About Me

Since ever I can first remember, I had always been interested in learning how to make money on the stock market.

It seemed like the ultimate way to earn an income. No boss, no employees, no customers to deal with, and very little overheads with potentially huge rewards.

Every time you see or hear about people who had more money than they knew what to do with, more often than not there was some connection to the stock market.

I realized at a fairly early age that the ones who were making money were not generally the ones who were working hard, but the ones who were working smart. These people were not working for their money, their money was working for them. It was this group of people who not only had all of the things in life that they wanted, but they also had plenty of free time to enjoy them.

I wanted to be just like them.

The Search Began

In search of the perfect lifestyle with matching income, I spent years of research, and probably tens of thousands of dollars. I bought just about every stock market trading book that I could get my hands on, I attended courses and seminars, and joined groups and organizations, and I tried and tested many different stock market trading software programs ranging from $50 to over $15,000!

Having a background in computers, and computer programming, I believed that it would be possible for a computer to analyze the masses of daily stock market data and possible predict potential winning stock trading opportunities. Something that would otherwise take days or even weeks to do manually could be done in seconds by a computer.

I also joined a stock trading group who for a fee of $5,000 promised to teach me how to trade successfully.

That was probably the start of it all. I started trading the stock market, and more importantly, I started making money - good money. My very first trade I turned $1,000 into $1,800 in just 7 days! I was very excited. I then turned $2,000 into $3,000 and so on. Another stock that I bought doubled in value the same day that I bought it. I was really on to something.

Was I on a Winner?

After a few more months of trading, I really started making some very good trading decisions. Although I did make some small losses here and there, my gains far outweighed them, so I was miles in front. I was convinced that this was the ultimate way to make money, and decided that I wanted to eventually give up working and trade on a full time basis.

I kept learning new techniques, and attending different courses.

I wanted to be the best stock market trader that I could be

A Real Eye Opener

Due to my background in computers along with my new found passion for trading the stock market, I landed myself a job working for a company who were selling a stock market trading software program. Priced then at $11,000, this program was perceived to be the "Holy Grail". Anyone without any trading experience could simply put this CD into their computer, and the program would spit out winning stock recommendations for you on a daily basis. Or so they would have you believe.

Having access to such technology, I thought was going to set my trading on fire, and take me up to the next level.

But it didn't happen that way.

During my short time of employment with this company, I met many customers who, although they had spent $11,000 buying the stock market software, were unable to make money using it. They had bought the software on impulse, and had not taken the time to learn how to use it properly.

The conclusion that I came to was that regardless of what trading system you had, or what software you were using, you still had to know what you were doing. You still needed to know how the stock market works, and the rules of the game that you are wanting to play. You still need to know what you are looking for, and how to interpret charts, and what indicators to use to make your trading decision. The software programs are good for saving time and doing some quick searches, but at the end of the day, no software program is ever going to be able to predict the future, or tell you what shares to buy, this is where you have to make you own final judgment. This is where many were falling flat on their faces.

The Missing Ingredient

It was during this time that it hit me. Trading was really just like any other trade or profession. You can't just give someone a spanner and expect them to go and fix a car, or give them a scalpel and expect them to perform surgery, neither can you give someone a software program and expect them to be a stock market trader.

These are just tools of the trade, and when used in conjunction with the right knowledge, can assist greatly in performing the desired tasks, but will not work on their own without the propper knowledge and training.

Knowledge was defiantly the missing ingredient.

I Developed My Own Stock Trading System

After some time, and many more profitable trades, I soon realized that I had something of real value to offer to others. I was making money consistently on the stock market, which I later came to understand is not something that is as easy as it sounds.

One of the keys to being a successful stock market trader is money management.

While most people are hell-bent on finding ways to pick winning stocks, and getting their win/loss ration up as high as they can, I came to realize that it's really not that important.

You see, you can spend your whole life looking for the perfect stock trading system. One that wins say 90% of the time (9 trades out of every 10 are winners, and 1 loser), but unless you have the propper money management in place, it won't really matter.

Many marketing companies sell and teach stock trading systems based on picking a high percentage of winners, because thats what people want. Because they are not traders themselves, they are often doing more harm than good, and probably don't realize it (or do but don't care). Most people have a gamblers mentality when it comes to stock market trading. They have an attitude that they have to get it right all of the time to win, but this is not true.

For example ...

The danger is that most commercially available trading systems, (and a lot of trading books for that matter) don't talk about money management. They simply skim over it like it's some after thought. They are missing the most important part. The right money management will make or break a trading system.

A lot of systems will tell you when to get into a trade, but most won't tell you when to get out! - and very few will tell you how much money you should put on each trade.

Funny, because getting out is the most important aspect of trading. Anyone can get in. You don't actually make a profit, or take a loss until you get out.

You could buy $1,000 worth of shares today that tomorrow are worth $2,000, but you don't sell. You sit on them and count your money. The next day they are worth $1,200, and the day after that $800. You had a profit on paper, but now you are sitting on a $200 loss. If you sell you take the loss, if you don't then you haven't taken a loss, it's just on paper as was you gain 2 days ago. How do you know when to take a gain, or a loss? - How do you know whether the stock will go back up or drop further?

