How can investors suspend their emotions and reactions while riding the waves of a volatile stock market. In this episode I'm joined by successful Trader, Entrepreneur, and Author, Anmol Singh.

At just 22 years old, Anmol worked tirelessly to move to America on his own. He eventually saved enough money by teaching himself to trade in his dorm room at Brunel University London. Amol always aspired to be something great and through trading learned the life-changing powers of emotional control, self-trust, and personal integrity. Successful traders are used to having a checklist, they're used to following a process, unemotionally. And doing it every single time.

Anmole talks about figuring Out “Why” Before Stepping Into The Trading Arena:

• Why Knowing Your Reason For Investing Is Key To Success.
• Deciding What’s Right For You: Are You A Short Term Or Long Term Trader?
• Getting Off The Emotional Rollercoaster:
• How To Watch The Stock Market Change Without Letting Your Emotions Get The Best Of You

Anmol Singh was born in Delhi, India and grew up as a patient and persistent individual. After completing his high school education, he went to Brunel University London with the strong determination to become something great. He started trading in his dorm and saved enough money to legally start multiple franchises and move to America. At the young age of 22, Anmol Singh was able to establish himself as a successful Trader and has been featured in major media outlets including Business Insider, Forbes, and International Business Times. Today, he and his team at Live Traders show people how to execute trades, review different scenarios, and most importantly, how to control your emotions when high stakes are on the line.

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS AFTER THIS BRIEF MESSAGE

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Chloe (1s):

Stocks for Beginners. Phil Muscatello and Fin Pods are authorized reps of Money Sherpa. The information in this podcast is general in nature and doesn't take into account your personal situation

Anmol (12s):

Because your charts always keep going up and down. And so do our emotions also go up and down with the chart. Cuz if you're in a stock, it's going up in your favor and you're feeling really excited, you're really happy, and then suddenly comes a big red bar and then the stock starts pulling back down. You're like, oh my God, you know, why is this happening to me? And then you start being negative, this always seems to happen on my trades. I don't know why. What's wrong with me? And then you see it go back up again, then you're like happy again. So it's that rollercoaster and research has proven that, you know, trading releases the same hormones of dopamine and serotonin. The same ones that people get from gambling and you know, doing so all sorts of activities.

Phil (46s):

Hi and welcome back to Stocks for Beginners. I'm Phil Muscatello. Are you in the stock market for the short or the long term? And how do you incorporate your values into your life in the markets? Joining me to discuss all of much more is Anmol Singh from Live Traders. Hello Anmol,

Anmol (1m 2s):

Thanks for having me. Looking forward to chatting with you.

Phil (1m 4s):

Ah, thanks very much for coming on. Anmol Singh was born in Delhi, India and went to Brunelle University. He started trading in his dorm and saved enough money to legally start multiple franchises and moved to America at 22. Admiral established himself as a successful trader and has been featured in many major media outlets. Today he and his team at Live traders show people how to execute trades, review different scenarios and control their emotions. So let's go back into the past. What was your first foray into the markets? Was that in India or in America?

Anmol (1m 39s):

Yeah, my first foray was actually in London. I was in my dorm room, this was the first year of university and everybody, you know, started to talk about what's the career path, talking about their internships or future goals and programs. And for me, you know, I wasn't able to get even an internship. I applied to a lot of different places. I wasn't able to get in anywhere. So it really dawned on me that, wow, what if I graduate with this great degree but then not able to find a job? So that's where I kind of started looking into maybe I need to find something else that I need to do. And it typically just started off with going online on, you know, YouTube, watching a lot of videos, reading a lot of books on that subject. And then in our university they used to have different societies, like an entrepreneur society, different sports society.

Anmol (2m 26s):

I was like, there's nothing for trading and investing. So that's kind of me and my friend. We both had a keen interest in the stock market. So we started in college, the Trading and Investing Society where people, like-minded people would just meet up once a week and we just talk about the markets, try to learn together. And actually the great part is that that society is still in existence till date, which is awesome.

