TRADING BAREFOOT

By Ryan Herron

Copyright 2015
Ryan Herron
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be changed in any form, except
for the inclusion of brief quotations in review, without permission in writing from
the author / publisher. You may, however, share this book in its entirety as long
as the author is attributed.

Table of Contents
SHOUTOUT......................................................................................................................5
WHO IS Ryan Herron........................................................................................................6
FOREWORD By Rob Booker...........................................................................................7
PREFACE ..........................................................................................................................9
Success is Overrated.........................................................................................................13
Opportunity is everywhere...............................................................................................19
Rewind to the 80s.............................................................................................................23
The roaring 20's................................................................................................................33
Acceptance.......................................................................................................................40
Break Through..................................................................................................................49
Life in a van......................................................................................................................54
What the blank is a forex?................................................................................................62
Paradise............................................................................................................................67
Coming Home..................................................................................................................73
That light bulb moment....................................................................................................75
An unlikely chain of events..............................................................................................77
Let's get down to business................................................................................................81
How to create your own profitable trading strategy!.......................................................82
6 Steps to creating your own profitable trading strategy..................................................83
Get an overwhelmingly awesome idea!...........................................................................87
Modeling is awesome!......................................................................................................90
Why do you need a mentor?.............................................................................................94
How to keep from getting ripped off or scammed...........................................................97
Who is my favorite trading mentor of all time?...............................................................99
A Start To A Strategy......................................................................................................101
Money Management is Taught Wrong!..........................................................................107
Buying during a pullback...............................................................................................117
Real World Examples.....................................................................................................121
What does ITM, OTM, and ATM actually mean?..........................................................128
A simple primer on Cantor Exchange............................................................................131
What is a Cantor Exchange contract?.............................................................................135
What is OTM? (OUT OF THE MONEY)......................................................................136
What is ATM? (AT THE MONEY)................................................................................139
What is ITM? (IN THE MONEY).................................................................................141
What is a PUT?...............................................................................................................143
What is a CALL?............................................................................................................144
What is a STRIKE PRICE?............................................................................................147
What is an EXPIRY?......................................................................................................148
Frank and the Bucket Shop Scandal!.............................................................................150
Regulated Binary Options Exchange VS Unregulated Bucket Shops...........................157

Why I chose Cantor Exchange over other Binary Options............................................160

Real World Examples Again..........................................................................................162
The Magic of OTM!.......................................................................................................166
Trial, Error, and Back Testing........................................................................................172
Compound Interest The 8th wonder of the world.......................................................182
Throw your Brain out the window!................................................................................187
Demo to Live-Demo to Live Trading.............................................................................204
How Ryan does it - A primer on what we offer at Joaquin Trading..............................208
Joaquin Trading Trend Arrows.......................................................................................212
Joaquin Trading Inverted Movers...................................................................................225
Joaquin Trading Cross Bow...........................................................................................228
Joaquin Trading Grid Reverse........................................................................................230
Joaquin Trading Chat Room...........................................................................................233
A look inside our website...............................................................................................235
Joaquin Trading Forex and Binary Options Group on Facebook...................................237
Joaquin Trading Cantor Exchange Facebook group.......................................................239
Joaquin Trading YouTube Channel................................................................................241
Trading Educator Link on CXMARKETS.COM...........................................................243
Joaquin Trading Client Services.....................................................................................245
Recap! What did you learn today?.................................................................................247
Pay it Forward................................................................................................................248
The End..........................................................................................................................250
Secret Message that has nothing to do with trading.......................................................255

SHOUTOUT
Terry Cash trading adviser. We all need advisers. Quite often, if I have an idea, I will
bounce it off Terry and he will be honest and tell me if it is bunk or worth pursuing. Thanks
Terry!
Matthew Renner trading programmer. I use programmers to take my ideas and turn them
into reality. The indicators and such you will see in this book are programmed by this guy. Top
Notch.
Rob Booker trading mentor, friend. I have bounced ideas off of Rob and he always give me
his unbiased opinion and has always helped me look at the market differently. He wrote the
forward to this book.
Michael and Stephanie Herron In the beginning, other than my wife, this was the 2 people
who believed in me. They thought I was nuts then and still do!
Also, a special thank you for all those who have impacted my life in some way... Dustin
Donham, Lena Watson, Zachary Hogan, Stephan Katanic, Trey Redd, Rod Drown, Amanda
Margolis, 'Thor' Edwards, Chris Arnold, Justin Hetrzberg, Rich Jaycobs, Joshua Murakami,
Bruce Patrick, Joseph Carter, Daniel Gonzalez Cortez, Eric Fowler, Bradley Fried, Khari Lane,
Cam White, Ethan Bench, Guan Chen, Shannon Timmons, Todd Smith, Roy Burleson, Troy
Epperson, Rick Wyatt, Ryan Smith, John Cooper, Steve Hoven, Jerry Lockee, Hector
Gamboa, Bob Springer, Rich Mauer, Christopher Wall, Nick Flowers,

Last and certainly not least, thank you to my loving family, Chris Ann (my awesome wife),
Joey (my 'herper' son), and Apollo (my 'comedian' son) for putting up with my crazy ideas
and long days of working toward a dream! Also, a very special thank you to our little
angel in Heaven, Joaquin for inspiration every day!