The answer is you don't. That's why you need a mechanical trading systems that takes the emotion out of trading, and takes profits and losses at predetermined levels, and makes sure that the losses are always less than the gains.

Anyhow ... Back to my story

So I teamed up with another guy who himself was also an excellent trader, and we took the very best of our combined methods, the techniques that were working, and incorporated them into a workable trading system. We then formed a company where we taught people one-on-one how to trade the stock market.

We ran a 6-week course which covered everything you needed to know in order to become a profitable stock trader.

The students came from all walks of life. Some unemployed looking for a way to make an income, some professionals looking for ways to boost their current income, and some simply looking for something fun to do. We even had a couple of accountants and financial advisors wanting to learn the ropes.

The Problem

After doing this for some time I came to another realization. Although I enjoy helping others, and reaped the benefits of having my own company, I was moving further and further away from my own long-term goal of being a full time trader myself. When I first got started trading, as you will remember, I was excited about the prospect of trading full time from home so that I no longer had to work. Well here I was running a company! I became so busy with running my company, and the day-to-day stuff, that often I didn't even get time to trade. I had staff to look after, courses to run and manage, and was heavily involved in the administration of the business.

It's funny. Here I was teaching people how to make money, and how to achieve the goal of becoming less reliant on a job or business, and yet, I was heavily involved in my own. Quite often too I would hear some great success stories from some of my students about the excellent trades that they were doing, and I would have missed out on it because I was either running a training course, or involved in something else which took me away from what I really loved, and that was trading.

On top of all that, I had huge running expenses to pay. Very high rents for our offices and training rooms in the most up market part of town, wages for our staff, phones, power, advertising, accountants, lawyers, business coaches, the list goes on and on ...

I Quit Working, and Stayed Home To Be A Full time Home Trader

I was quickly getting myself into a rut. I was moving further and further away from my full time ultimate goal, and was really running around in circles.

The funny thing was, I didn't need to be doing it. I knew how to make money on the stock market, and was teaching others how to do it, some of my students had even given up their jobs to stay home and trade, and yet I wasn't.

So I did. I gave it all up and decided to stay home and trade full time. It has been the best decision that I have ever made.

By the time I was 31 I had "semi retired". I was trading from my home office with no extra overheads, very little stress, and was having the time of my life, and living the perfect lifestyle.

I didn't need to answer to anyone, and was in total control of what I wanted to do - It felt awesome!

I decided there and then that I would never work for a boss again, or get stuck running a company that took up all of my time.

Where To From Here?

3 years ago I moved with my wife and family from the city to a holiday costal town in the South West of Western Australia.

When we first arrived here I decided to rent a small office in the middle of town. I love working from home, but sometimes it's nice to get out, and have somewhere else to go to. I got a nice little office in the main street of town, right next to a great coffee shop. Its 4 doors down from the bank, and one block away from the post office; its a great location.

So I set up my trading operation from there. I had my desk right next to the window so that I can watch all of the activity outside.

Now the style of trading that I do doesn't actually take that much time, and in actual fact, most of the time I sit there with nothing to do!

I might buy some shares today that I may end up holding for 2-3 weeks. Therefore, I really have nothing else to do for 2-3 weeks.

This was great in the beginning when I wasn't used to having so much free time, but after a while, it actually became quite boring!

So I decided to write a book (well actually 3 of them). I also put together a home study course for stock market traders. Based on the same principles that I was teaching one-on-one, I thought that I would offer my course via home study, so that I could offer it to people right across the country rather than them having to come to me.

Being that now I am living in a fairly remote place, it works out well for everyone.

I thought that I would put this course together and offer it for a very reasonable price so that it was affordable, and those who needed it the most could get their hands on it.

I decided to offer personal mentoring too. If someone buys the course, then they could have access to me via telephone, and could call me if they wanted to talk about stock trading methods.

I Was Inundated!

My first thought was that I would run some small ads in the paper for this course, and that I would maybe sell one or two here and there. A great way to kill some of my free time, and would also put me in touch with others who were like minded, and wanted to talk about trading.

I had plenty of free time, and so plenty of time to chat. Break the boredom!

However - this was not the case.

My little part-time business idea started to grow into a monster!

I sold well in excess of 700 courses in my first year.

At $500 each, my little business idea was a $350,000 a year business. I was in a conundrum. Should I build this business up and keep it running, or should I scale it back?

I didn't want to get to another stage where my business ruled me. I wanted to still have the flexibility to come and go as I pleased, and to have a few days off if and when I needed. Having 700 people out there with my course meant that I would be needed on occasion to give help and mentoring as promised.

However

What I found was that most people who purchased my course found that it was very well written, and were able to just "get on with it" and didn't really need my ongoing help on the telephone. I was getting the odd call here and there, but was finding that most people were able to pick up the training manuals, and just get started.

This was great for me too as it didn't interfere with my trading, and more importantly, my lifestyle. I was still able to come and go, and most of the help I was able to offer via email.