Phil (2m 46s):

So was that trading on the FTSE or did you go straight to s&p 500 or?

Anmol (2m 51s):

I went straight to the US stock market. Yep. I think maybe that's because the resources available online were primarily for the US stock market at that moment. So I think that's kind of why I went into it. Yeah,

Phil (3m 3s):

Yeah. Was it simple to trade the market from, from London at that stage? Yeah,

Anmol (3m 8s):

It was actually pretty good. It was, I think it's the perfect time zone for the US market because I would go to my lectures at college in the morning from, you know, eight to nine to 10. And then I think around 12 or one o'clock we would come in and trade the US stock market. So it'd fit in perfectly with my schedule. So yeah, really, really enjoyed that.

Phil (3m 24s):

Did you make any mistakes right at the start?

Anmol (3m 26s):

A lot of mistakes. I actually, believe it or not, I lost money my whole first year of trading. Yeah, right. It was a lot of mistakes, you know, didn't know what I was getting into. I thought push, you know, pushing the buy or sell button makes me a trader, but as we know that's not the case. You really need to know what you're doing. So yeah, my whole first year I was just making a lot of mistakes, but the biggest mistake was really, you know, your own mindset. You're not able to follow through on what you've decided. And that's kind of what it dawned on me that okay, maybe apart from just the trading part, I need to focus also on the mental aspect.

Phil (3m 58s):

Yeah, that seems to be a big part of it, doesn't it? I mean, I talk to so many people and it's about how, what's going on in your own head as opposed to just having that plan. Because if you have the plan, that's great, but then the emotions start to kick in, don't they?

Anmol (4m 10s):

Yeah, totally. And I think that's half the battle because could tell somebody, okay, here's a strategy, here's what you need to do, but then are they actually gonna do it? That's like a whole different ballgame. And then, you know, then the human emotions of fear and greed come into play. You know, you're holding a stock, it's going down, you should technically be out of that, but you think it'll come back up, you know, and that's one of the things. And then you held a stock, it's going exactly where you thought it would, it goes to your target, but you're like, it might go further. So you just keep holding on. So there's all these battle emotional battles that come into play and I think that's half the battle of being a professional trader is really controlling your emotions. Hmm.

Phil (4m 47s):

What were the franchises that you started? Was that in London as well?

Anmol (4m 52s):

No, so I was, you know, in in colleges, you know, trading for my dorm room, I was already a successful trader by my third year of college. But I couldn't really move to the United States just based on trading. Right. You can't really obtain a visa or things of that nature.

Phil (5m 4s):

I'm a hotshot with the buy and sell buttons, so you let me in.

Anmol (5m 7s):

Exactly. Cuz they'd be like, okay, you can do that online. Why didn't need to come into the country? Yeah. So that was one of those things. So for me, I started franchise businesses more so as a way of, you know, creating employment so I can finally come into the United States and, you know, work and live here legally. So that's why I started, it was auto, in the auto service center, we'd have people who'd come to get their cars making faster, louder, you know, performance tuning the cars. So I started that business. I didn't know anything about it, but it was just a way for me to get into the country, get my foot here and then, you know, eventually just transition into trading full-time.

Phil (5m 41s):

Gee, what, what sort of cars was this in London? You were actually doing the auto care stuff in London to No, this

Anmol (5m 45s):

Was in New York.

Phil (5m 46s):

Oh, in New York. Yeah.

Anmol (5m 47s):

So after I, I went to London for college. I finished about four to five years. I lived there, did my degree, got my degree and everything. And I was already making a decent amount of money at that time from trading. So the franchises were starting in New York just as a way for me to legally work and live there. So that's the only reason I really started, I wasn't a passion project at all. Oh, okay. More so. Yeah, also just to make it there.