WHO IS
RYAN HERRON?
Ryan Herron is an everyday trader and trading educator. He learned how to
trade when he lived in the back of a van and he now trades from his home
office. He has been heard on The Traders Podcast, has been featured by
TradingPub, is an educator on cxmarkets.com, has been featured in
Binaryology, and posts just about everything he does online for all to see. All the
rest is irrelevant.

FOREWORD By Rob Booker

Ryan is going to tell you the truth.

Hes going to tell you what trading for a living is really like. Its what I love best
about the book youre about to read.
Part of trading for a living - or getting to that level - is to define what success
really is. Instead of thinking about success as a certain amount of money in the
bank, Ryan reminds us that success is about much more than money.
But whats incredible is that once you take that leap - and broaden your
definition of success - you start making more money. Paradoxical. But true.
Ryans the kind of guy who will live in a van to save money, just so he can have
what he wants later. But hes also the kind of guy who will give you the shirt off
his back.
Hes not in this business of trading to look better than anyone. Hes in it to make
everyone else around him better. As you read this book, I encourage you to
make some notes, and ask yourself:
Where can I improve?
How does this story relate to me?
How do I make trading (and life) more difficult than it needs to be?
In what ways do I compare myself to others that is unproductive?

Ryan will tell you about his loneliness. His struggle. His darkest moments. And
you might ask: What does this have to do with trading?
Well - Im glad you asked.
When you overcome your demons, you are a better trader. Its as simple as that.
Ryan will tell you about how he did that.
When you keep looking for opportunity even when life throws a zillion obstacles
at you - then youre more ready than ever for trading.
But thats not all youre going to get.
Ryan is also going to teach you what goes into a profitable trading system. Hes
going to tell you what goes into his own trading system.
Hes going to share with you some hard facts about losses. And how to add to a
winning trade (I absolutely love what he says about that).
And hes going to show you some things that Ive never seen a trader teach
anyone in a book.
So: You are about to look over the shoulder of someone who made it. Someone
who crossed the chasm of obstacles, and made it to trade for a living.
Im excited for you to get started.
Rob Booker
Gilbert, Arizona
November 2015

PREFACE
If you are reading this, most likely you are a struggling trader trying to find your
way in the market. Maybe you have been trading for a month; possibly for years
are still searching for that one strategy that works. This book is intended to open
your eyes and help you think a little differently.
Quite often we, as traders, tend to read all the message boards out there or
follow people blindly and wonder why we can't figure it out either. Guess what?
The simple fact is no one knows what will happened next year, next month, or in
the next 5 minutes. This book is intended to prove that even though you may not
know what's going to happen, it is possible to trade effectively.
If all you gain is one idea from this book, whether it is about trading in the
foreign exchange market, futures, options or even with binaries, then I have
done my job. All I want is for you to walk away with one small idea or thought
that may help you in your trading journey. One idea could possibly turn your
entire world around. I call some of these ideas the 'light bulb' or 'wow' moment.
When that light bulb finally does come on, you will NEVER be the same again!
In this book, I will show you how I look at the market. You will see my charts as I
see them. You will learn who my mentors are and what type of strategies I
model. You will learn why I trade the way I do and I will attempt to show you that
the act of trading (the technical aspect) IS NOT difficult. The difficult part is all in

our minds. Trading is a mental game, not an actual 'where do I buy' type of
thing. You will also see that you can take a losing system and turn it into a
winning system.
I am your average, everyday guy who wants more out of life. I want freedom! Do
you want the same things? I have been in your shoes time and time again. I
have walked those lonely paths. For most of my life, failure was normal. I hated
life. I hated it so much that I finally came to the end of my rope and said, This is
nonsense! I am gonna figure this out!
Right now, at this very moment, I will describe my surroundings for you. I am
sitting here, on a Tuesday evening, in my brown recliner. My feet are propped
up. I have my laptop resting on my legs while I type on this keyboard. My wife is
face-booking on the couch. The living room is dimly lit and yes I am barefoot
right now.
If you don't already know me then you may not know that I don't really care what
people think of me. I am a coffee slurping redneck and love a grilled cheese
sandwich more than caviar. I don't live a lavish lifestyle among the elite because
that's just not who I am. The biggest concern in life is the happiness of my
family. In my views, life is one big song of Kumbahya and sunshine, awesome!
You will learn about how living in Las Vegas led to sitting in a jail in the middle of
Panama. You will find out how I found the girl of my dreams on the other side of
the globe. You will learn what it's like to live in a vehicle. I met some influential
people in the trading industry along this route as well. I know... It makes no
sense yet but it will.

Barefoot trading is living the life you want. I don't care if you make $1 million per
year or $10,000 per year... If you can support your family and you are happy,
then you have made it! At least that's the way I feel about it.
Step out. Make a fool of yourself. Cry yourself to sleep when you screw up and
then get up and do the same thing tomorrow. It will be the hardest thing you ever
do but in the end, you may have freedom for the rest of your life. Wanna join
me? Come on and start trading barefoot!

