The Worlds Best Trader Reveals The 10 Commandments To Profitable Live Trading

TITLE: The World’s BEST Trader Reveals the 10 Commandments To Profitable Live Trading CHANNEL: Words of Rizdom DATE: 2026-03-12 ---TRANSCRIPT--- made 4.7 million dollars. USA Today wrote an article about how I was the biggest trader of S&P futures in the country.

When you’re trading, there is no practice day. It’s game day every day. This guy was the world’s best trader. Welcoming back Louis Borsellino. If people are being honest with themselves, they could sit down and say why they’re not profitable. I could show a P&L of 20 years [music] of never having a losing year. Maybe a dozen losing months. I was never swinging for the fences every day. I was swinging for the I was talking to my ex-partner the other day. He said that with AI, what it used to cost him 200,000 a year to gather all this information and come up with his trading signals is now costing him $5,000 because he can automate all this. This AI is kind of exciting cuz it’s going to make more millionaires than you could ever think about, but Louis Borsellino ran the Chicago trading pits for the S&P. Having the largest portion of volume than anyone else on earth, all the biggest orders ran through Louis. There’s no such thing as a bad trading program, you know that. You get If you have a good trading program, it may go against you for a while and then it may be able turn around, but you got to have enough cash to be able to survive that survive that drawdown. Right. to be where the action’s at. You want to be where the volatility’s at. You want to be where the where there’s the most order flow. The worst thing you do And in this episode, Louis shares the exact principles to profitable trading. Exactly what he looks for to identify potential and what it takes [music] to be a profitable full-time trader. Markets will humble you, right? So you you think you make money every day for a month, you can’t do no wrong. What happens is a lot of traders, their careers became shortened or became difficult because All this and more in this special episode with a true trading legend, Louis Borsellino. Welcome everyone back to the Words of Wisdom podcast. We are back once again and still the number one trading podcast in the world and the fastest growing, thanks to all of you and our incredible guests. We’re on our second US tour of the year. And obviously our tours are thanks to our incredible sponsors, Trade Zella, the number one trading and journal in the space and backtesting tool all-in-one. So, a huge thank you to them. But, our incredible guests, for the first time in a very long time, we have a guest returning to the show. And really, you know, I’m super, super excited for this. And there’s only one person to kick off our first part two in a very long time. He is known as one of the greatest traders of all time, the largest trader in the S&P trading pit in Chicago. You already know who it is. It’s the one and only Louis Borsellino. Louis, thanks for coming back. Thanks for having me. It’s my absolute pleasure. Yeah, it was it was fun and we had such a huge impact last time. Uh you know, the trailer, I remember still this day is pinned on my my Instagram page cuz it was just so amazing. I think we did over a million views just on that trailer. Oh, really? Uh let alone the episode. But, to start things off, as I said, this is a part two. So, I was always wondering about like what we’re going to go into, how do we start it? So, we had an incredible comment on our last podcast. A guy called Tom Hogard, who is a a very well-respected trader of today and has a really famous book, The Best Loser Wins. And he commented on our episode. And I’ll just read it out to you. I’ll I’ll read most of it uh of what’s relevant. I’d love to hear your thoughts. But, it’s and really less so about your thoughts, more so just to show the impact that you actually had in your career and even to this day. [snorts] And uh he said, “Dear Louis, and I’ll be on screen for everyone. But, Dear Louis, I think a thank you would be an understatement. You deserve a massive applause for bringing this interview to life. I can’t begin to describe how important this podcast is for the world of trading. For traders like me, who every day show up to hustle up for a dollar or two, Louis Borsellino was a trader that I tried to study when I started trading 26 years ago. There was not much information available like there is today. What I would have given for this information almost three decades ago is significant. And it’s still still like today, it was the fewest who made it like Louis Borsellino who made it. I don’t believe we will study this podcast in the years to come trying to figure out what his strategy was. We will still study this podcast in the years to come to figure out who he was, what his belief system was, what his inner dialogue was, and how he handled setbacks. You’ve created an interview of lasting legacy, and I’m truly grateful for it. Thank you, Tom. That’s That’s It’s nice to hear. All right. Exactly. And yeah, the reason I bring that up is just to really showcase, you know, we did a podcast last year, right? And it’s had such an impact for the traders today, but it just showcases how much of a massive trader you were, cuz bear in mind back then there wasn’t really social media, right? Uh where which connected the whole world in this way, but yet almost three decades ago, Tom Hogard knew exactly who you were, wanted to study you to be able to, you know, elevate his trading. And it really just shows the impact you had. Well, you know, it’s funny because uh no one realizes when you’re doing what you’re doing, all right? Um how interested people were, right? I kind of figured out when um I got a call from um Ron Insana, right? And so he worked for uh CNBC, and he wanted he he called me up and he said, “Hey, do me a favor. Would you please do an interview um this Friday on the money supply when it comes out, or unemployment number?” And I said, “Why me?” And he goes, “Well, I can’t get anybody to do an interview. You’re the only name I really knew, and everybody always talks about how you’re the largest trader in the S&P pit.” I said, “Why would Why isn’t anybody else going to do this?” And they go, “Well, they’re all worried about the FBI investigation from uh the early ’90s, right?” And I was like, “Well, I’m not worried about that. We’re not killing people here. We’re not stealing any money. Uh I said, “Well, I’ll do the interview.” And so then um I started doing the interview once a week, and then within, you know, that that kind of coincided with me writing my book and then we started a we started a website called teachertrade.com, right? And I became so fascinated with the internet. I mean, literally, I was looking at the internet and I’m going, you know, within 6 months we had 20,000 people registered on the on the site. And what I did was I put it together to be, shorten the learning curve, right? I wanted to shorten the learning curve for, you know, would-be traders. And I kind of, you know, you remember the old saying in in um in the US, it was everyone wants to be like Mike, right? So, Michael Jordan. And so, that’s like I was going, everybody wants to be a day trader. Everybody wants to be a trader. And then so many people I ran into and you know, doing the money show or doing anything in and any sort of trading environment. And everybody wanted to be like the day traders. They all wanted to, you know, you know, in Chicago, um I think there were 6,000 traders and they were all in their 20s and they’re all driving around in Porsches and Mercedes and have second houses and so on. And so, I think in Chicago we saw that how that futures market grew up, right? When I first went there it was like a a club. I mean, literally, you know, they had um pork belly, cattle, wheat. But then the financial futures were born. You know, you had all the and the currencies, the euro dollars and so on and so forth. So, in Chicago in the ’80s and ’90s, um you know, every single girl wanted to marry uh doctors and lawyers, not anymore. They wanted to marry traders. [laughter] Right? So, um we used to joke they used to come down to the floor either for the, you know, to get their degree or get their MRS degree, right? [laughter] But uh yeah, I mean, it I saw that explosion and that’s why I did the website. And what we did with the website, we literally did uh a website to you know, I had the 10 Commandments of trading, right? And then we had the introduction to technical analysis, and then we had um I I created a psychological profile for hey, take this quiz and see if you have the the psychology of being a good trader, right? Literally, it wasn’t really about the psychology of being a good trader, it was about can I get all your information? Who are you? Where did you come from? How much money you make? What school did you go to? And what we were we were we creating you know, a database of people, right? Um but I’ll tell you how far ahead of we were. Really, yeah? I mean, we were way ahead of the time because um I didn’t even realize how you know, uh important that information was, the database of traders, right? And uh we were looking at it and the thing that fascinated me when I when I looked at the web trend report was we were getting people from 19 different countries. Yeah. And this is

1996. My the first website that I built, it cost $150,000. You could do the same website now, you know, for free. Yes, [laughter] that’s true, yeah. Yeah, very basically. So, we were um we were kind of ahead of our time and what I would I I met this gentleman who uh um well, he had a computer science major, but he worked for a Baker Hughes, right? So, he was in the oil business. And um he had developed some trading programs and he said, “Look, if if um and I don’t know if I would have talked about this last time, but he said, “If you trade my trading program, I’ll take care of your website and all your stuff and anything you need.” And um so, he had this trading program that was based on uh the open and uh the 5-minute close. So, if the market closed above the 5-minute uh close, and back then we had an opening range, like so it was uh 30 to 60. So, any orders filled within 30 and 60 were okay. So, if we uh we uh we closed above the 5-minute range, then it was going to be a bullish day. Yeah. So, we would put a buy on. And then we would put a stop in at uh 600 points below that entry point. And then we had a target of 1,000 points on the up. And in about 6 months, we made about $2 million with that with that program.