Phil (6m 11s):

So you don't wanna talk about hotting up cars or anything, you

Anmol (6m 15s):

Know? Exactly. My best, my best decision was when I actually sold the business, which was right before covid. So perfect timing. So that was my, you know, kind of the best thing I sold at and you know, just been trading full-time since 2010. Now, well

Phil (6m 30s):

As their name of this podcast suggest, we're talking about stocks for beginners. So someone who's, you know, they're tuning in for the first time to today. How do they start to decide about what kind of investor they are in the stock market? You know, whether they're a long-term trader or whether they should start exploring the short-term trading side of things like someone like yourself?

Anmol (6m 51s):

Yeah, I think the first step that people need to do is they really need to think about how much time do they have to devote into it, right? Because if you're somebody who already has a job, you already have a business, you know, you're not gonna have time to do what professional traders do all day long cuz that's a job in and of itself, right? You have to be there to actually execute on those trades. So that style is not really right for everybody. The the best style that I recommend, everybody should be a long-term investor in my opinion because that is something that is a wealth building style. So the way we talk about it is there's two types of trading and investing. One of them is income producing where we actually trading in and out to generate an income to pay our bills off or to live off. And then there's a style known as the wealth building where you're taking an account and your goal is just to keep growing it for the long haul.

Anmol (7m 36s):

Now the wealth building style, everybody should be doing that, right? And the way to determine is basically say hey, how much time can I devote into it? Right? And also how patient of a trader you are, right? Maybe you're not patient, maybe you're not able to hold onto stocks for the long haul, then maybe your mindset is more suitable towards short term training. So you really need to think about, you know, what my time horizon is, you know, how patient am I? How much time can I devote into it? And more so do I really have to desire to actually learn to do this properly? Cause if you don't have the desire, then don't bother about trading and any of those things. Just focus on investing into the markets, generate a, you know, consistent, reliable income for the long haul. I think that, in my opinion, is the style that everybody should be doing.

Phil (8m 18s):

And is your style of trading based on technical analysis?

Anmol (8m 22s):

Correct. So when I am doing the income producing style where I'm actually day trading, I'm doing short term trades, holding stocks for a few days to a few weeks, that is all based on technicals, right? Because fundamentals can't really tell you what's gonna happen three days from now. Fundamentals are more applicable for the long haul. So when it comes to trading, it'll be only technicals when it comes to investing, it'll be a mix of fundamentals and technicals, meaning I'd invest in companies that I like, I trust, I find that they're gonna be fine in the long term. That'll be kind of my fundamental bias. But that I'll still time when I'm gonna get in based on the technicals.

Phil (8m 56s):

And what's, what are your favorite kind of indicators that you suggest beginners start looking at?

Anmol (9m 2s):

Yeah, I actually don't use any indicators. I use just the candlestick charts with volume. Yep. Typical price action because you know, all indicators are formed based on the price. So price always happens first and then the indicators are calculated later. So they're always technically lagging. So the best way that I could sell and also to keep it simple, is just to look at the chart and learn how to read the price history of the chart, know which cycle or stage we are in. And that's all we will need to look at. They don't need to focus on fancy patterns or fancy strategies. Just be on the right cycle, right? The bell curve, if you imagine a bell curve, just be on the right cycle of right side of the bell curve and it doesn't matter if you're gonna get the exact correct entry or the bottom as long as we get the meat of the move, that's pretty much all that matters.

Phil (9m 52s):

So just describe a candlestick chart for listeners. I know it's hard in a, an audio format like this, but they're the ones where you get the, you can kind of see the price movement on a particular time period. Is that the case?

Anmol (10m 5s):

Correct. So each candlestick is typically looks like a bar. There's two types. There's either red color or green colored. Green color would basically mean that it went up from where it opened, right? For that period. And red one, which primarily would mean it went down. So the way it would work is just imagine like a bar, the bottom price of the bar is where the stock opened. So let's say the price is $32. Now the stock went up as high as let's say 32 50, right? And then it came back down and closed at 32 40. So then there'll be a little wick at the top which will say how high it went, right? And then the top, the top of the bar would tell it where it closed. So that's just like a typical candlestick.

