Interviews with Top of the Tournament Leaderboard: StockCham.

This mini-interview series is to showcase some of the prominent participants of the tournament leaderboard and what propels them to be able to trade well.

This post was originally posted here. 

This is @stockcham, who is currently top 3 on the leaderboard, out of 2,000 participants. In 2014, he also wrote an ebook: Stockcham’s Trading Guide, which is a best-seller on our platform and generated more than $100,000 in revenue over the years.

We did a quick lookup on his tournament portfolio here and saw that ALL his trades were winning trades.

His portfolio is up more than 50% at the time of writing.

We asked the following questions and this is what he had to say. 

How many years have you been trading?

Stockcham: I have been trading for about 25 years.

What’s your profession?

Stockcham: I’m a Manager in a food distribution company in charge of purchasing and sales. Stocks Trading is just my passion.

How did you start trading and what got you started?

Stockcham: In the 1990’s I saw my colleagues making good money from stocks market. I knew nuts about this so I didn’t find out more initially.

But as days went by I kept hearing making good money. Finally I decided to learn more.

At first I managed to make some money easily because the market was very bullish. But in less a month the market crashed. I lost quite a sum of money. I started off with huge losses of 6 figures but I managed to be trade profitably after years of hard work.

Can you share more about your trading plan?

Stockcham: After I buy a stocks, most of the time I will immediately queue GTM (good-this-month) order at a price to sell and have in mind the price to stop loss if the price retrace.

When the stocks starts to retrace, I will get ready to stop loss. I don’t believe in strict trading plan.

In some circumstances there may be a change in plan. But setting a stop loss and activate it is a must.

How do you usually determine an entry and exit for a particular trade?

Stockcham: I base it on Candlestick charts, Volume & MACD indicator, Price Action, Market Depth, Supports & Resistance, Market Sentiment to determine my Entry & Exit.

I can’t emphasise any less that candlesticks setup/pattern is really important.

For Entry, I normally go for uptrend stocks. I like chart that show candlesticks curving up forming higher low, candlesticks that form bull flag. I looked out for reversal candlestick or candlestick pattern. Most of the time I tried to buy at/near the support when the stocks retrace after a run. I may also enter a trade if I see good queues in the Market Depth or when I saw good Price Action. E.g. of Good Price Action are constant buyers continue to appear at a specific price, Big lots taken up at a strong resistance price and certain tricks by the Market Makers etc.

For Exit, I will normally queue sell at/or near resistance price. If I notice that buyers still very strong when the price is near the resistance price,  I may try to fight breakout of resistance price. I will also set a Stop Loss price. But sometimes I may set a 2^nd level Stop Loss. I will definitely exit if it hit my 2^nd level stop loss price. I may also exit my trades if the market suddenly turn weak or when I see too many sellers appear even though it haven’t hit my stop loss price.

What would you say to new traders who want to trade well? 

Stockcham: To be able to trade well, you need to have the Capital, Knowledge and some Luck.

Without sufficient Capital, you will have fear which will messed up your thoughts. You cannot think properly. A minor shake by Market Makers will shake you out.

Then following by hardworking. You cannot just simply follow what the gurus buy because after an entry you won’t know how to exit. You need to do the homework yourself by studying charts, watching Price Action, reading FA news and so on.

The more charts you see, the more you will understand the kind of setup that can lead to an upward move. You also needs to have an analytical mind. I would say trading is a psychological game. When you trade, you are trading with the Market Makers. Market Makers won’t show you a scenario whereby it is too easy to understand. E.g. You see many buyers queue to buy at a certain price but price keep dropping. You need to think more on certain Price Action….for example, Buy price @$25 and Sell Price @$27, and there’s no $26 queue but someone buying straight at $27.

Why? It took years for me to have some ideas of what’s happening in the stock market.

Last but not least, do not try to recoup your losses by trading more especially when the market is weak. You will be in big trouble if you do that.

If the trades continue to go against you, take a break for a little while and re-organize.

Luck does also play a role in our daily life including trading. I wish everyone the best in their trading.

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#tournamenttop

If you’d like to check out his best-selling ebook, find out more here.

Register for this tournament here, make just one trade and be eligible to win the latest Apple Watch Series 5 worth $600!

We also have an upcoming sharing session happening on 14th Nov, 7pm – 8.30pm. Full details here.

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