Part 1
Story Time

Success is Overrated

Yep you read it, correctly. Success is overrated. The term success, according to
a dictionary, is the accomplishment of one's goals, the attainment of wealth,
position, honors, or the like. Success is when a person feels like what he or she
has done, is an accomplishment in his or her own life; but there are different
types of success.
I am a living example of success. I may not have the net worth or make as much
as another trader on a given day but does that mean I am unsuccessful? Does
the fact that Joe Blow Moneymaker trades with a contract size of 1,000,
whereas I only trade with 100 contracts, make him any more successful than
me? Not in my eyes.
It doesn't always boil down to money, even though money is part of success. I
don't give a flip if you are making $10,000 per day or $2 per day, you can be a
success because there are different levels of success. What about other areas
of success...family...marriage...health...the ability to
travel...happiness...spiritual...etc...? Success comes in many forms and if you
are doing something to be proud of, then stand tall! Enjoy your success and feel
proud.
Look at the following 3 traders. I want you to ask yourself which trader is more
successful.

1. Trader A. Let's call him Billy Bob He lives in NY and trades with an
investment bank. He has a super fast sports car and a 10,000 sq ft
mansion. He snorts cocaine and has thoughts of suicide all the time. He
treats everyone like dirt. He makes $1 million a month.
2. Trader B. Let's call him Jimmy John He lives in a modest house. He
trades from a home office and makes enough to support his family while
putting extra cash back each month for the future. He has a beautiful wife
and great kids. He enjoys every day with passion.
3. Trader C. Let's call him Willie Wee He makes $5 per day trading
extremely small contracts. He is doing it on a consistent basis, day in and
day out. He works in a factory at night and when he gets home, he adds
another $5 in his trading account. The account is building over time.

Which one of these fine gentlemen are successful? It's kind of stupid and
arrogant that the 'world' would say that trader A was more successful just
because he was making more money. Trader A would be the one aired on
CNBC and filmed shaking hands with Donald Trump while the other 2 would be
unheard of.
Why doesn't the world think trader C is also a success? He had a goal of
learning to trade and has accomplished that goal! All he ever wanted in life was
to learn how trade consistently and this has been accomplished. He is happy as
a lark. What I didn't tell you in the narrative above is that trader C will still
continue to work at the factory for another 5 years until retirement as he already
has 25 vested years. He is just fine with it. The 'world' however, would see this
guy as a joke.... but why??? He knows how to trade successfully.
If he knows how to trade successfully, and he is making a profit each week or

each month, on a consistent basis, then why is he frowned upon? Why is he not
given credit? I will tell you why in a few minutes.
Now trader B lives a similar life that I lead. We are your typical, everyday,
family people. We are down to earth and don't like to 'flaunt'. We have awesome
families and have a blast with life. We love each new day and we love our jobs.
All we ever wanted to do, as far as money is concerned, were to become
profitable traders. We met that goal and now we feel successful.
Success is too often looked at ONLY from a financial perspective. Some will
say, Look at Mr. Hotshot and how much money he has. What they fail to
realize is that if they looked inward, instead of looking at the wealth of someone
else, they might already find success. There will always be more people that are
far more successful than you so forget about comparing your wealth with theirs.
Try to look at life and ask the question, Am I happy?
You will never hear Warren Buffet say this, If I could only reach the level of
success that Bill Gates was on.... He has $5 billion more than I do.
If you think about it hard, I would bet you are a success. I'll tell you a few stories
about 'feeling successful' later in this book but let us first dive into a topic that
might just offend some readers. I really don't care whether I offend you or not.
The truth is the truth.
Let us look at Barbara Von Trailer-trash She lives in a trailer (a stereotypical
trailer park with a redneck lifestyle similar, in many ways, as the TV comedy
show 'My Name is Earl'). She has some broken lawn chairs and an old car
motor in her yard. Her live-in boyfriend, uncle Joe, Cousin Billy Ray, and Booger
all go to the local pub every Saturday night. They all pass out after driving their
cars home while drunk. The next day, they all go to the local Burger King and pig
out with shakes, burgers, fries, and even go back for seconds. After coming
home, they turn on the TV and drink some more beer which was stocked in the

fridge. By Sunday night, they are all broke again and just wait till the next Friday
for payday so they can start the process over again. They all love each other
and have fun in life, even though the world may see them as a joke.
Is this family a success? Is Barbara Von Trailer-trash rich and wealthy?

Look at it this way. Look from the eyes of a poverty stricken mother in the middle
of a jungle somewhere that lives in a tiny shack. This mother and her baby
doesn't have money for beer or Burger King. She doesn't have A TV. She
doesn't have a fridge. He doesn't own a car. She owns nothing but a couple of
cans of food and a pot to cook rice in. From HER perspective, the trailer park
trash lifestyle is only a dream and she would give anything to be as rich as
them!

Success is relative. The next time you view success only through a financial
lens, step back and remind yourself, I am more successful than many, many
people in the world already. I have more 'things' than the majority of the people
on earth. I have more wealth than 98% of everyone on Earth.

Really? You don't think so? You don't think you are wealthy already? What if I
told you that YOUR life was the envy of millions? What if people lay awake at
night and only dream about having life as great as you have it? Check out the
following picture. The simple fact is that if you only make $25,000 per year, you
are in the top 2% of all income earners on the entire planet? Take all the people
on earth and compare yourself...