Anmol (10m 45s):

But what candlesticks do is then bunch of candlesticks come together to form patterns and then those patterns are what we're using to create strategies. And then those strategies are what we are using to trade off and make money. Now they're primarily just statistically based, it's, it's simply a matter of on a losing trade, let's say if I only lose a thousand dollars on a winning trade, if I make $2,000 now by that measure I could be right 40% of the time so wrong 60% of the time and still end up making money. So it's all just a matter of statistics is how trading really works in, you know, at our firm is just to be right, 40 to 50% of the time, that's all we need to do. But just make sure the winners are twice the losers and then the math always works out and they'll, you end up being profitable.

Phil (11m 30s):

And a lot of listeners, I just wanted to say those candles, they're based there. There used to be an O H L C or you can still do an O H L C kind of representation, visual representation, but it's not quite as useful is it? That's the open, high, low close kind of representation. Correct. But a candle's gotta, gives you a little bit more of a, an indication of something that you can visually look at and work upon a

Anmol (11m 56s):

Absolutely. So candlestick just make it visually easier to spot. Cause when you look at O H L C, they will have a bunch of lines but you really wouldn't know if it went up or down at first glance. Whereas by looking at a candlestick, because it's green or red, like just that first glance, you know, if it went up or down. So just makes it visually easier. But in the end they both are telling us the same thing.

Phil (12m 15s):

There's also a school of thought about that you can actually study the candles themselves, isn't there? You, you're not part of that kind of movement. Yeah,

Anmol (12m 23s):

There's a lot the school of thought that looks into different candles and what they mean. But I think that's a very limited view of candlesticks, right? Because what also matters is where they're forming, how they're forming. Cuz what if the stock has been running up 10 days in a row when that candle forms, that's gonna be completely different than seeing that candle after the stock's been going sideways. So where it forms, how it forms right, has a lot to do. And the prior history of the stock has a lot to do with it as well. So I don't really subscribe to the school of thought of just reading a candlestick. It's more so in the relation of other candlesticks where it is located.

Phil (12m 60s):

You mentioned a little while ago that you're looking at trading over a period of days or weeks. Is that kind of time horizon that you're looking at?

Anmol (13m 7s):

Correct. So I have three styles of trading. One of them is day trading where I'll be trading in and out every single day. And typically a trade might, I might be in it for just a few minutes. That's taken advantage of smaller price moves but with maybe a larger quantity of share size to make an income. Now the second style that I have is called swing trading, where we're just trading the swings on the daily chart. So a typical trade might last three days to maybe a week or two. That's kind of the typical time horizon. So that'll be swing trading for taking advantage of small price movements. And then there'll be investing where typically I have a basket of stocks that I like and enjoy and those I will hold on for the long haul and I will just keep dollar cost averaging into those for the long haul.

Anmol (13m 50s):

And that'll be my long term portfolio. So those are the three different styles that I employ into my trading. How

Phil (13m 55s):

Do you interact with your own values in how you approach markets and mo?

Anmol (13m 59s):

Totally. So my top value is, you know, integrity and morality. Now what integrity really means, the way I define it is doing what you said you're gonna do and then doing it when you said you're gonna do it. Now if you're a trader of with integrity, you're going to be having a really fruitful career, right? Because you said you're gonna do something and then you just do it, there's no questions. Whereas a, a person which lacks integrity in their trading would more so be like, hmm, you know, it hits their target, they're like, oh, maybe it'll go back up. And they just keep, you know, they'll just keep holding or the stock is, you know, going down. They should technically be out of it based on their plan. Cuz they said, if I'm gonna buy the stock at $10, if it goes down to nine, I'll get out and take a small loss.

Anmol (14m 41s):

But when it goes down to nine, they're holding, because you know what, it'll come back up. Maybe it'll come back up. So that's a lack of integrity when it comes to your trading cuz you said you're gonna do something and then you don't do it. It. And that is a recipe for a, you know, very tough career to say the least. So that's my biggest value and I teach that to all my students and members at our firm is that make a trading plan. Just like when you get into a business, you have a business plan. So when you're getting into investing or trading, you should have a investing or trading plan. And then all your goal is to just get yourself to be emotionally strong to follow through on that plan. So those values, I think, not only just in trading, I think it affects all areas of your life.