Really? Yeah. And then one day it just stopped working. Just classic program actually. Right. Right. And and so um we were you know we were doing that and then you know we were looking at um uh when I was looking at it I was I was looking at this area and I said, “You know, all these traders all these people that are on our website they have to keep going back and forth to the website, right? I said, “Well, what if it just popped up? Like what if you could just pop it up?” He goes, “Oh, yeah, there’s this new language out there called Java.” He goes uh I can write that program in 48 hours. He had a program that when we So, what we were doing is we were literally typing in market updates all day long. Mhm. Uh for um for the Nikkei, for the S&P’s, bonds, and and so on, right? And um we were in the what how we decided to move further into doing more updates was um when I went to the the web trend report I’m going, “Well, let’s see where everybody’s going.” So, you you know how a web trend report works, right? You got people going there and saying, “Well, are they going on our technical analysis?” Yeah. Okay, so many people go there. How much time do they spend there? Are they going to psychological profile? I’m going to go there. Are they going to the 10 Commandments? So, we were looking whatever where it was going and where everybody was going was our morning comment, our mid-afternoon comment, and our closing comment, right? So, that’s telling me that people human nature is they’d rather hear what the expert has to say than do the work themselves, right? And we were literally trying to to you know shorten the learning curve if people wanted to do this for a living, right? And so then when we saw that, we just started updating it the um 15, 20 times a day. And then when we had the ability that you could just stay on the um on the website and just, you know, leave it minimized and it would pop up. Right? So we’re doing we’re doing push information to it in 1997,

96. We’re pushing information out to people. And um that took our our uh website usage to 6,000 traders using it for 6 hours a day. Wow. Right? And so we were still way ahead of our time cuz I was then going to FCMs and saying, “Hey, why don’t you sponsor this pop-up window?”

Mhm. Right? So I go I’ve got all these inform- I got all these traders. They’re on it for 6,000 day. They’re you know, 6,000 uh 6 hours a day. And if you guys, you know, and and you know, in this business, unfortunately, you know that the average uh retail trader lasts about 6 months. Right? It’s still true today. Hey guys, before we get into this incredible episode, I want to say a massive thank you for all of your support so far on both Words of Wisdom and Chart Fanatics. We have grown immensely and are still the fastest growing channels in the trading industry. Now, a way to give back to every single one of you, if you want profitable strategies completely for free, go to chartfanatics.com. The link’s in the description. Put your email in and every single week we will send you a free PDF with a profitable strategy of the guest that we host. As well as on the website, you can go straight there and you can go through the library of strategies completely for free. Just input your email. On top of that, we launched a Chart Fanatics free Discord community that has already over 10,000 members of traders across the world. We have our live traders from Chart Fanatics live in there. I’m documenting every single one of my trades in there. And we have exclusive discounts, massive giveaways, and so much more just to give back to every single one of you. Let’s not forget updates on every episode and things that we are bringing to this industry that’s going to change it forever. But for now, the links for that are in the description. Let’s get into this episode. Why do you think that is though when you really reflect think about it as you say you’re ahead of your time. Because even that what you just mentioned there is like the original podcast sponsorship if anything. Right. Um But yeah, like you’re ahead of your time but as we talked about even in the previous uh podcast we even talked about what the the profitable traders do even as well like follow the money flow. That same principle is the same today. Like why do you feel like even the technology has changed and access has changed and all of these changes have taken place yet the statistics for success in trading or failure has remained the exact same pretty much. You know, I think that um you know, trading is one of those uh industries that people look at and it was funny because you know, in ‘87 when I made the $4 million and I was written up in USA Today I had everybody call me up saying, “Hey, with your money and my brains, right? We can make more money.” And I’m thinking, “Well, what’s wrong with my brain, right?” Yeah. So, I I think I think the problem or not the problem, I think the way um when successful traders are um given recognition or people become famous for being traders, um I think they kind of look at us sometimes and say, “Well, if that guy could do it, I can do it, right?” So, and and and it’s and when you look at traders they’re they’re definitely people who have done it for a long time definitely have a different personality type, right? Number one, you have to be able to deal with loss. You have to be able to deal with rejection. Not always right, you know, and uh a lot of people when they start trading if uh you know, like I said before if they had through the guys that I was sponsoring, I always knew it take at least a year to actually get the the better traders or if they were going to succeed. Mhm. So, um and I just think it’s the the nature of that person, right? Because there’s some people that just imagine if you made uh you know, you went 5 days in a row and you weren’t profitable. I mean, would you freeze? Would you then say, “Look, I’ve lost this. I can’t do this.”? So, you got to have a short memory and you got to have uh an interest in you like an a strong uh composition that says, “Hey, you know, this is part of the game. You can’t always have winners, right? Let’s learn from our Let’s learn from our losers. Let’s learn from our mistakes.” Um and I think that that takes uh it takes a different personality type. Like imagine if if you went to work all week and and your the guy that employed you said, “Yeah, you did a good job this week, but uh I can’t pay you.” Right. How long would you do that job, right? Yeah, exactly. And that’s the same thing with trading, right? You you could go 2 weeks, 3 weeks, a month and not make money and then, you know, if you have a lifestyle and you got your presents, you you know, your you it’s a lot of outside pressure, right? Talking about that sponsorship, as you mentioned you would train traders and so on. Try and identify the right traits for who’s going to be there long term. And one thing you mentioned, I believe even in the in the last podcast, is you would try and look at professional uh sports or people who’ve really played at a very high level in terms of sports. Why is that? What was the correlation you were looking at there? Well, so, you know, I’ll leave to I’ll leave the long-term trading and market trends to the analyst, right? And uh what we were doing is we were just taking advantage of market movement, right? And so, if you were inside the pit, there were different uh traders or different uh signals that you got from the people that were filling orders and then the bigger traders, right? So, you had to be able to to interpret your you know, market flow, uh order flow, um where where the pit was sitting, was it long, was it short, and then be able to take advantage of um I and in seconds be able to take advantage of that. Um So, the way you listen, the way we kind of looked at it is that, you know, you um you don’t have to be very cerebral when we’re standing in the pit. I mean, you had to take in a lot of information, but you had to be able to react fast. And if you can react fast, then you can train yourself then it just becomes repetitive. Hey, I saw this guy buying I have to do this. Boom, boom, boom. The market moved up five ticks. I’m going to take my profit, get out, go to the next trade, right? And I think what happens a lot of times uh when you’re getting in and out of day trading and scalping like that, what we called scalping. Um you know, I I I said it last time, the quickest way to turn a day trader into a position trader is let the market go against them. Cuz when the market goes against them, it’s so unnatural to say, all right, I’m going to sell this and get out. Yeah. And take a loss, right? And then if you take a bunch of little losses in a row, is that affecting your psyche? Is that affecting your ability, right? I I I’d said last time there were times where I didn’t make money for four or five days in a row and I wake up in the middle of the night, you know, in a cold sweat saying I’ve lost it, right? And um but you know, you have to go back and just you got to stay grounded. I mean, literally you have to do your work. You have to do your research. You have to stay sharp on your game. Um like a like I keep referring to last time, but I didn’t have any uh bad uh habits. You know, I I wasn’t on drink or any drugs. You know, Monday through Friday was my time to work and you know, on the weekends it was my time to party, but my my point is is that you have to if you’re going to be a trader, uh now there’s so much information like you know, uh in 1987 in the crash, I was sitting and uh in in the office where Jack Sandner was the chairman of the exchange and I said, look, I you know, like get a check for like 2 million. I had $4 million in my trading account. And he looked at me and said, uh “I can’t give you any money here right now. We can’t make our margin calls. And I’m waiting for a call from Alan Greenspan.” So, while I was sitting there, Alan Greenspan called. He put it on speaker. And he goes, “Jack, what’s going on with the exchange?” He said, “Well, Jack, you know, Alan, um uh you know, I’m having trouble making margin calls.” He goes, “Don’t worry, the Fed’s going to loosen up money.” I’m getting So, I’m thinking to myself, “They’re going to loosen up money. That means bonds are going down. They’re going to flood money in their money supply.” And I’m like, “I’m not thinking like I can get a check for 2 million anymore. I’m thinking, how do I get short?” Right? How do I get short? Short. And there was no electronic trading back then. It was just starting, you know, uh and access. So, now and, you know, when I first started trading, you know, you talk about the internet and talk about uh news, the news cycles. Yeah. They were