In this picture from globalrichlist.com, it shows that if you make $25,000 per
year, you are in the top 2% of the richest people on earth. Be thankful you can
afford that cup of coffee. Be appreciative that you can drive in your own car.
How about that air conditioning you have? Give thanks.
What? You ate food today? Got your belly full, did ya? Be aware that some
people didn't get that luxury. Millions of people may not have had anything to eat
today other than a handful of rice or maybe half a cup of watery soup. This is a
reality that happens everyday but we, as citizens of a developed nation, close
our eyes and refuse to admit that we are already wealthy.
I said all of that to say this one little statement. If you do not already feel like a
success in some way, you will never achieve the level of success that you want.
Be thankful for what you already have and more success will follow. Once you
reach the level of success that you deem as being awesome in your own life,

start giving to those less fortunate than you. By giving to someone else, you are
telling yourself that you already have more than you need. This changes your
brain and changes everything.

Opportunity is everywhere
Even if you do not feel like a success yet, there is still hope. This hope comes
from the opportunities that you may be overlooking in life. Opportunities,
especially in the U.S and most of the developed countries in the world, abound.
If you look, you may find opportunity in places that you never deemed possible.
They are, literally, around every corner waiting to be taken.

Let's take a look at my own son, Joey. Here is a prime example of taking a hold
of opportunity and he is, at the time of this writing, only 19 years old. If anyone
reading this is an avid 'herper' or is involved with the reptile community out
there, then you may know my son, Joey Herron. He loves snakes, lizards, and
all things venomous. For the record, I DO NOT! LOL!

Joey has been digging through the dirt, and turning over rocks to look for critters
ever since he could walk as a toddler. His favorite TV show as a kid was ' The
Crocodile Hunter'. He loved everything Steve Irwin stood for he and idolized this
man. While growing up, Joey was always fascinated with the reptile world. I
could never like snakes but I wanted him to pursue whatever passion he had so
I supported his hobby. The life he leads today is super creepy in some peoples
eyes but super awesome in his and many other eyes. He took opportunity and
grabbed it.

He, at the age of 19, has friends with well known 'herpers' and well respected
people in the reptile community such as:

1. Jim Harrison Curator at Kentucky Reptile Zoo

2. Jim Dykes Manager at Rain Forest Adventure (They allowed Joey to
hold meetings for free)
3. Chuck Hurd He is a venomous reptile mentor to Joey
4. Chad Griffin Owns CCXB Reptile Rescue

Now many of you reading this may have no clue about any of these folks but in
the reptile community, they could be known as the 'higher ups'. Just like Rob
Booker or Tim Sykes are known in the trading community, the folks above are
super well known and Joey has a personal relationship with them.

How did he do it? He took opportunity and made something with it. He grabbed
it. He didn't wait for opportunity to come to him. He did not sit around dreaming.
The act of taking action, even if it seemed far fetched at the time, propelled him
into working with some of the finest in the industry.

Opportunity is always there awaiting for someone to grab it. It doesn't care who
grabs it and is always available around every corner. Our job, as humans, is to
look for it and make it happen. Even when there is no opportunity, we can often
force an opportunity by just taking a step in the right direction. Make a phone
call. Send an email. Implement that trading strategy and test it. There are
numerous and unlimited opportunities if we start thinking a bit differently about

life.
I will speak about my opportunity later in this book. For now, just be aware that it
will show up if you make your stand. For instance, let us take a peek at
someone looking for a job. Maybe they need a job as a second income. Maybe
they are just looking for work to add to their savings account. Maybe they just
got fired. The simple fact is that they need a job and need it now.

Instead of relying on someone to just come to them, they decide to be proactive

in their job hunt. They have heard all the crap on TV about the unemployment
rate, how the jobs that are not there, and the 1,000 guys looking for a job that
only has 20 openings. They don't care though. They decide to make something
happen. Here is a story of what I did when I needed a job.

I had just come off the road (You will learn about driving across America for my
job later in this book). I needed a job and I needed one fast. I remember telling
my wife, I WILL have a job in 2 days. At the time, I was a bit worried because
all you could see on the TV was the junk about how there were no jobs to be
had.

I sat down at the kitchen table, opened up my laptop and started looking. I
emailed EVERY business that I was interested in, even if they were not hiring at
the time. I looked on craigslist, the local paper, the message boards, etc... I
made profiles at job hunting websites. I took a drive to our local employment
commission and filled out an application. I went to employment service
businesses that only had temp jobs. I drove up and down the street, stopping by
businesses to introduce myself and tell them that I was available RIGHT NOW.

I got up and started at 7am and did not finish till about 9pm. I was determined. I
was going to get a job and prove all the news people wrong. Guess what
happened? I had a job in 2 days. It was driving for a local courier that did not
pay much at all. It was, to say the least, a low paying job... but I had a job!

Getting the job lifted my spirits because I knew that even though it did not pay a
lot, it would help with some of the bills until I found something better. As I worked
at this junk pile of a job, I would spend my extra time looking for a better
opportunity. After a very short amount of time, I finally found one that paid way
more than enough to cover our monthly expenses.

What would have happened if I had found any job that I was unhappy with... but
refused to strive for more? I would probably be still working there and
complaining every day; Complaining about how there are no jobs out there;
Complaining about how my life sucked.