Phil (15m 19s):

And presumably you have to hold yourself to account. I mean, if you have a job and you do a bad job, the boss is going to tell you that you're doing a bad job, but you're by yourself in this situation, aren't you? And you, you're only fooling yourself if you don't hold yourself to account based on your own integrity.

Anmol (15m 36s):

Absolutely. I mean that's, I think the biggest reason why majority of traders fail because as you said, rightly they come from an environment of being in a job where they have a supervisor, they have a boss, they have somebody looking over their shoulder and if they don't do what they said they're gonna do, guess what? They're gonna have consequences, right? As part of the job. Now with trading, you are your own boss, right? You are an entrepreneur pretty much. There's nobody holding you accountable, there's nobody coming after you. You have to create that accountability and the consequence structure for yourself. So at our firm, when we have traders, we usually pair them together as accountability partners and their goal is to keep each other accountable and then there will be consequences.

Anmol (16m 16s):

Hey, if you break your plan, you have to, you know, PayPal him a hundred dollars or if he breaks his plan, he's gonna PayPal you a hundred dollars and soon low and behold you're like, okay, I'm getting tired of sending a hundred dollars every single time. And then you end up, you know, just falling through on your plan. So creating those type of accountability structures and consequences are imperative when it comes to trading success.

Phil (16m 36s):

So you've, you have three questions that you ask people to ask themselves when defining their values. What are those three questions?

Anmol (16m 43s):

The the biggest top questions would be a, just to determine, there's two types of values. Ones are your current present values that you have right now, and then there's values that you want to cultivate, right? So maybe you wanna do something but you're not really there yet. So first we gotta define what our current values are. So the way we do that is by taking a look at what do I spend my most time doing, right? What do I spend most of my money on, right? And what do I surround my space with that'll tell you what your top values are. So if you come to my place, you'll find, you know, a lot of books, a lot of art, a lot of those things. So then you clearly can tell I value knowledge, right? I spend majority of my time reading or watching videos.

Anmol (17m 23s):

So clearly learning is one of my top values at the moment, right? But maybe there's a value that I want to cultivate. I want to create a cultivate of a value of health, a healthy mindset of being, you know, eating healthy. But maybe my actions are not showing that right now. So even though that is a value that I want, but that's not a value that I have at the moment. So first we're gonna distinguish between what your values are and what values you wanna cultivate. And then you'll have to work on that. That's the whole process.

Phil (17m 49s):

Let's have a look at the emotional rollercoaster. What are some of the common features of a trader's emotional rollercoaster?

Anmol (17m 56s):

Yeah, I think the emotional rollercoaster really comes from when we are sitting there without a plan and we're just looking at the chart. Because you charts always keep going up and down and so do our emotions also go up and down with the chart. Cuz if you're in a stock, you know it's going up in your, in your favor and you're feeling really excited, you're

Phil (18m 12s):

Getting excited, yeah, yeah.

Anmol (18m 14s):

You're just like, yes, it's go, yes, it's going, I'm, I'm right. And then suddenly comes a big red bar and then the stock starts pulling back down. You're like, oh my god, you know, why is this happening to me? And then you start being negative, this always seems to happen on my trays. I don't know why, what's wrong with me? You start going into that mode and then you see it go back up again, then you're like happy again. So it's that rollercoaster and research has proven that, you know, trading releases the same hormones of dopamine and serotonin, the same ones that people get from gambling and you know, doing so all sorts of activities. So as a trader we have to control that in real time, right? Those hormones. So, and that's a real thing. So you know, that's the emotional rollercoaster, but the key to being successful is being unemotional and controlling.

Anmol (18m 57s):

And now you can't really truly be unemotional all the time, but you can control it as long as you don't act on those emotions. That's, you know, the step in the right direction.