six, you know, they were seven, eight hours long news cycles. Now you had, you know, it’s it was the the you know, the democratization of information. There’s nothing that goes on in the world that doesn’t, you know, can’t get to your phone within seconds. Right? So, all those things are um made made trading, if you’re going to be a a a scalper or someone who’s going to take advantage of uh these gigantic market movements that have been going on, right? And then look at all the products that are out there. You know, you’ve got more derivatives. You got Now you got this whole crypto Uh opened up, yeah. And that that that’s opened up. And now they have futures on crypto. So, the whole derivative market Um now they have these bi- binary options where you can just literally just bet the market’s going to close higher or lower. That’s it, right? Um and I think uh it’s it’s it’s funny, too, because I was reading an article last week about um uh bankruptcies for kids in their 20s. And couple things that have gotten to them. Trading. Mhm. Gambling. Yeah. Right? I think there’s $14 billion a year now gambled on these sports in the United States. And all of you know, all these young kids um young kids all all the kids in their 20s and 30s start they’re all you know, prop bettors you know. So I I and I think that a lot of time people conflate gambling with trading. And they’re nothing alike. Right? You know, a gambler is a gambler you you might be betting odds or whatever, but you don’t control your destiny, right? In trading the markets move, but you can control your destiny as far as how how do I approach it, right? Um so you know, like I said a lot of lot of studying getting your charts um now with with AI I was I was talking to my ex-partner the other day he’s still into trading industry. He said that with AI what used to cost him 200,000 a year to gather all this information come up with his trading signals is now costing him $5,000. Cuz he can automate all this. Mhm. So um you know, there’s there’s the markets have certainly changed and you know, with us we had all the information. We had all you know, well we didn’t have the information we had um the end result from the information. So Yeah. you know, if I was at someone in there putting in a buy there was a reason why I was putting in a buy, right? And whether it was inside information or whether it was the result of my technical analysis, right? So And so that when it came to that speed and being able to execute and take that information and be able to do it at speed, did you just find that the people who had done sports were like kind of had this innate skill they had already developed to move at speed? Yes, because it has to be repetitive, right? So if I if you know, the athletes knew how to train their mind and their body I mean their body, right? If I do this five times a day, I do this 10 times a day, this will make the end product in the game, right? And I used to talk about how with athletes, there’s there’s practice practice practice practice, but game day the speed is game day speed, right? When you’re trading, there is no practice day. It’s game day every day. So, I think that what happened with the because it was such a physical thing back then, you got to remember we did our homework. Yeah. Then we went into the pit. Everybody else was doing their homework and everybody else had their reason for buying and sell. You had to take all that physical sort of input that you were getting from the orders that were entering the pit, the the locals who were speculating on where the market was going and how those all interact for you to you know, come up with a a decision, right? The buy or sell. But literally within a day and you could see today there’s all these little micro micro moves within within the whole day, right? So, you know, we were we were back then we would I would trade 2,000 contracts. Wow. In a day. And, you know, sometimes I was making a you know, two or three ticks on them or sometimes I was making you know, a 100 points on them. But getting in and out and not freezing and the ability to keep my body trained and so that process is the same thing as a as an athlete. You know, if I’m going to I’m going to be a a tennis player, I’m going to hit so many balls a day. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. You know, if if I see my opponent with a backhand, I know the ball’s coming across, right? So, my point is when we were in the pit, you could see the setups all day long, right? And when you see those setups, you had to be able to act. And when you were wrong, you had to get out. And what I found was the people that were um professional or or college athletes that already trained their body, they were able to do the same thing with trading. I agree. Right? Cuz you didn’t have to be a genius. You know, I I said it all the time. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to be a pure trader back in the ’90s, and even ’80s and ’90s, right? Let’s take a break for a minute there, guys, cuz I want to tell you about our incredible sponsor, Alpha Prime, the first of its kind in the industry. Now, evaluation firms have been in the industry for the last few years and done absolutely phenomenal in terms of its impact for traders. As you can see here, through Alpha Capital Futures, so many payouts to so many traders across the world. But now, for the first time, there is an incredible route for traders to become professionals and to trade live capital. And that’s [music] through Alpha Prime. So, let me quickly tell you how it works. You can just buy a challenge on Alpha Capital, Alpha Futures, doesn’t matter which one. So, with Alpha Capital, you have phase one, phase two, phase three challenges. On Alpha Futures, you have standard and advanced plans. Whichever one, purchase a challenge, show consistency, build your track record, and then you can be invited to Alpha Prime. Alpha Prime, you will get access to live capital, you will get access to risk management and resources at a professional level, you will have a salary as a trader, and access to trade on live trading floors starting here in London. This is the first of its kind where a evaluation firm is finding talented traders and then backing them with live capital and creating a route to professional trading. I am very proud to be sponsored by Alpha Prime. The links for both will be in the description below. Alpha Capital and Alpha Futures, use the code Riz for 20% off all challenges. Link is in the description below. Now, let’s get back to the episode. So, going back off the back of that, I think it’s a perfect way to segment into it, like what Tom Hogard had mentioned in terms of his inner dialogue. Like, what does that look like for you, you know, coming to the floor each day, especially when you’re in sort of that that peak flow of your career? What did that look like, you know, coming into the floor? What would your sort of inner dialogue be like, you know, before you start that market, that chaos or if you will of the of the the pits back then? Yeah. Well, so um I always kind of approached the markets a little differently only because the way I I um my introduction to the the markets was that I was an order filler, right? So, when I first put my deck together and I first started looking at what an order flow deck looked like and I would noticed uh you know, there’s five different firms and um so, five different firms and there was 20 different orders that came from those five different firms and they’re all at the same price or within 10 cents of each other. What made those people think that this is where it’s going to buy, all right? And same thing with the sells or where they put their buy stops. When you see buy stops and sell stops, when you see these gyrations in the market, it’s because there’s a lot of people that are where those buy stops and sell stops are, all right? And um and people are putting their stops there because of their research, okay? So, I’d kind of approach it from a different point of view. Once I saw that, I started learning about technical analysis and more of the mic the the market psychology of traders back then, right? And you know, there was two types of traders, right? There were uh institutional traders that were probably using the markets for the the S&P pit. They were growing up and learning how to use the S&P pit to hedge their positions in cash cuz that’s what derivatives should be, right? And then there were the speculators. So, trying to um discern from who were the speculators and who were the uh hedgers was another thing that you had to sit down with. So, what I did is that I like I told you before, I I I studied the market from three different sort of disciplines. Mhm. So, I had a I had someone who was a Gann expert. So, we did nothing all he did was he was a Gann chartist, had the Gann numbers, the Gann oscillators, and so on. And I had somebody who did nothing but reversals, right? Where he thought the market would tops and bottom reversals. And then I had an intraday trader. Right. So, I would take all that information from these people from them, right? And their numbers are right. I you know, there’s no such thing as a bad trading program, you know, that you just run out of time. Mhm. Right? So, you get if you have a good trading program, it may go against you for a while and then it maybe will it’ll turn around, but you got to have enough cash to be able to So, to survive that survive that drawdown, right? So, um I took all that information and what I was able to do was I could take the points that were pointed out by the three different disciplines and I was able to in real time make decisions based on what we thought Mhm. and then I saw what was going on in the pit because now this was real time. Market open. Markets are hitting and so they’re forcing the market to either go up or down and they’re going to get to the points where we were already identifying as either support or resistance or a reversal or whatever, right? Uh that’s what we you know, we did and then we started developing like I said, we started developing our own trading programs. Um not based on with the most mostly based on technical analysis. We we didn’t really do a lot of fundamental analysis like uh you know, long-term market positions. We were just basically daily technical analysis. And so since we had all the information before there were the E-minis, all that information from around the world anybody was manifesting itself in that pit, right? And be able to to to take that absorb all that information and make a buy or sell was based on something that you know it wasn’t just a it wasn’t it was a um it happened instantaneously but the work behind