I know this because that is the man I used to be. I used to believe it when they
said there were no opportunities. It was not until I started to think differently, that
opportunity started to pop up every flipping place I focused my attention. You are
getting ready to learn about my life and how I went from thinking I was a total
douche to a success. You will see that many of the examples in this book are
not even about trading but rather about life in general. It is these real life
examples that helped me become the trader, the husband, and the father I am
today.

Rewind to the 80s

Hey! It's the '80s!
1984 Bristol, Virginia. Atari 2600, Coke and a snickers bar for 50 cents, Michael
Jackson on the radio, Break dancing, bicycle jumping, Saturday morning
cartoons, I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
The sun was beating down on my head as a playful 8 year old. I didn't care
about the heat. None of us did. We would play all day under the sun; I always
wanted to be 'the banker'. All I cared about was getting money! I wanted all the
money in the world. I would demand $1 million here and $3 million there. If my
friends didn't pay up, I would sell their big wheel to the evil neighborhood bad
boy, Michael Snodgrass. Michael was so mean to us kids that we had a nick
name for him... Michael Booger Weed.
I remember trying to run my own business as that bright eyes 8 year old. I had
the most awesome idea in the world! I was going to start a drink stand but I had
a niche. I would sell Kool-aid instead of lemonade. I always wondered why other
kids would sell lemonade because it was nasty. Kool-aid was a much better
product that EVERYONE wanted!
I could mark up the price as well and still make mega bucks but I had a ploy to
do this. I would write the price 'Cup of Kool-aid 10 cents' and then mark it down
to 7 cents. All the local lemonade vendors were charging 5 cents but since I had

a better product, I knew I would sell more...and I did until the day IT happened.
In the adult world, I see all the news about 'Down with the big evil corporations'
or 'Get rid of those 1 percent people. It is kind of a nonsense proposal to try to
go up against a huge corporation with all the money because they have so
much more power than the typical citizen. It can be done though. People can
topple those regimes, sometimes in the blink of an eye and I can prove how
easy it is...
My older brother and Joe Romans started trotting over to my Koolaid stand one
sunny afternoon. I was like the evil corporation because I shut down all the local
lemonade stands with my product and I even charged more for it in the process.
Well I assume, the local kids didn't like the fact that there was only one game in
town anymore so they formed a posse to take me down. I played strong though,
It will be 7 cents for a cup of Koolaid. I insisted.
Not only did my brother and Joe inform me that they would not pay; they also
drank as many cups as they could for free and there was nothing I could do
about it since I was a tiny little twit. I tried to yell and scream at them but the
more I did, the more they drank. They finally ended my world with pouring out
the rest of the Koolaid and turning over my stand. I was devastated. I was lost. I
vowed to get back at my brother for this injustice when I was big enough to
handle it.
Since I didn't have a business anymore, I decided to try playing with fake money
for a while and trying to save any dignity I still had left. So I sat there, playing the
banker on the back deck because my mother had brought home a box of
envelopes from the local Huff Cook Insurance company. Those envelopes sure

did look like money to me at the time. I remember my dad talking about buying
$100,000 from the insurance people. If he can buy $100,000 then so could I, I
imagined.
Roger Romans was my best friend that lived next door. We would come up with
all kinds of games intended for the detriment of our other friend, Chad Williams.
Even though my brother had caused me grief, I didn't think the same rules
applied when I was doing it to someone else. We would make mud pies and try
to get Chad to eat them. We would hide all of Chads toys. We even painted a
mustache on him while he was asleep. No worries, though. Chad always
returned the favor.
Chad was a republican and I was a democrat. We had no idea of what this
meant but at the time, our parents fell into these 2 political ways of thinking so
the kids just followed what their parents did, of course. He always asked me, If
you are a democrat, how can you want a lot of money? I didn't have a clue what
he was talking about at the time.
I remember Chad saying his dad made lots and lots of money and likewise he
had all the finest toys around. His dad worked as a car salesman and I thought,
Wow! All he has to do is sell cars to people? Everyone has to buy a car so how
could he go wrong? I tried to think of how I could start selling cars. I had a bike
but couldn't sell that as it was my only form of transportation. My brothers bike,
however, was fair game! Yeah that didn't turn out too well.
Chad, Roger and I would play all day and only come home, which was at least 2
miles away, when the street lights came on. We would run through the woods
and play war, ride the wheels off our bikes, imitate our favorite TV show

characters, and had a blast. It was the 80s so being miles from home at 8 years
old was not frowned upon.
I remember we would walk to Emily Davenports house to ask her mom to help
us cross the road. B&J Market was on the other side of the main highway and
that was the only road that was off limits. On the other side of the road was a
fantastic place with all kinds of candy and pop galore! Every trip to 'BENJAYS'
(That's what we called it) was a trip to awesome!
It was only when I went home that I wasn't happy. I hated going home. I knew
may parents loved me. They provided a roof over my head and food in my belly.
They provided me love and even bought me great toys. We went on vacations
and were a typical 1980s 'Griswald' type family. My parents were great parents.
It is not because I hated them or even disliked them. When the play time was
over each day, however, I would sigh.
When I was at home, I was not allowed to listen to Michael Jackson on the radio
so I had to sneak into my closet and close the door. I would turn the radio down
so low that I had to hold my ear on the speaker to hear it. While enjoying the
forbidden music, I was at the the same time in a state of awareness. If my mom
caught me listening to the devils rock music, I was in big trouble.
So why did I hate going home? I hated rules. I hated rules with a passion. I
wanted to do things my way. It wasn't really the rules I hated but the reason
behind the rules that I thought were crazy and stupid. In my mind, to this day, I
still hate rules and being told what to do. To me, rules have always been a way
for THE MAN to control people. But like it or not, we will always have rules we
must stick to.