Phil (19m 6s):

What, what is that point where you reach? Is it about having a plan? Is it about journaling? What are the kind of techniques that you espouse to get over that emotional rollercoaster?

Anmol (19m 16s):

Yeah, definitely. I think the step one is obviously having a plan. Because a plan really eliminates a lot of the gray area, right? A good trading plan is not gonna have a lot of gray areas. It's gonna be black and white, meaning if then this, that statements, right? So you're basically following through. So now if you have a well defined written trading plan and you're just following through, it eliminates a lot of those noise and emotions because, well this is what's written down and this is how you're gonna manage the trade. So that's step one. Step two is obviously journaling your thoughts. Now a lot of, some of the students actually use a physical journal. They write down what their thoughts were and you know, why they took the trade and how they were feeling. Some people, which I have recommended, that they actually video record themselves while trading. Cause it's super fascinating to when after the trading day they watch themselves trading.

Anmol (20m 1s):

So their screen's being recorded, but also their camera's being recorded and you can just see their emotions like in the camera, like, you know, doing this or feeling jittery. And that's a way for me to kind of tell and coach the trader, like, Hey, just look at yourself like you're being so emotional in that moment. So I think that's another step. So journaling, recording yourself. And then step number three is to actually track your trades on a spreadsheet. So are you moving forward or not? So a lot, it's very easy to lie to ourselves, like, yeah, I'm a great trader, you convince yourselves, right? But then just look at the spreadsheet. Are you actually making money? Is it actually working for you? If not, then the spreadsheet will also tell us what we can fix, what we can tweak, what we can optimize to get ourselves closer to that profitability.

Anmol (20m 43s):

So those three key characteristics every successful trader has. And if you're gonna be successful, you need to have all those things of, you know, tracking, journaling and looking at your emotions.

Phil (20m 53s):

Can you describe a case study of one of your students and just describe what their journey was like going from being over emotional to going to being able to execute a plan.

Anmol (21m 6s):

Yeah, totally. I mean, in fact, I'll give you my, my my own. Starting out when I was early in my trading, so I joined, this is in London, I was in my dorm room and I, I joined a prop firm in New York City. So I was trading remotely for them from my dorm room. I was working for that firm. So I was trading their capital in exchange for a percentage of profits that I used to give them. And at that firm they had all these levels, like level one, level two level, all the way to level 10. And they had targets. If you hit, let's say $300 a week, two weeks in a row, then you go to level two, now you gotta make $500 a week, two weeks in a row, then you go to level three. And they had all these sorts of, these targets. And I did really, really well going from level one to like level seven in the firm where at that point I had like a 10 million account that I had to trade with and make money on.

Anmol (21m 51s):

But then I kind of plateaued. I got stuck there and I just wasn't able to follow through on my trading plan and I would, you know, get into a trade. I would set a target, let's say two to one risk reward ratio, and it would go like one to one and I'd start feeling jittery. I'd start taking my profits early and then I'd watch it go to two R, two to one, anyway, I'd watch it hit my target, but I got out early and then I would write my thoughts down on my journal, you know, got out too soon, I should have held it. And then I did that for every single trade for the next three months. And I actually physically printed out the chart of the stock, marked it by hand where my entry was, where I got out, why I got out my thought process. And then also tracked a lot of my trades.

Anmol (22m 31s):

What if I did hold them till my original target? How much would I have made then versus how much did I actually made? And the difference at the end of like three to six months was staggering. Like I could have already progressed up the firm, I could have hit my targets, but because I got out early on, a lot of those winning trades, I missed the target. So then it dawned on me that I'm actually a good trader, I'm just holding my own self back, right? Then I, I'm kind of holding myself back and that was one of the biggest realizations and had a lot of nights where I, you know, you know, went into my toilet looking myself, myself in the mirror and be like, what is wrong with me?