it was not instantaneous. Yeah. So So you’d have to essentially you’d have these levels coming into the pit. When you’re in the pit and so we’re at the height of that chaos and you’re taking in the different emotions and the orders you’re recognizing that flow and then understanding already here’s our so above price levels that we have mapped out and our lower price. So when you’re seeing that order flow you can then just not know exactly 100% but have confidence knowing that price should lead to one of these levels depending on the pit. Well and and besides that you could feel the emotion right? I think I feel sorry for this the screen traders of today right? Because they can’t feel the emotion. They could see the market spike up but we heard it. We saw it. We saw the physical you know we we saw the physical energy when in that market turned bid and there were no more sellers you could see the panic in everybody’s faces right? Yeah. I I I the screen traders of today uh are you know unless they’re sitting in a room with a bunch of guys and bunch of girls and people and you know trying to help each other or whatever it’s such a um I think it’s a disadvantage now some screen traders believe it’s an advantage because they’re not being suckered by all the noise and other people. Of course yeah. It’s more of a individual thing. It’s always been an individual thing but um uh you know I’ve done some screen trading and it’s it’s it’s different than when we were in the pit right? Cool. Have you ever seen order flow like level two data in terms of the equivalent I guess now of trying to recognize and see the orders? Well the only time that I could ever give you something that would might have been you know similar is that when we started the I started the first Nasdaq stock trading room in Chicago right? So, we had the level two machine where we originally did it, um we had the prop traders inside that they were trading NASDAQ stocks. They were actually doing what was called the SOES bandits, which are small order execution system, right? And so, what they were doing back then, um when we first started the company, we had somebody who would who had a Series 7 license sitting in front of the room, and they would you know, buy me 1,000 shares of Microsoft, and they would yell it out, and the guy would have to type it in, right? And then, um you know, sell me 1,000 shares. So, there was a lot of um and then they were looking at things like Instinet, and they were looking at the level two machines, and they were looking at There was only three ECNs back then, too, right? And um so, they were looking at the Island, and they were looking at the different ECNs. Uh until Archipelago came along, there were no uh where they were all joined together, right? So, after the New York Stock Exchange bought out bought out uh Archipelago, or they merged, um then that’s when all the ECNs became connected. Well, literally came before when Archipelago was bought by Goldman, and Goldman bought the Pacific Stock Exchange, Archipelago became the first ECN Mhm. that was also an exchange, right? So, that’s the only thing that I ever saw similar to it was when they were doing the cuz the SOES uh bandits were made for retail traders. Oh, really? It came out in 1987 in the crash. Mhm. Uh NASDAQ traders couldn’t get their orders out for a week. They had no idea where their account was after the ‘87, right? So, the the NASDAQ came up with They called it small order SOES bandits, which is small order execution system. So, what would happen is if I was a a retail trader, I could SOES a market maker, and if I hit him before he pulled his order, he had to give me 1,000 shares. Wow. Right? So, what happened back then is all these small all these toes banded rooms started popping up all over the country, right? And so, now the the market makers were being picked off [laughter] by retail traders and you had some guys making, you know, several million dollars a year by picking off market makers. So, that’s the only time I ever saw where you could literally get the same level of uh um emotion. And could you could literally look at at them cuz you know, when you had all the five market makers start pulling their orders, you know, their offers or their bids, you would see them they you know, they’d disappear, you know. And but that’s the only time I ever really saw that where it was similar to the I understand, yeah. You know, one thing that’s stood out to me when interviewing other floor traders and pit traders is that a lot of them would end up trading pits like in different locations. You know, some you know, going from say the US to Europe, some even from Europe to to Asia. Did you ever find yourself trading in different pits as well or was it just Chicago? the only the only one I ever decided that I would I might have done I was going to go to the COMEX. I had bought a seat there just cuz I wanted to come to New York and hang out. Really? [laughter] I never actually traded there but I knew some guys that were traders on there but look, if you’re going to be a pit trader, you want to be where the action’s at. Yeah, and you want to to be where the volatility’s at. You want to be where the where there’s the most order flow. The worst thing you can do is get caught in a market where there’s no volatility or no liquidity. With that’s probably still sound advice to this day cuz a lot of people try and trade say CFD the euro, right? Forex euro and the euro has that that lack of liquidity. It just ranges and yet they still do it and I’m partially one of those sort of people, you know? And you can feel again that lack of liquidity, that lack of volatility and you know, what that ends up doing to your trades and therefore your psychology. Um, you know, so again, it’s so interesting as I say to find all these reoccurring themes that have not shifted over this time period. Right. Because it just shows you that the the foundations and it I guess we can go to the commandments in one sense. Cuz we love to I’d love to be able to go through it and then be able to say, okay, well, these have complete relevance to this day. So like if we go into 10 commandments of trading by Lewis J. Borsellino. [snorts] You have number one, trade for suc- success. So trade for success, not for money. I guess that one’s self-explanatory, right? Pretty much, right? I mean um I used to tell people that, you know, I’d try to buy and sell the market and I I respond to what’s going on in in the pit. And at the end of the day, if I was good at reading the market I made a lot of money, right? So but it wasn’t It’s hard to separate the two, but when you’re in the pit and you’re it’s me against you, me against all the other guys in the pit, there’s a there’s a bit of uh you know We’re going to see who the tough guy is, right? Of course, yeah. And you know, so that you know, it is a competition. It’s you against the other traders, you against the market, it’s you against the institutional traders. And so, you know, individually but if you were what happens is that a lot of traders their careers became shortened or became difficult because they kept thinking about the money they made or lost in that trade. Yeah. Right? And if that’s your only source of income or you’re trying to be a trader and have your lifestyle it it’s hard because uh you know, you would think about the money you lost versus the money you made. So And it’s like trading scared, you know, it Of course, yeah. What was your dialogue like though? Let’s say for example, coming into a new day with you’d had a really good day the prior prior day. What would your process be? Would it be just the same regardless of what the prior day was like? That’s it. I we were day traders. Didn’t matter what I did yesterday. You know, it’s like hey, what have you done for me lately, right? It’s a like when I left, right? I mean, I could show a P&L 20 years of never having losing year. It maybe, you know, in those years a dozen losing months, right? But I couldn’t go to Goldman Sachs and say, here you Here’s what I did for last 20 years. Tell me pay me a million dollars a year and I’ll tell you everything I know. Mhm. Right? So, it when you’re you’re a trader that’s a total independent trader, unless you’ve made that crossed over and did some fund management, right? When you look like Tudor Jones, right? He You know, eventually he he just became a large fund manager, but you know, we came from different positions. We knew each other, but he was always a floor trader, I don’t know if he was a floor trader, a trader that traded from upstairs, but he was always managing money for other people. Right. He got started with people from the south that where he was from and so he was always He always had that mentality of managing somebody else’s money, Right. So, that becomes a different mindset than, you know, there you’re looking for a return, right? Can I beat the S&P 500? Can I get, you know, 15% rate of return and so on with leverage? Versus being trading your own capital, you can push that push that button as far as you can. Yeah, I always had a I always had trouble with you know, like you know, when they were talking Well, you Why don’t you invest in this? We’re going to make 7% on our money. And I’d be looking at the guy and I’m like, I think I’ll leave my money in my trading account and make 100% out of it. [laughter] But, I still had 100% of my my effort, right? You know, the goal is to what I think what Henry Ford said is I want to make 1% of 100 people’s efforts, yeah. Right? But, you know, and so that’s when I started backing traders, which became good, you know, you know, I once we put them through a process and, you know, I was getting I was getting money from other people trading. But, I still had to manage that whole process, right? I had to recruit the traders, train the traders, um you know, ascertain who was going to be good and who was going to be bad. And it was funny. It’s like multi-level marketing. Yeah. they tell you, “Call everybody, you know, you never know who’s going to say yes.” Well, the same thing with trading. I kind of knew the people I recruited to trading, but I still was surprised cuz I could have five people I was training and the two people I thought were going to be stars ended up being duds and the other three people that I thought were going to struggle became great, right? And I I just wonder sometimes if maybe the less cerebral guys are better at trading than the than the guys that go to Harvard and get MBAs. I think so because obviously they start to overcomplicate and try and find reasoning for the market’s movements versus just as you say acting, you know, based off the reflection of what the market’s