn’t have that long history so far. On the other hand, its performance is very interesting. How long did you work on this particular strategy before it started?
I have created and perfected the Swing Trading strategy over the past 7 years.
Having worked as a fund manager I understood how the big banks move and I created this strategy so that it was different from the most common trading systems, and not a subject to market traps either.

Your strategy also has quite a brief description in PurpleZone. Could you please introduce us to the Swing Trading a little more? Where can we see its edge?
The description of my strategy is not very long because the method it uses is very simple and clean in the sense that it does not use indicators and I do not draw thousand trend-lines or anything like that. Above all, I try to understand which side the big banks have positioned themselves on currency futures, and to understand how many options the most important hedge funds have bought. Then I follow them both harmoniously through the forex CFDs. In practice, the strategy is based on simplicity, graphs (but clean from indicators), perseverance and patience, accompanied by what I believe is the strategy of the institutional parties.

Swing Trading performed very well during the last couple of months. Have you made any adjustments to your strategy with regard to the actual global situation and enormous volatility seen in the markets?
I have not made any changes to the strategy in this particular market period, I have only decreased the leverage I was using.

What is the future of the forex market and of the trading in your opinion? (ESMA regulation, market volatility, trading robots, ...)
I have no faith in market robots because they cannot recognize false signals, the volatility is normally changing every 2 years in maximum, and the robot wouldn't know if something changed or not. I hope the regulators will allow a higher leverage for those who have experience for at least 5 years and who prove to be capable and profitable traders.