Why could I not listen to rock music on the radio? What was the point behind it?
All the men from church listened to country music that talked about alcohol and
women so what was the difference in a different style of music? I hated that rule
so much, I rebelled against it. By gosh, my parents would not stop me from
enjoying this music and I found a way to have what I wanted... The babysitter.
Curiosity... I have always been curious about everything. I think I have asked the
question, Why? more times in life than every other person in the history of the
universe. Why do I have to clean my room, mom? Why do I have to turn down
the TV, dad? Why? Please just give me an answer. I need the reason. If you
don't have a reason, then why is there no reason?
I want to know why things happen. What makes hydrogen and oxygen, which
are 2 explosives, into water? How the flip does that happen? Can you take
gasoline and hairspray and turn it into water? Noooo.
Why do the planets revolve around the sun? There is not enough mass for this
to happen normally. Why do politicians go into office broke and come out
millionaires? Aren't they there to serve?
Why is a plant (marijuana) illegal when beer is not? Why?
Why do my spiritual beliefs make me an outcast? Why?
Why do we have a futures market? Why?
Why do most traders fail? Why?

Why Why Why???

Questions are, and have always been, a major part of who I am. Sometimes that
simple word gets me into trouble. I hate rules and if the rule is stupid, then it's
just plain stupid. I question everything.
Son, It's bed time! Son, clean the basement! Son, take out the trash. Son, clean
your room. Son, do your homework. AAAAHHHHH!!!! What for? Why on earth
should I be tortured into doing all of this garbage? This is stupid and I hate it!
(Coming from an 8 year old mind)
I didn't understand at the time the majority of these rules had reasons behind
them, even if I thought they were stupid. When dad used to tell me to clean out
the basement, what he really wanted to was to install a work ethic that would
come in handy later in life. He also wanted the basement clean but that was
basically a byproduct.
When my mom asked me to do my homework, I didn't know at the time why I
was required to do this agonizing task and felt it was a waste of time. What she
was really trying to get me to understand was how to be able to understand the
business world later in life.
I hated rules then and I still hate rules today. It is not the actual rules I hate but
rather the meaning behind the rules. If I have to do something, I want to know
why. I need to understand the reasoning behind whatever is asked of me. I am
often still like a child trying to rebel against their parents but now it is me
rebelling against the world, against the close minded non-thinkers, against those
who do just because they are told with no questions asked.

Many of you reading this are, or want to become, traders. In the world of trading,
we have rules. As I have already told you, I hate rules without reason. What I
love are rules that have a reason behind them.
Let us take a look at a rule and why it does or doesn't matter...
Son, Clean your room.
What are the reasons and consequences behind this statement?
If I clean my room, I will not be on that TV show 'Hoarders'
If I clean my room, I will feel at ease by being able to sleep in a sound
environment.
If I clean my room, it will be easier to clean the next time.
If I clean my room, I will not jerk in pain when I step on that Lego on the
floor.
Many rules are there for a reason but I have to know the WHY. Do you know the
WHY for the rules you are following in trading? Do you know why you are buying
on that moving average crossover or when Rsi is oversold? What do these rules
mean? What does an Rsi stand for? How can it know that something is
oversold? Who wrote the indicator? Why do we follow the author of the indicator
blindly and buy? Just like the 'no rock music' rule I had to endure as a kid, some
rules are just downright absurd and have no meaning behind them. Know the
difference. Never EVER do what you are told for the simple fact that you are told
to do something.
In order to know why I want to buy something; eur/usd or gold for instance, I

have to know the WHY behind it. Even though many people think I am a rebel
for thinking this way, it actually helps with my trading. I can not just buy because
someone on the internet tells me to do so unless I know the underlying reason
for this.
In my trading, I use something called a donchian channel. This channel works
for me but I still have to know why I am buying at the high when everyone else is
telling me to sell. I have to understand why my indicator works and I need to
know why it works for me and does not work for someone else.
In trading, be like a child. Think of trading as this 8 year old boy who was curious
about the world and wanted to know why. Ask questions! If you do not ask
questions, you will never know the answer. Without questions, you may as well
be like the people who blindly do what those in authority tell them to do. If
someone 'in authority' tells you to do something, that does not make it right all
the time. Ask Why.
If you have a trading system that does not work. Don't just throw it away and
jump to the new biggest and baddest thing being marketed on the internet. Ask
why. Why does this strategy not work? Maybe, you will find some things that
surprise you because I took a strategy that does not work and turned it into
something that works dang well!
I did this by asking why. I had to research and pester traders over and over. I
had to test and retest and retest some more till I was blue in the face. I turned a
losing strategy into a very nice winning one by just asking the question, Why?
So let's take another look at that 8 year old boy now.