doing. Right. I mean, look, at the end of day, it’s hard to I don’t care who you are. You can’t even today, I don’t care how much AI, how many algorithms you have, it’s hard to pick a top, hard to pick a bottom. Of course. Right? So, the the goal is is to pick a trend and be able to get on the trend with with the institutional people pushing it. The So, that’s second commandment then. Discipline is the one quality that all traders must possess above all others. Yeah. I mean, if you lose, you know, if you you lose, know, what they say, you lose your head, your ass follows, right? So, at the end of the day, you have to be disciplined and um and you have it’s hard to be disciplined when you have a lot of outside distractions, right? If you can’t shut off the outside world and walk into that pit or walk into your office and shut everybody else out and shut that phone off and not get any information that that’s external to what’s making you make your trading decisions, and not stick to it, right? Uh you know, I saw so many people that would get in positions and they would just sit there Mhm. and says, you know, because they couldn’t take that loss. They couldn’t take that loss and regroup, Mhm. right? So, in in in the pit trading days, I was able to regroup, whether I had a bad day or a good day. But, I didn’t approach I didn’t go into the market and say, “Hey, the market did this yesterday. It’s probably going to do the same thing today, right?” I mean, maybe it was in my the back of my mind, but when I walked in, I had a blank sheet. I had our new numbers for the day, where our our buying sell points were, and as the market unfolded and I saw the order flow come into the pit, I was able to look at that and then uh help it reinforce the uh my decisions, right? That the order flow just reinforces the decisions when we were getting long or short, right? And this is what I’m saying about screen traders today, right? It’s hard for them to see that order flow, but I’m sure they they’re able to look at the market and they see the way uh the dome will move at times that looks like, “Oh, you know, I’ve seen this pattern before, right?” And that’s all trading is is recognizing patterns and jumping on the pattern. Number three I love because it’s so it’s not even specific to trading, I would say, but know yourself. Why is that uh you know, number three in terms of the the commandments? Why is know yourself Because on the Before I told you I didn’t mean to cut you off, but uh everybody has different fear and greed, right? And everybody um when you I knew a bunch of good traders that can only trade one lots and two lots. But they were making three, four, five hundred thousand a year with very little risk, right? And so if you don’t understand what your propensity for risk is, then it will cloud your judgment. So, I saw guys that were very good at trading ones and twos, but if they kicked it up to a five, they weren’t very good anymore because they were thinking to themselves, “Oh, I’m now losing a thousand dollars on this trade versus three hundred on the trade, right?” And so now the money So, this is that whole thing about success, right? The money influences my decision making because I’m not prepared to take that kind of risk, right? And so I I think that that’s true of everyone, right? Everyone has a different, you know, that That’s why there’s accountants in the world. Right? You know, they’re very risk adverse, right? But you need somebody to count your money. Of course. Right? that, yeah. Yeah, so um yeah, you got to know your you got to know where you’re when you’re comfortable and you’re not. Mhm. You know, once you can get yourself into that um the mold of you know, not to say that you can’t go from a one lot to two lot to five lot to a hundred lot. That’s what I was going to ask in terms do you think people can progress though? Sure. If they if if um one, they don’t you know, there’s no there’s very rarely that you get lucky in trading, right? You might make a mistake and it goes your way, but if you don’t you know, people just say to me, you know, you know, you made a million dollars in 13 seconds once. Well, I was never swinging for the fences every day. I was swinging for the you know, the singles. You know, and at the end of the year I had a I had a gigantic year, but my point was I was never looking to make that home run. There were so many guys that I would see ended their career Yeah. because they were swinging for the fence every day. Right? And then one time they got in into a position they couldn’t get out of. Right? But I don’t know if it’s still one of my commandments are I used to say thou shall not shoot their whole wad. So, if you’re not if you can’t get back uh to trade the next day because you were stupid enough to risk everything you had in one trade, then you deserve to be out of there. That’s fair. That’s fair. To be fair, it kind of ties on to to the next one perfectly in terms of the fourth commandment being lose your ego. Yeah. Yeah, so uh you know, markets will humble you. Right. So, you you think uh you know, you you make money every day for a month, you know, and and you can’t do no wrong. There were days where you know, before I even wrote the the trade down on my card, it was going my way and and it just kept going, right? And uh and you know, it’s just like anything else in life, you know, uh people think that, you know, you make a couple good decisions in your life and you think, oh, you know, life is easy, right? And then you get a cash drop to remind that uh reminds you that uh you know, life’s not easy. And if you if you don’t stick to the you know, stick to a plan and be able to uh have a um a backup plan, then you will, you know, you’re [clears throat] going to be short-lived in the trading industry for sure. Did you find even in the pit days were there like peaks and troughs meaning that there were highs and lows like consistently throughout that career and even in life like there’s always going to be highs and lows and you know, those lows catch you off guard if you let the highs get to your head a bit. Yeah, you you know, your people would would look at you and say, “Wow, man, I you know, people outside of the industry, they look at you and say, “Wow, I could never do that or I could do that. I can do that.” And and and to us and and this is true of the traders today, too. The guys that are successful, like I said, people look at you and go, “Well, you know, if he could do it, you know.” And they think in his it might be because they think it might be an intelligence thing. Mhm. It is intelligence, but it is the the physical makeup of that human being. If that person has the propensity and the ability to do all these things, right? And stay grounded, and, you know, not get a big head and do all these different things, then they will last in the trading game, right? It’s the It’s the people that that, you know, I It’s always the person runs up swinging for the fences, right? And they’re doing it because they’ve got themselves in a bad position cuz they had a bunch of losing trades, right? Instead of going back to the drawing board, they got to go, “Oh, no, I I you know, I lost, you know, 20,000 this month. You know, I’ve got I’ve got to make it all back, right?” So, it it it’s a it’s a really um fine balance between your your ego Mhm. and reality, right? It’s true cuz then equally the ego helps you as well if you allow it to or you you use a small dose of it to be able to push that boundary to elevate the risk when necessary and and I’m having, like you said, it’s not luck, it’s it’s an element of luck in terms of, okay, you were in the right place, right time, you executed well, and then that moment created enough volatility for you to get such a huge trade. And then maybe there’s a little of little ego used there, but in terms of generally speaking, ego in trading and life, you know, is very detrimental and then but they can hold you back a lot. What do they say, that luck is when success meets opportunity? That’s right, yeah. Right? Mhm. And and you know it’s true. I mean, the fact that I that my mother was the legal secretary that who was the biggest gold trader in the country and he gave me a job, that was very fortunate for me. Mhm. You know, and I was able to capitalize on that. Throughout your life, whether you’re a trader or not, you’re going to come the peaks and valleys that you talk about. You’re going to make some bad decisions. You’re going to make some really bad decisions, right? And you know, it’s a cliché, but everybody it’s true. It’s not the good decisions that really you know, that that that hurt you. Yeah. It’s not coming back from the bad decisions, all right? You know, what’s the uh uh alternative? You know, when I left um when I left America, um I started a healthcare company. Oh, really? Right. And I was uh buying nursing homes. Okay. And I loved the demographics. I put this company together. And within um 03, we started 04, started the company. And we got up to about 2,000 beds. We’re doing about 30 million a year in revenue. And I loved the demographics. Baby boomers retiring. Nursing homes. Memory care. All these different things, right? Well, one of the things that that you look at is how do you de-risk, right? And because of my you know, number one, I didn’t like partners. Number two, you know, I had a propensity for risk. Yeah. I signed all the loans. I did all this business, all right? Uh that company was probably worth about 65 to 75 million at the time with what we were doing. Mhm. And then my bank failed. I personally guaranteed all the loans. I didn’t get out of it. I mean, that whole debacle cost me about 50 million dollars. Wow. At 50 eight years old or 57 years old, right? I’m you know, I literally lost about 90% of my net worth except for what I put away in trust. And I was like what do you do now? So, I had to literally start over again, right? And you know, I was I was used to a lifestyle. I was used to, you know, but if I would have let that paralyze me where would I be, right? I had my children. They were still in college. I had, you know, and what did I do? I found a way to get into something different, right? And I got into the cybersecurity business. We started out with three employees. We got 100 employees now, right? So, you learn, you know, you can only move forward, right? You got to learn from your mistakes. You know, I’m I’m not personally guaranteeing all the loans anymore. [laughter] That’s it, right? But, you know, but that came from making thousands and thousands of mistakes throughout my life because I made a lot of trades. Not all of them were winners, but it didn’t stop me from trading. Exactly. Right? So, anything in life that, you know, when it it hits you and you think it’s over, just you got to get up, pick yourself up, and go. That’s it. Well Move forward. Don’t know where the market’s going next? Stop worrying about your trading. Just get informed on exactly what’s happening in the markets and what to expect. From forex to futures to stocks to crypto, be on top of it all. That’s why tens of thousands of traders are subscribed to Market Journal, a free newsletter that allows traders to keep up-to-date with the markets every single week. Remember, an informed trader is a profitable trader. It doesn’t matter if Trump tweets, AI stocks are pumping, or if Bitcoin drops out of the sky. Market Journal has you covered. Join for free today using the link in the description below. Let’s take a break for a minute there, guys, cuz I want to tell you about our sponsor, TradeZella. TradeZella is the number one trading tool for all traders. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a crypto trader, a futures trader, or a forex trader. Whatever trader you are, all you do is connect your trading platform directly with TradeZella. It automates and makes your trading journaling so easy. If you want to be a profitable trader, you need trading edge, and that is exactly what TradeZella does. It allows you to identify edge, maintain your edge, and optimize [music] your edge by automating your trade journaling, in-depth analytics, backtesting, bar replay, and so much more. Now, WOR gets you 20% off your yearly subscription with TradeZella, so use WOR for 20% off your yearly subscription, or RIS 10 for 10% off your monthly subscription. The link is in the description below. Now, let’s get back to this episode. That’s what I loved about number five on the commandment list being there’s no such thing as hoping, wishing, or praying. Yeah. There’s no doubt I’ve seen it. I’ve been there myself where I’m in a trade and I’m like, “Please, be this one.” And yeah, even to the point where I’ll be like, “If this one hits TP, I’ll start praying more often. Yeah, I’ll know there’s a god, and I’ll know there’s Yeah, this is real.” Um and obviously that’s not fair to do, but you know, it’s a it’s one that comes up quite a lot. I’m sure you probably saw it a lot when it came to the pits. Well, you you know, you you put it straight on. You have you know, and here’s what happens, you start making deals with yourself. [laughter] Right? Why the the market’s going against you, you’re going, “All right, well, I think it’s going to stop here.” Well, “Well, let me lighten up a little.” Well, and what do what do most people do? They add. They add to the losing position. And then they, you know, then the market keeps going against them, and they now they’ve added to a losing position and hoping it’s going to turn around, and it doesn’t, and then they puke it out. They lose more money than they originally expected because when you put on a trade, you should have a an idea where your stop loss is going to be. And what do they do? They they violate all the rules because they’re hoping they’re going to be right. Mhm. Right? And that’s when you see, you know, that’s when then you see the guys come in with the with the white coats and pull you out of the pit because you got no money in your account, right? So, that’s uh that’s a that’s a reality. It’s a reality, and and taking a loss in anything is the hardest thing to do. It’s the hardest thing to do. You know? Um you know, everybody wants to be a winner. What do you feel like makes it easier to take a loss, if anything? Well, in the trading world, it’s that whole idea. This is what it is. Buy low, sell high, or sell high and buy low. And that generates profits. Right? I think what happens is that people get used to generating profits. Then when they have to take a loss, they’re stubborn because they don’t want to see that red uh you know, that red debit in their account. end of the day, at the end of the day, yeah. The end of the day, they want they you know, so um like I you know, I used to tell people it’s like imagine working all week long, Mhm. right? And then uh your boss tell you, “I’m not going to pay you this week.” Right? That’s what trading’s like. I could work all week long and not make any money. Right? And I got to have the constitution and I also have to be set up in life to be able to have that style, so I can either I have enough money saved Mhm. so that I or I’ve I’ve I’m living a small life and I can put more resources of my cash towards my trading Mhm. or I’m going to live a bigger life, that means I’m going to have to I’m going to have to always be right. Yeah. And I think a lot of times is people get caught up in their lifestyle. Yeah. Right? Outside of the pit. And uh and and they see other traders that are more successful than them and you know, they want to be like Mike, right? Yeah. So, I think that those things, those outside forces play on people’s minds. And when they plays on people’s minds, they make bad decisions. And everything and and no matter what, just not only in trading, you’ll make bad decisions in everything if you let if you let the the wrong influences affect you. Definitely. And commandment number six, let your profits run and cut your losses quickly. Uh You know, that’s very Self-explanatory. No, when I Like I said, if If If you put a trade in Like when we had that trading um algorithm that we built Mhm. Um What we had was uh 600 point stop Yeah. And a thousand point profit. Yeah. Right? And The only thing I was able to do Because I was in the pit And we we put the trades on Well, now I could see what was going on and when the nine when I saw that The algorithm was right Yeah. Well, what do you mean when I saw the algorithm was right? Well, the markets are moving higher, right? But What made the market move higher? Oh my god, look at all this institutional buying coming in, right? And you could see that in an electronic trading. If you had an algorithm that says, “Hey, where There’s our entry point.” And you could see all the algorithm all all the buys coming in, right? So, I was able to actually enhance that because In that program We would buy a um a five lot with a stop Well, when I saw that the market was right and we were going to reach that thousand point Objective Mhm. I just loaded it up. Right? I I I I put more than the five lot on. Mhm. And because the market momentum and then the order flow that was coming into the pit was telling us that we were right. So, I was able to get on that. I could I could take more risk And and ride it up. In terms of that, like do you think Overall base hits are good, but in terms of having a Sizeable P&L as a trader, it comes down to identifying those really key moments and being able to size up And sort of really maximize those. They might happen not very frequently But those are the moments that actually create much of the larger P&Ls uh P&L traders P&L essentially. Like the larger portion of that profit will come from those few trades. Yeah, when you look at um like Richard Dennis and the Turtles back then, that that was he was a big position trader, right? So, he was identifying trends. And he would have positions on for months, right? But again, he was also trading with other people’s money. So, when you raise a fund of a hundred million, right? He was very good at what he did. He did have risk, but most of the risk was being you know born by the investors. Do you think that makes it I wouldn’t say easier cuz no doubt there’s another element of a psycholo- a psychology that comes into managing other people’s money, but do you think it removes an element of at least the risk side to a degree so that you can purely focus on process and getting that return versus when it’s your own capital where you could lose it all? And a lot of the time if it is your own capital, you’re trying to use that money to live as well and to further your lifestyle? Yeah, so yeah, so and after ‘87, um they USA Today wrote an article about I was the biggest trader of S&P futures in the country. Um you know, I made 4.7 million dollars and so on. And so, um I just said, “Well, let’s just let’s start a fund, right?” And um so, I started a fund, but in ‘87 after the crash, ‘88 was dismal. Like literally, I think in ‘88 I made a hundred thousand or a hundred fifty thousand from 4.7 million down to fifty thousand. There was no market vola- market volatility um after ‘87 crash, and everybody was you know, still licking their wounds, you know, right? So, um when I put the fund together, my first client uh was I got a call from uh a guy in New York, and he said, “I’m Sheikh Abdul Abdul Abdul Abdul.” I don’t you know, I I didn’t really know who he was. He worked for Merrill Lynch. Oh, really? And he said, “I have a client wants to put a million dollars with you.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “But you can’t tell anybody who the client is.” I said, “Well, we got confidentiality. We’re not going to tell you who the client is.” He goes, um, “Okay, so the client’s client the client’s Marc Rich.” I go, “Well, I can’t tell anybody who Marc Rich is anybody cuz I don’t know who he is.” [laughter] Right? Well, you know, Marc Rich ends up being, um, you know, the famous oil trader Oh. who in in the 1970s in the oil embargo when we couldn’t buy oil from the Saudis and OPEC, right? You know, when when I was a kid gas was 50 cents a gallon. I woke up the next day it was a dollar 50, right? So, after they that So, we it was against, um, the law the government put into place that you couldn’t buy any, um, oil from, uh, OPEC. Yeah. Marc Rich was an United States citizen went and set up all his companies in in, uh, in, uh, Switzerland. And he was literally buying the oil from OPEC and selling to the United States. Um, eventually he’s the guy that was famous, uh, pardoned by, uh, Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton pardoned him. And, you know, he owed like I the IRS like $500 million. And literally his case is the it took 15 years for the IRS to get through the Swiss laws to actually get to Marc Rich. Wow. Right? But I didn’t know who he was, right? You When I started doing some research, oh, he’s an aluminum trader. He’s this and that and so on. And, you know, we were we we we raised about 3 million bucks, all right? And there was no market volatility in ‘88. And then ‘89, there there there wasn’t anything, but, you know, we made a we made a little bit of money, right? And then, um, when the FBI investigation hit the market, he pulled his money out because he didn’t want anybody to know It was or that it was him, right? But my point is it was hard for me like to trade $3 million of somebody else’s money and try to get a return on