I have since moved to a slightly bigger office (upstairs in the same building), and have employed an office assistant to help me with processing orders, and sending out training courses.

This has freed me up again, and I am able to answer calls, and speak with my customers one-on-one.

I have now been running this business for about 3 years, and it has been very successful.

We have gone on to sell probably in excess of 2,000 home study courses across the country, and have being getting some excellent feedback from our customers.

I love getting the success stories back from people.

It makes it all seem worthwhile, and reminds me that I have a great product to offer, and peoples lives are changed as a result.

I have had people tell me that they have been able to get out of debt, change location, quit working, travel, and all sorts of exciting things.

I was getting weekly email's from one of my students who was travelling around the world and trading as he was going. It was like getting postcards from a friend on holiday. At just 21, he was able to quit working and live the life that he wanted to from the money that he was making from trading. It's fantastic.

So Now This Web site?

The good thing about the business that I am running is that I can scale it back if I need to. If I find that I have got more customers than what I can look after, then I simply stop advertising and selling more courses and just focus on the customers that I have. It's the same with stock trading, I can scale that up and down too. For example, if I am going to be going away for a few days, then I close out of some of my open stock trades, or simply not take any new ones. The two business work great hand in hand.

I am now at a point where I am scaling back my home study course business.

I feel that I have plenty of customers to look after, and I want to be sure that I can give each one of them the personal help and support that they need if and when they need it.

I could employ someone else to help me and to answer the calls, and keep building the business up, but then that's not what the people have paid for. They pay for a home study course written by me, and supported by me. That's what they get.

So I am scaling my advertising right back, and am not taking on too many more people with the home study course, and I am concentrating my energy on those who already have it.

I don't want to get into another situation where I am tied to an office. I got into this business because it supports my lifestyle, and I want to keep it that way.

Do It Anytime

One of the greatest things about trading is that you can choose when and where you want to trade, and where you want to trade from. Anywhere in the world where you have access to a telephone line, you can trade from. So living in a remote location, or being on holidays, or even travelling around are no setback.

You can also choose the type of shares that you buy. You can buy shares in the morning that you can make money on within an hour or two, or you can buy shares today that keep on going up in value for the next 10-20 years.

The advantage of this is that you can choose the trading style to suit you lifestyle, and to fit around whatever else you want to do. If you want to sit in front of a computer all day, fine, then you can make money as a day-trader. If you want to watch the market every 2 to 3 days for a couple of minutes each time, then you can built your trading strategy around this to, and still make a very good income.

My Stock Market Trading Plan

How I make money as a stock market trader is not through some fancy expensive piece of software, or some "get rich quick" scheme that I bought at some seminar. I have not found some long lost secret formula that some dead guy left lying around, or has been closely guarded by the very rich. These type of things are only available to the unweary, and are sold by marketing people who can't make money trading, so instead make money selling trading systems!

WD Gann
Nicholas Darvas
Elliott
Hurst
Fibonacci
Robert Lichello

And then repackage their information as a trading system, and sell it for a few hundred, or in some cases, a few thousand bucks.

The problem is that some of these systems don't work today, (or never did) and were invented 50 years ago when trading was a lot different than it is today.

For example:

A few years ago you could actually go directly into the stock exchange and do your trading. You could actually read the body language of the other trades, and know what they were thinking, and predict their movements by the way they conducted themselves. You could trade quite profitably by doing this, and a lot of people did. Today however, we are not trading with people across the other side of the room, we are trading with people from accross the other side of the world, or maybe the guy next door, we have no way of knowing. We are all just sitting around at home in front of our computers watching and waiting, but we can't read the emotions of what our opponent may be thinking.

We need to use strategies that work in todays market. Todays market is a lot different to what is was 50 or even 5 years ago.

Beware Of Gimmicks

Just like any industry, there will be those who try to sell you "get rich quick" schemes, scams, and cons. They will promise you overnight success and fortune, but will fail to deliver. People will try to sell you stock market trading systems and software programs; some for a few dollars, some for many thousands of dollars.

I'm sure you know what I am talking about. Just do a search on the Internet for "stock trading system" and see how many results you get.

It is estimated that only about 5% of traders actually make money, and up to 95% of them can't. Therefore, who are all these people selling the trading systems? - surely not all the 5 per centers.

I'm not saying that all stock trading systems on the Internet don't work or are rubbish, but the vast majority of them will be.

You don't need a stock trading system to make money, you need discipline and a solid plan. oYouneed to know the rules, and you need to play by them. You need to know how to manage you money.

Remember, with the right money management strategy you can get it wrong more often than you get it right, and still make money. Therefore you should be theoretically pick stock randomily, (and in fact this theory has been proven)

Why then do you need a stock trading system to tell you when to buy?

Trading the stock market can be an excellent way to earn an income, and can offer great life benefits. But you must learn to do it properly. Don't try to take shortcuts, take your time and do it the right way.

Many fortunes have been made and lost in the stock market. Don't be in a hurry to give your money away. Take your time and tread carefully.

And best of luck to you - enjoy the journey