You now know that I question everything and ask why. You know that I rebel
against authority. Now the question is this... Why am I like this? What compels
me to go against the flow of the crowd? Why do I look at the crowd a sheep
going to a slaughter when, in fact, the sheep could easily overtake the wolf?
My mom and dad, the very 2 people I rebelled against, taught me to be this way.
The 2 fine parents always wanted me to get to the root of the problem and even
if it meant me rebelling against them, they were willing to teach me a new way to
think about life.
Mom used to tell me, Rue (that's what she called me for some ungodly reason)
if you can learn to out-think the other person, then you will be the one to get the
job.
Dad used to tell me, Son, Always Ask Why and when you find your WHY, ask
HOW. Put forth effort and you can have anything you want in life.
Roger and Chad (Those 2 childhood friends I mentioned earlier) often tried to
get me into massive trouble such as toilet papering someones house. I never
did do many of these shenanigans because after asking myself WHY at an early
age, I always came to the decision that the consequences outweighed the joy of
such an activity. If you toilet paper someones house, you have a few minutes of
joy but a week of grounding and an entire day of cleaning. The bad outweighed
the good. Asking WHY helped me make a better decision.
By the way, I did eventually get back at my brother for destroying my Koolaid
stand and always picking on me. I ended up rolling him down a huge hill in a
barrel that almost killed him as it hit trees all the way down. This is one instance

that I didn't worry about the consequences until after I had committed the act.
What was the consequence? My brother never did take advantage of me again.
I was prepared for whatever consequences came for rolling him down that hill
but there comes a point in each of our lives when we are fed up; when we have
had enough; when we will not take it anymore. I suspect that you may be at the
end of your rope in trading. Please don't be discouraged. Help is on the way!

The roaring 20's

Irresponsibility!
Let us fast forward to 1999. I was 23 and an absolute mess. I had made so
many horrible mistakes in life that I thought life was just going to be one big pile
of crap until the day I died. I was miserable at the time and could not, for the life
of me, figure it out. It seemed like everything I tried turned out to be the wrong
move. Life seemed to be playing against me. I got involved with all the wrong
people. It seemed as if I was always in all the wrong places at the wrong times. I
had to either find a way to make my life better or just end it all in a blaze of self
inflicted gunshots into the core of my brain.
1993 until the spring of '99 were the hardest years of my life. They were the
most irresponsible as well. Here comes the part that I am most embarrassed to
talk about but it is the truth and if I am going to write this story, I feel that
excluding the truth would be a dishonest pile of garbage... so here goes...
I had a son, Joey, that I abandoned with his mom. I paid no child support at the
time and just walked out. I had to find a better way to take care of my son even if
it meant leaving him behind for a while.
I left and went into the wild unknown. I had to find a way to take care of myself
and my son. I wasn't concerned with the mother of Joey because I was just
young and irresponsible.

There were no jobs to speak of in the town where I lived and I could not make
ends meet by working at the local Papa Johns pizza store. I was just fed up with
life. No opportunity it seemed. No fun that I could afford for me or my son except
maybe buying a small squirt gun at the local dollar store. What life was this? I
bent down and kissed my son on the forehead, looked into the eyes of his mom
while she told me I was lower than scum, and walked out the door.
I was determined to find a better life for my son as well as for myself or I would
die trying.
Have you ever seen the movie, Into the wild? This movie kind of describes
what I was doing at the time. I was wondering from place to place trying to find
something, to try to find a way to make a living. It seemed as though everyone
else was doing it but why couldn't I? I ended up spending the next few years
moving from place to place, working at job after job. I kept searching for my
place in life. I kept on searching for meaning. At the time, I was just as
miserable as before I left my son but I had to keep trying. I had to keep going.
I moved to Oklahoma to a little town called Enid. Well that was just a joke so I
moved to Vancouver, Washington in search of a better life once again. I
attended a school to get a job in the Airline industry. I was so excited at this
point. I thought, Wow! I can fly anywhere in the world! At last, I could have a
career. Little did I know because the baggage handler doesn't make enough to
raise a kid on let alone enjoy free flights.
I was finally stationed at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada after
completing the course. The only problem about being able to fly for free was that
even though I could technically do it, I really didn't make enough money to pay
my bills so the free flights were almost useless.

I lived in a hole in the wall in a bad part of town because that was all I could
afford. What made it even worse was that my apartment got broke into and the
thieves stole everything I owned. EVERYTHING! I remember looking into the
dumpster behind the complex and seeing even my personal pictures and
notebooks in the dumpster! It is like they took everything and dumped what was
most important to me. Now that my apartment was broke into, I was in even
more despair.
I started looking for opportunity and answered an advertisement in the paper
that read something like, I will fund your business I called and they wrote me
up a business plan and promised to get me $1,000,000 in loan money to start
up a business! All they needed was $3,000 for the initial paperwork fee. My
thoughts at the time were that life was getting ready to change for the better! I
was on my way, finally, after all these years of horrible luck, headed for a
breakthrough!
I waited and waited and called and called to see when the paper work was going
to be finalized. I was just a dumb country boy that thought his lucky break had
come. I never saw that $3,000 again (I begged my dad to loan me the $3k) and
again was at the bottom of the barrel. I had been scammed. I could not get the
money back because by the time I contacted the FBI, the scammers were gone.
I had to sell my car to pay the rent. This was due to my paycheck not covering
all the bills. So I sold my car and bought a bicycle to ride to work. Imagine that...
selling a car to ride a bike?!?! This will show you how screwed up my mind was
at the time but what could I do? The end of the road was nearing when I was
riding to work on my bike, hit a puddle that was a little too deep and went flying
over the handle bars onto the pavement below. Now I had bend wheels that