Phil (23m 5s):

Taking a good long, hard look at yourself? Yeah,

Anmol (23m 8s):

Like why do I keep getting out? Yeah. Like everybody I know what the right thing to do is, why can't I not do it? That's so ridiculous. And I thought about quitting many, many times at that point. But then, you know, I just pull through, I looked at my spreadsheet and said, the spreadsheet's making money so it is clearly me. So if I fix me I can progress further down. And that was a turning point where I was like, okay, I'm gonna give one last shot to my trading, but I'm gonna give it the right shot, do everything I'm supposed to do and then let's see where we end up. And that was the best decision ever.

Phil (23m 37s):

What is a prop firm? I mean I've, I've, I know what it is, but describe for listeners, it's a fascinating idea, isn't it? That someone's just gonna give you some money to trade and you just basically live and die by the outcomes of your trading?

Anmol (23m 49s):

Correct. So a prop firm is basically, let's say a brokerage firm, so to speak, but they have their own funds. Let's say a brokerage firm has a hundred million account, now they have a hundred different traders. They might give each trader, let's say a million dollars each. And we're basically trading the firm's capital. And they would make money because they would take roughly 30% off everything you made in exchange for giving you the money to actually trade. So that's a really good for younger traders starting out because as younger traders, we don't have enough money saved up. We can't really, you know, trade with five or $10,000. Really we need a a capital size. So what the firm allows you to do is it gives you all the softwares, all the tools, all the money to trade.

Anmol (24m 30s):

Now the, you can't actually lose all their money because they will, even if they, even though they might be giving you 10,000, 10 million, if you lose, let's say $5,000 in a day, it it, it automatically shuts off the platform. So that was good because that's force risk management, right? Which most traders don't have. Most traders lose because they keep going when they're losing. Whereas at the firm, if you have a lost target, if it's hit you're done for the day, come back tomorrow, they might have lost targets for the week. If you get done for the day, you know, done for the week, come back next week. And at the same level you'd also have profit targets. So it was actually like a, you know, approach that was very binary. You can see your progression, which actually really helps cuz as an individual trader, that's one of the things we don't have is a progression path.

Phil (25m 14s):

And do they give you a plan to trade with or are you basically left by yourself for that?

Anmol (25m 18s):

You kind of make your own trading plan. So everybody, the firm will trade a little bit differently. Everybody has a different style. They only give you the risk management parameters. Like, hey, you can't lose more than X in a day. You can't lose more than X in a week and your profit targets to get to the next level are to hit this goal, but hit it twice in a week. If you hit it once, you're not gonna get promoted. You have to hit it two weeks in a row to get promoted to the next level.

Phil (25m 41s):

So what do you think the danger signals are that show you that you're not out cut out for trading? I mean, it's not gonna be for everyone, is it?

Anmol (25m 47s):

Yeah, the, I think the danger signals really are if you're a really emotional and human being, right? If you're really, really emotional, you wear emotions on your sleeve, you wear hard on your sleeves and you are affected or act by everything, it's gonna be a tough business. People really make for great traders that I found after coaching, many traders are ex, ex pilots make for really amazing traders. Why? Because while they're used to having a checklist, they're used to like following a process, unemotionally, right? And doing it every single time. Pilots make for great traders, X poker players make for great traders because again, they know how to, when to hold it, know when to fold it, right? They know all of that and they, and they also are not averse to risk. So they make for great traders.

Anmol (26m 27s):

People who not don't make for good traders are people who are risk averse, right? You, you're, you're your hope, your fear of loss is stronger than you hope for gain. Great traders, their hope for gain is stronger than their fear of loss. So if that's the case, if your fears loss is stronger, then it's gonna have a tough career. If you're emotional, it's gonna be tough. And also if you cannot create accountability, self-accountability, that's also gonna be a tough business as well. Cuz again, there's no boss, there's no employee and it's very easy to make a mistake when it comes to trading. Just close your laptop, nobody will ever find out that mistake that I made, right? It's very easy to hide behind a computer screen. So having self-awareness, self-accountability is really important and imperative for a trader's success.

