The first one is an “ordinary” guy that I met coincidentally through a mutual friend (also a trader) about 10 years ago. His name was Mike, he was a former CIA agent, with a military background and was a private jet pilot too (perhaps he wasn’t that “ordinary” after all!) but after a serious accident he had to stop flying and became a full-time trader instead. And for the last two decades he’s been a spectacular trader!
Mike’s way of thinking was very different to other traders – he NEVER worried about trading entries, not at all! Can you imagine?
Instead, he kept telling me again and again: “Tomas, forget entries, don’t worry about them at all. All of your focus must be on risk management, Risk-Reward-Ratio and probabilities”.
'Forget entries, don’t worry about them at all. All of your focus must be on risk management, Risk-Reward-Ratio and probabilities.' Click To Tweet
That got my attention and I was very curious…
We used to spend countless hours together going through Excel spreadsheets with totally random entries and then he would show me how simple changes in exits, risk-management and position sizing can change everything.
Mike helped me to fully understand the simple but crucial math behind profitable trading and thanks to him I became a heavy user of Monte Carlo Analysis. (Plus I learned a lot about “randomization”, which later became a testing-ground for many of my trading ideas).
The second trader who greatly influenced my trading career, and who, in fact, I have never met personally, was Robert Pardo (the inventor of Walk Forward Analysis).
Although I was incredibly well trained to think “differently” by Mike (in terms of randomness, probabilities and risk-management), I was still lacking the profound knowledge of a lot of practical aspects. I was already able to come up with some pretty cool concepts and fresh, new trading ideas, then prove or reject them through randomization in Excel, but I was still missing a lot of the practical aspects of trading.
This is where studying Robert Pardo gave me the final missing pieces and progressed my journey to becoming a full-time system trader (and since 2017 a hedge fund CEO / manager too).
It’s no surprise then, that I was beyond excited to hear at the end of 2016 that Andrew Swanscott managed to bring Robert Pardo to Better Trader Academy (after months and months of email exchanges and negotiations) and develop a unique course where Robert reveals his full strategy creation process, including all of the latest information and details he has never released before.
So, I’d like to make this post a public acknowledgement to both Mike and Bob, who really were key mentors and teachers in my trading career.
And if you haven’t done so yet, I also highly recommend downloading Robert Pardo’s optimization check-list, and even considering the investment in his unique training program because I truly believe that Robert Pardo’s teaching is essential to all serious traders.
Otherwise, Mike, Bob, you guys rock – thank you!
Andrew and Tomas
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