it was so distracting. And I had so much, um, that cost me a lot of internal stress when they lost money. Mhm. Because it wasn’t my money, it was their money and they were counting on me, right? So, early in my life, in my trading career, I realized I’m just better off trading my own money. I didn’t have the propensity to to manage a fund, right? Uh, so, you know, that’s something I figured out from I I just couldn’t lose other people’s money, Yeah. right? Well, it goes back to what you were saying, know know thyself, you know, know yourself. Because even in that scenario, and I think it’s actually quite interesting, shows you the layers of trading that always exist. Is that you could be a phenomenal independent trader trading your own capital. That does not mean you can just copy and paste that same result and that same process over to managing someone else’s capital. Correct. You know, it has a whole different elements to it. Of course, the trading itself can be the same, but the the nature of the pressure potentially, the nature of even if it’s not external, right? I’m sure they weren’t calling you up saying, “Hey, what’s going on?” You’re probably doing a lot of that just internally to yourself of adding this pressure of wanting to perform. And also, there was always this give and take between, um, you know, you got to remember, I grew up in the era where everybody was a discretionary trader, right? Even the fund managers were discretionary traders, right? And then, um, people started developing trading uh, programs, right? And they would say, “Oh, no, the computer makes all the the computer’s making all the decisions and we take it all out, right?” Well, you know how you you stop a a program trader become a discretionary trader? Let the market go against them. What do they do? They optimize. Yeah. Right? So, if the program doesn’t work, they’re optimizing it. So, I I give a lot of credit to people that have been able to to manage other people’s money and have the success they have it. Cuz that’s a different discipline than just trading your own capital, right? And you got to remember when you’re trading your own capital, the ups and downs, if you’re charting them, you’ll look like, oh my god, I had a 20% drawdown. I had a 30% drawdown. Most funds would be blown out if you have a 30% drawdown. Right? So, having that mentality to trade for yourself versus trading on a fund money, because you had that you know, you had to give people a comfort level with risk. Yeah. And and so, there had to be all kinds of, you know, you know, risk governance in that. I mean, we’re actually going through that right now in the cyber business because because of AI. Right? So, the firms that have literally have been the financial firms are way ahead of when it comes to cybersecurity cuz people have been trying to steal money from them, right? But, all these algorithm traders, when you’re thinking about GRC and corporate governance, you have to go and do, you know, a risk assessment on how that algorithm is going to trade and what you’re going to do to mitigate losses, right? Well, this is happening in AI. When you think about for example, think about this. You got a a trading firm. Or you’re Goldman Sachs. I don’t care who you are. Your employees are using ChatGPT or they’re using Grok. And they’re typing all this stuff into that, right? They don’t realize that that language learning model is taking all your information and remembering everything and everybody’s information. So, if you do anything in those algorithms that’s a a publicly traded AI, so let’s say you’re putting in what the profits of this company are going to be for this week or for this month or this quarter. Mhm. And somebody else goes into chat GPT or Glock and says, “Hey, what do you think the earnings on Microsoft is going to be this month?” And somebody from Microsoft had already typed that into that. It’s going to spit out exactly what people are think their earnings are going to be, right? And a and a better guess than you’re going to have. Oh, cool. So, this corporate governance around AI and how people are using it is really going to be um a problem. It’s going to be a problem for a lot of companies, not just financial companies. Any any company that has any sort of IP. Yeah. Right? Cuz you’re giving it away almost. Well, and and that’s that’s the whole you know, premise behind the artificial intelligence. Give me as much data as I can so I can crunch it all. Mhm. But when it doesn’t have all the data, what does it do? It it gives you a best guess, right? So, you know, we’re there’s a there’s a lot of a lot of um This AI is kind of it’s it’s a exciting Mhm. cuz it’s going to make more millionaires than you could ever think about. Yeah. But I kind of feel like it’s a bubble. I feel like there’s a a bubble brewing that we don’t know anything about yet. A bubble? You know, I’m just getting this gut feeling about it. Does that make this a kind of like send your your senses into overdrive knowing that the crashes you’ve seen before, the trading aspect of it and the opportunity that also comes with a lot of pain, but equally then, you know, from having a business itself, having to think about, okay, how do we navigate this as well as a business side? So, you have all these different layers probably happening at once. Yeah, I’m I’m looking at like even on a macro point of view. We got $37 trillion in debt. Mhm. We’re not going to We’re not We’re We’re not going to retire that debt. So, if you think back to what they did in back in 1970, right? When we came off the gold standard, Yep. right? What did they have to do because from 71 to 74, the dollar was getting crushed. And when we came off the gold standard, um we had to find a way to prop up the dollar. So, literally what did the US do? They went into Saudi Arabia and said, “Hey, this is great. You got all this oil, you got all these fields, but you know, you’re all in here like you’re like an island out here. We’re going to put all these bases in here and we’re going to protect you and we’re going to give you jets and we’re going to give you And then, by the way, I think you should peg oil to the dollar.” Mhm. So, literally coming off the gold standard, then we went to to the petrodollar. Well, what’s going on in the world today? I mean, you got the the brick companies countries that are wanting to come off the petrodollar, right? So, I think there’s a lot of things a lot of forces out there right now. I mean, you look at the price of gold. What is gold? $4,000? Right? You remember I first started trading gold was at $300. Went to 700, back to 300. So, that that gold movement is telling me there’s going to be some sort of devaluation of the dollar and it’s going to you know, it’s going to get pegged to gold and crypto. I think crypto? I think it’s going to be gold and crypto and I don’t know um so, you know, right now in my spare time, I’m doing a lot of research in how am I going to be able to you know, benefit from that or or profit from it. But, I’m I’m just looking at what’s happened in the past. Mhm. I mean, you know, that’s how we rescued the dollar. Yeah, I didn’t know this. I I saw a podcast and uh there was only one country that came here and sent their battleships and said, “We want our gold back.” It was France. Really? And that’s when you know, after we came off the gold when Nixon in ‘71. Um so we’re not pegging it to the dollar anymore. And so they said, “Okay, well then we want our gold back.” So then that’s when they came up with the petro oil scheme. Yeah. It was a scheme for the next, yeah. Yeah. And it’s been fine up to then, but I I I don’t know how we get we’re going to get out of this debt. It’s going to be a combination of devaluing the dollar and they’re going to peg it to gold and some and maybe Bitcoin. Yeah. Well, that would be a massive turn of events, you know. And yeah, when you really wake up and turns a million dollars. Yeah, well that’s everyone’s everyone’s dream, a lot of people’s dream. There’s obviously the people who still think, you know, it goes to zero at one point, but it just shows you that polarization in the marketplace. And the product extremes in terms of opinion and viewpoints is always going to be there, right? And we’re going on to Sorry, the seventh commandment here just to finish up these. Know when to trade and when to wait, which again is a very prevalent one to this day. I love how these commandments, even though written so long ago, is just as relevant to this day. Yeah. I mean, you’ve got an employment number coming out on Friday. Thursday’s not going to be a good day to trade, right? And you it’s going to be choppy and so on. But, you know, that’s what happens mostly and and the day traders and if these guys are on screens, Yeah. I I feel for them because what happens is that they make a trade and then the market just dies out. Mhm. And what do they do? They end up over trading. And you know, when you over trade, the only one who makes money is the is the clearing firm, right? They make their money, you know, you know, they’re they’re like bookies, right? Yeah. Exactly. Buy, sell, pay me, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter, yeah. [laughter] So like number eight, and the eighth commandment be love you This is one I really love cuz it’s so different and you don’t I’ve not really heard this statement before. But commandment number eight, love your losers like you love your winners. Yeah. Well, like I said, you know, you you learn in life it’s any any any lesson that you’ve learned in life and you think about it and anybody ought to listen to this podcast, if it didn’t cause you some pain, it wasn’t a lesson. Mhm. Right? So, if you get away with overtrading and still make money. If you get away with adding to a losing position, okay? And get away with it, eventually, you keep breaking those rules, the rules will break you. Mhm. Right? And so, that’s my point. Everybody loves a winner, but what did my loser teach me? Mhm. Right? You know, I’ll tell you what it taught me in the nursing home business. [laughter] Right? Yeah. That I’m not going to guarantee all the loans. I was literally trying to get all my loans out into into uh into HUD loans, which were non-recourse. And I did then you know, we had the banking crisis and it it it happened too fast, but my point is you learn you got to learn from your losers in life. If Otherwise, You can’t get lucky all the time. Exactly, yeah. Right? Luck will only get you so far. Right? And and so, like, you know, a lot of times people will manufacture a trade Mhm. in their brain cuz they need the money instead of understanding it’s you can’t violate the process. Mhm. The money’s just the