Below, you will find the transcript of an interview I recently had with Trader's Library who will be holding an international trade's forum in Chicago this upcoming April. This forum will featuring some of the industry's top market experts where I will be delivering a 4-hour presentation.
I'm interviewed quite regularly by the press but have never had a medium that provided the best means to share them. With The Velez Opportunity Report, I now do. I think you'll glean some interesting thoughts form the below. I hope you enjoy the exchange.
Interview with a Market Maven
by C. Jenkins
How did you get into trading?
My dad was a religious watcher of PBS’s long-time financial show, Wall Street Week with Lou Rukeyser. After about a year of watching, when I was about 13, I simply got hooked and when the market gets its hooks in you, it’s for life. At the age of 19, soon after I went off to college, I took the savings my mom scrounged up for my spending money and opened a small brokerage account. I lost every dime I put into it of course, but knew from the moment I placed my first trade from my college dorm room, I found exactly what I was put on this Earth to do. The markets consumed me and I devoured everything written or spoken about it at the time. I even majored in accounting because I believed at the time that it would make me a better analyzer and surveyor of sound companies.
What have you learned from your trading mistakes?
I have learned that mistakes are the stepping-stones to higher heights of market achievements. They serve as hints and clues to what areas of the “SELF” need to be worked on. Mistakes lead us right to the things that must be eradicated from our existence, not only to make us better traders but to make us better people, better human beings. 85% of trading is psychological in nature, which means it’s largely a pursuit of self-mastery more than it’s a pursuit of market mastery. To master the markets, one must first master the SELF. And to be truthful, how many people can honestly claim true self-mastery? This is what makes this great activity we call trading so difficult. It requires a rebirth a total transformation of one’s soul. What are losses other than angelic pointers to what we must work on to become higher beings? I love losses and the mistakes that lead to them; for once they are discovered, the path to higher levels of success is made very clear. I say bring them on.
What do you trade in your account?
For years I was strictly an equity trader. Coming up in the bull market of the 80s as a brash teenager and the roaring Internet age of the late 90s as a cocky 20 something year old, if you were not an equity trader, you were simply a lame duck, a bore, a nobody. Today that has changed for many reasons. I now trade anything that moves, and when I say anything, I mean a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. In fact, if you move frequently enough, I’ll even trade YOU . The world is no longer round. It’s flat. Opportunity no longer remains in singular pockets for extended periods of time. The lines of demarcation that have historically separated one market from the next have blurred considerably over the years, requiring the astute market player to go global in his search for wealth. Equities, currencies, commodities, futures, options, you name it. Wherever opportunity presents itself, count on me being front-row and center. Wealth cannot hide from me. I won’t allow it.
Who are your trading mentors or role models?
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon your perspective, I had or have only a few. Who does not hold Paul Tudor Jones, one of the greatest market players of all-time as a trading god? Just the mention of his name sends me deeply into mental realms of wealth and brilliance. We are lucky to have him living and breathing in our lifetime. Jessie Livermore, the tragic genius who has indirectly ignited the careers of so many of the world’s top speculators, still looms large in my mind as the father of active trading. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, the book loosely based on his character, is a must read for every trader today and is revisited by me at least once every single year.
How would you define your trading style?
Eclectic. I am a big believer that today’s market speculator can no longer afford to be one dimensional in his approach or methods. Not only must all markets be mastered and played to be truly effective today, all time frames must be exploited, from short to intermediate to long. If I had to create a phrase that best suites my style, I’d call myself a Wealth Trader. That is what I do. I Trade For Wealth. This combines the best of all worlds.
What trading text most influenced your style?
You could say several books became the core of my trading soul. They were Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefevre; How I made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market, by Nicholas Darvas and anything written by Mark Douglas, particularly one of his most recent entitled, Trading In the Zone. Since it is my belief that trading is 85% psychological in nature, I tend to lean toward writings that deal with mental and emotional mastery over technical know-how. The technical aspects of this game we call trading are rather simple. Financial instruments go up and they go down. Period. What cause them to go up and down are people. What ignite the actions of people are fear, ambivalence and greed. So, by focusing on the psychological part of the trading equation, you go straight to the cause of all. The books I’ve mentioned largely deal with this aspect of trading.
What’s your number one trading rule?
Don’t lose money. And if you do, never do it again.
What are you watching closely right now?
Well, there are several areas I’ve been very involved with as of late. On the equity side, I’ve recently taken a position in Pacer International (PACR). I love this stock long-term and have dubbed it a Velez Wealth Accumulation Play (VWAP). I think even after its near 100% move recently, it has potential to more then triple from its current mid $4 range. In the commodities area, I’ve been long Live Cattle and even though it’s enjoyed a nice move as of this writing, I still see some decent up side in its price. I’ve been long the U.S. Dollar since December and see more upside in it into at least the middle of the year. And to the surprise of many, I’m still a bull on gold and silver, although I do feel their next legs to the upside could be a ways off. But I’ve become a patient man in my older years.
Is there a particular indicator you rely on?
Beside my trader’s gut or instinct, which is the very best indicator of all, yes. There are a few actually. But before I reveal them, let me make this very clear. I believe most traders largely use indicators incorrectly. Many look to these numerous “squiggly” lines with fancy names to tell them what to do, as if an indicator can really reveal the “truth” of a market. The way I use indicators is as confirming mechanisms. I, the trader, decide on my actions, and indicators help confirm my conviction. I don’t derive conviction from them. They either agree with the conviction I’ve already formed or they don’t. When the ones I use don’t, I play the underlying item differently. If they do, I play a bit more aggressively. That’s it. They are not bosses whom I obey. I’m the boss and indicators are employed to work for me and the decisions I've made. With all that being said, I’m a big user of moving averages and feel they are superior to anything else that can be called an indicator. The ones I use most are the 8, 20, 50, 100 and 200 simple moving averages. For timing purposes, one can employ an oscillator like the Commodity Channel Index or a short-term Relative Strength Index. For filtering groups of stocks down to a smaller number, I like to use the Directional Index, better known as the ADX.
What is the most important part of your trading routine?
Waking up with the mindset that the markets are about to opened up just for me, nobody else. If I don’t strongly feel that superior mindset, I’ll opt to go play golf. That is the truth. Nothing is more important than ensuring that you’re actions in the market stem from a powerful mental position. If I have that mindset firmly in tact, 15-minutes before the market opens’ I’m looking to isolate what markets have moved globally over night, which stocks seem to already be in play and why and are there any stocks that appear as though they are going to gap significantly above or below yesterday’s entire daily range in reverse. In other words, if yesterday was a down day and today’s opening action is gapping above the high of yesterday’s daily range, I’m as interested as you can be. That’s a big pre-opening routine for me: looking for those big gap-ignited reversal events.
If you could meet any other trader who would it be and why?
Jessie Livermore. I’d like the opportunity to tell him how much he meant to me. I’d like to thank him for igniting my career and introducing me to what I was born to do. I’d like to try to save his life. He meant so much to the entire world of traders. We tragically lost one of the brightest trading stars this world will ever see. Since that can’t be done, I’d love to have a cup of coffee with Paul Tudor Jones. Can you imagine how much that cup would be worth after a 30-minute long talk? Wow!