Phil (27m 12s):

And you, you'd also think that it would be important to look at yourself and look, look after yourself emotionally, physically, health-wise. I mean there there is that the cliche of the trader sitting behind the computer screen with, you know, cigarettes and drinking too much coffee and basically not looking after themselves. But that seems to me to speak to being slaves, a slave to your emotions. Yeah,

Anmol (27m 35s):

Typically if you have to do things to control your emotions, then, then you're still emotional. You're just putting a bandaid on it and sooner or later, further down in your career, it'll come out in ugly ways. So I always tell people like trading is the biggest personal development journey that I've embarked on. Like, I've learned so much about myself and my own psyche just by being a trader, because as you said, rightly, you have to control everything, right? You have to be unemotional, you have to be in the moment. You can't be super unhealthy, you can't be partying all day and coming back and expecting to be your best in the morning, right? It doesn't work like that. So it's a very disciplined career. It's the closest thing to a sport. Just like in a sport, not everybody's gonna get picked for the team.

Anmol (28m 16s):

Not everybody's gonna make it, but the top people are gonna make it. Why do the top people make it? Guess what they're doing? Michael Jordan, he's reviewing game footage. Such what our traders doing, we're tracking our trades, we're reviewing our journals, right? Professional sports, people are watching game footage of their opponents. They're seeing what I can tweak, fix, optimize. And the same thing with traders. Traders will have that mindset of it took me five seconds to get my order in on that trade. How can I get it down to four seconds? Like thinking in those terms like a sport is the closest analogy that I can provide.

Phil (28m 47s):

And it's also important to understand emotions, even if you're just a long-term investor as well. Because so many people with their long-term portfolios have sold at the bottom and started buying in again when it's too late. And you know, this is a really important thing to understand about yourselves because the emotions you feel with money can trip you up sometimes.

Anmol (29m 8s):

Yeah, and I think it has, and I think that's kind of what makes the market move, right? Like the, the some somebody needs to sell for you to buy and somebody needs to buy for you to sell. So there's that always that polarity. And as we always talk about, stock market runs on just two motions, fear and greed. And all we're trying to do as traders is decode which phase we're in. Are we in the greed phase? Are we in the fear phase, right? So just a few weeks ago, actually in December, the whole stock market was crashing or coming down. We were down 35% for the year. And you could see a lot of people were fearful and a lot of people were being controlled by the fear. So we always end up doing the opposite. That's the time we end up start buying, right? And now when the stock market was going up, everybody is, you know, extremely bullish or greedy and you know, you start seeing NFTs and all these things start going all over the place.

Anmol (29m 55s):

That's when we know as a trader that okay, maybe time to start selling into them, right? Maybe start to get out of that. So emotional emotions play out no matter what type of trader you are, long and short-term. And, but as a long-term investor, what you need to do is, as you said, Hey, I'm a long-term investor. So if you're a long-term investor, then don't look at things every single day, right? If you're gonna trade for a living, don't trade. Like you have to retire next week, right? Trade for the long haul. And if you're investing, as the word says, you should technically should never be pulling out of the markets unless things get really, really insane. Cause the stock market has always been higher than what it was the past 10 years, always. So if you just maintain that position, you dollar, I have a, I have a free gift for audience.

Anmol (30m 56s):

If they're more interested about learning about trading and investing, they could go to livetradersguide.com and you'd get my free checklist and my free guide and also an introductory course that'll give them a really good perspective on whether they should even get into trading in the first place. And then that's kind of where they can start their journey. All right, live traders.com

Phil (31m 15s):

Anmol Singh, thank you very much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure chatting with you.

Anmol (31m 19s):

Thanks for having me. It was a great chatting with you.

Chloe (31m 21s):

Thanks for listening to Stocks for Beginners. If you enjoy listening, please take a moment to rate or review in your podcast player or tell a friend who might want to learn more about investing for their future.l

Stocks for Beginners is for information and educational purposes only. It isn’t financial advice, and you shouldn’t buy or sell any investments based on what you’ve heard here. Any opinion or commentary is the view of the speaker only not Stocks for Beginners. This podcast doesn’t replace professional advice regarding your personal financial needs, circumstances or current situation.