byproduct of a good process. When you corrupt the process, you know, what do they say? Uh uh information good information in is good information out. Mhm. Bad in is bad out also, right? So, my point is is that you know, it’s it’s a process, you know, and I don’t care what I don’t care what um I I you know, what you do for a living, right? There’s a process that works. Yeah. Right? And so, um that it you you can’t be uh you know, you can’t just ignore when trades go wrong. And people trying to avoid focusing on or really trying to think about pain and losses. Yeah. When they happen, they one that a lot of people crumble, of course. Uh and the worst thing you can do is probably try to avoid it or neglect it. Because then it will compound and it will still come back again and then hurt even more when you finally face it. Um which kind of is is interesting one actually the ninth commandment here. After three losing trades in a row, take a break. And the reason why I say that is interesting because recently, literally, I think it was last week, maybe a week today even. Uh we had a a shoot that we were doing a production we were doing and it was kind of a bit of a debate format as well and someone said that like have these rules in place like two trades and you’re done, three trades and you’re done. Have that sort of rule. And someone was trying to disagree like no, I’ll trade my system. I’ll keep trading my system if my setup uh presents itself, I have to trade it. Uh what are your thoughts then? Cuz obviously this is in here, you know, and this as we said this commandment’s been written for a while now and yeah, it’s still true to this day, I believe. So, why would you say after three losing trades in a row, take a break? Well, I mean, we’re in an environment where we might make 20 trades in a day, right? But you know, I used to put that little circuit breaker in there that the guys that I was backing so that they could clear their head, right? Because you know, when you’re backing a trader, what are they thinking? Oh, you know, Lou’s is going to get rid of me if I don’t start making money, right? Um so my my first trader, it was funny cuz his name was Brad and he actually Brett Solomon. He’s uh still been trading ever since I left. So, he was my partner in the in the trading company. And when I first uh put him he was always an upstairs terrace trader. And I met him when we had the Nasdaq stock trading room. So, he was trading Nasdaq stocks from a computer and then he moved over to trading e-minis. And so he ran the Upster office. And um so when I I staked him, I staked him with a $25,000 account and so he was upstairs trading e-minis. He just got married. You know, his life is changing and so on. And then like 4 months 3 to 4 months he lost the whole 25,000. Huh. And I walked upstairs and he he had a nice note. He said, “Look, you know, here was our dream and I lost money. Um and you know, I am thank you for the you know, thank thank you for the opportunity.” And I looked at him and said, “Brett, I go, you know what you’re doing. You know what you did wrong. You just got married. You just had a baby. I said, “You’re worried about, you know, making a living. I go, get in there and just don’t worry about the money. I go, just put put the process together, mhm, right? And so that was the first 4 months of of the that year and then by the end of the year he made a million dollars. Wow. Right? And I I think it it had to a lot to do that he knew I had confidence in him and I was telling him, “Don’t worry about the money. Just trade the systems. Use the rules. Do this.” And when he did got down to that everything fall in place with him. And and so that’s, you know, that’s that’s that was that was like all the rules, all, you know, culminated into one outcome. In one Well, that’s what the 10th your commandment says is the unbreakable rule. You you can break a rule and get away with it once in a while, but one day the rules will break you. Just as you were just mentioning prior to that. And if you continually violate these commandments of trading, you would eventually pay for it with your profits. And that’s the unbreakable That’s it. Cuz you know, like but it comes to the fact that, you know, it’s kind of hard to kick control of your ego. Of course. Especially if, you know, you have a $100,000 day or a $200,000 Well, it’s hard in general, right? In general, right? It’s hard in general in life to control ego or those sort of emotions, let alone when you you in in bed money, which is a pure emotion. And especially in high amounts, especially in short periods of time as well. You combine those two things, like of course with your you know your record trade. That was in seconds. Yeah. And that must have like afterwards it must have felt insane. You know what is it’s even worse. Is when people are blowing smoke up your ass. [laughter] Like oh you’re the best, you’re this, you’re that, you’re this. And you start believing that. Yeah. Then there’s something wrong with you. Mhm. You know, I was in the right spot at the right time and did the right thing. Yeah. Right? It that doesn’t mean that everything I touch is going to be gold. Yeah. Right? So, you know, I I never I didn’t have that you know, when it come to laughing at myself, I was the number one person to laugh at myself. I used to look at people going I’m not that smart. [laughter] You know? But you know, people get caught up in their in their success and think it’s all about them. But you know, it’s not. It’s it’s a combination of discipline, hard work, um you know, the just putting together a process and and you got to have a you have a you know, I don’t know if I want to use the word chi, but you got to have a good aura about yourself. Yeah, for sure. Every day. Like towards the end of my career at the Merc, cuz things had changed so much. We weren’t getting all the information and half of the information was going to the to the e-minis and yours and so on. I would pull into the building and get stress headaches. Yeah, that makes sense, yeah. Yeah, and it was it’s crazy, you know? Um and and in trading, there’s no way you can have that clouded judgment. Yeah. And to finish off, I really wanted to finish with like two key questions. And one was just something that happened accidentally on the podcast and we’ve kind of repeated it and I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially from such an incredible career and even outside of trading as well, which is in regards to what is your definition? How would you define success? Uh That’s uh [laughter] Well, there’s different things that you’re successful at, right? Um Like you know, for me it’s about my family. Mhm. You know, I you know, I I raised seven kids. They’re all great kids. They’re they’re all doing well in life. Um Uh people ask me all the time, what is your uh where’s your uh you know, best place to visit? Yeah. You know, in the world. Where would you go? I go, wherever those 20 people that are part of my family now with the in-laws, I mean the son-in-laws and the grandkids and so on. Wherever those 20 people are, that’s my favorite place in the world. I don’t care if it’s in my house or we’re in we’re going to we’re going to Italy in in May, you know, as a family. But um yeah, so success is uh you know, just you know, able to you know, get up and have peace of mind every day. Um So, um and and and I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if you’re a high school football coach or you’re or whatever, you know, you got to be happy at what you’re doing. You got to be happy in life. If And that’s mainly when I left, I wasn’t happy. Yeah. I was I was you know, it was just I been there, done that, time to go on. Yeah. Th- th- this is coming to an end. Need to move on to next, you know, aspect of my life. So, um yeah, so being happy is like being happy in what you’re doing. I like that. I really enjoy building businesses. You know, it’s it’s it’s it’s uh a little more cerebral than trading. Yeah, that’s that’s true. It’s definitely. Yeah. And then the final point, Remi, really is uh you know, as as we talked about throughout the theme of this podcast in particular you know, the reoccurring themes and how they have not changed. So, for just anyone out there really who finds himself trading the last couple of years potentially and not really seeing that progress, they’re not really seeing that profitability. What would you be your advice to them from your, you know, years and decades of of wisdom in the trading industry? Well, I’ll tell you what, if people are being honest with themselves, they could sit down and say why they’re not profitable, right? If they really sat down and said, “Well, you know, I’m not profitable because I have too much stress outside of out of here. I have to lean that live out of my trading account.” Um and so on. I mean, I think like I said, people look at successful traders and think I can do that, right? If If you’re being honest with yourself, you’ll know why you aren’t profitable, right? And I I think that mostly most guys, most people trying to be traders, it’s because they’re under capitalized. Mhm. Right? And or they’ve, you know, you know, they’ve, you know, I had turned a a large portion into a A small one? Mhm. Start trading, right? Mhm. So, my [laughter] my you know, so I think that that um people that aren’t being successful, they may be taking a shortcut. Right? And you have You look, you got to look in the mirror. If you can’t look in the mirror like like, you know, when I had the problem with the nursing homes. Cost me all that money. Mhm. I mean, I didn’t blame everybody else. I blamed myself. Right? I had too much risk. I didn’t leverage it. Right? And so, my point is you have to be honest with yourselves. If you’re not honest with yourself, then, you know, you’re you’re just, you know, you’ll you’ll burn through your capital and you won’t be successful and you’ll blame everybody else and it’s probably because of the things that you were doing and not doing right. Hello, there, Lewis. It’s been an absolute pleasure again to do this. And maybe we’ll get part three at some point in the future. But, thank you so much for being here and sharing so much of your experience with us once again. And, you know, I’m sure there’s some exciting things that we talked about off camera that come in the future and hopefully, you know, people will be able to see that. And I I’ll be waiting to watch that as well, personally. But everyone at home, drop a comment with your biggest takeaway from this incredible episode, our first part two in a very long time, and no one better than Lewis to have that with. Hit like, hit subscribe, and until next time, everyone, take care.