were useless.
So at this point, I had no clothes except what were on my back, I had no money
because it had been stolen by scam artists, I had no car and now I didn't even
have a bike. I remember standing on the corner of Sunset Ave in Las Vegas at
night. I actually yelled at God, What kind of life is this?All I wanted was to have
a break. I just wanted a chance to make it.

So without money (I had about $200 after payday), I said, screw it yet again
and hopped a plane, flew for free to The Republic of Panama. I had some
friends there (military stuff) and they allowed me to stay with them for a month in
a small house, on the outskirts of a small town. The lessons I learned in Panama
were some that led me to see life differently and become a success later in life.
I landed at a tiny airstrip at what seemed to be in the middle of nowhere at the
edge of drug cartel riddled jungles. As the plane door opened, the massive
heatwave filled the cabin of the plane and boy was I in for a surprise! The
landscape and people of Panama were so different than what I was used to in
the states and it totally felt as if I was on a different planet.
A taxi ride for an hour and a half cost $20 and this was, literally, the ride of my

life. As we passed by Panama City vendors, I noticed things I had never seen
before. With filth everywhere and more poverty than I had ever imagined, I
noticed smiles and laughter. With drug lords suppressing the city, I noticed
businesses were still flourishing. I had been taught that this place was the
lowest of the low but that's not what I saw. I saw happiness on every street,
even though poverty was rampant.
The town I stayed in was in the 'interior' and the province shown a of a type of
poverty that I had never seen before. Many of these people had literally nothing.
Many of them didn't even have food for their families. They had no clothes
except what I would call 'hand me downs'.
I remember walking through a dirt road and saw a lady holding her newborn son
living in a 10x10 shack that had scraps of wood for the walls and a few scraps of
old tin for the ceiling. This house had 2 cans of food on a broken wood shelf.
One pot was hanging on the wall. One blanket was folded neatly on her dirt
floor. That's it! That is all she had.
As I walked this dirt road every day, I sparked up a friendship with this lady. It
started as a smile and a nod as I walked by but by the end of the week, I was
stopping to talk about the weather and whatnot. Here is the kicker... She was
cooking one day, with her one pot, a handful of rice and invited me to dine with
her and her baby. What??? But she has nothing! How can she possibly share
with me?

There was no way I was going to eat her food but she insisted. I sat down on the
dirt and we began talking about life in Panama. We ate white rice with a pinch of
salt as we talked. No water was available at that time so I just ate. I asked her
flat out, How can you live like this? You have nothing.
She began to tell me that even though she does not want to live like this, there
are no jobs so she has to rely on the generosity of her friends. There are no
orphanages to care for her baby so she must do it. Even though she was
handed a crappy life, a response she gave me just shocked me. Even though I
know I have nothing, from your perspective, I still have food. I still have a roof. I
can still come and go as I please. My baby is still fed. I choose to think about the
happy things in life instead of worrying about tomorrow. God takes care of me
and my son
As I sat there eating, I looked down the road. I was shocked to find kids playing
soccer with an old, patched up ball. I was blown away at old men trying to make
bricks from mud to sell so they could buy rice. Life here was so different that
back home and I was starting to realize that I had been selfish.
The most dramatic thing that changed my life was when I would hear music
being played every night and people would sing and dance and have a great
time with each other. I remember thinking to myself, How can these people be
so happy when they have nothing at all?
A friend of mine that lived at the end of the road told me that the key to
happiness is to love people and just know that everything will be OK. I thought
this statement was absurd at best. How could a person know everything would
be OK? How could they not worry?

Watching people living in absolute poverty, but still being happy, totally changed
my views on life in one single day. If people could be happy regardless of having
an abundance of material things or even food to eat, then something must be
going on that I was unaware of inside their brains.
Here I was with about $200 in my pocket and thought I was miserable. What
should I be miserable about? I had food. I had money ($200 was a LOT of
money to these people). I had so much they could only dream about... yet I
thought I was poor. One of the happiest feelings I had while there was helping
with what little I had... but I still felt empty.
Through a series of events, I ended up spending some time in the local jail for a
crime I had not committed. In that dirty little jail cell, I should have been feeling
sorry for myself but I chose not to for once. I thought about the lady in the dirt
floored hut. I thought about the kids with the soccer ball. In that jail was a lot of
time to think about my life and where I was headed. It was a time of reflection. I
often think God put me in that jail to remind me of how great a life I actually was
granted.
I ended up going back to Panama 5 times from the mid 1990's through the early
2000s to 'reflect' on my life and for the record... People can not tell me that the
United States has poverty! Even the most poverty stricken families in the states
live far, far better than the actual poverty in many third world nations all over the
world. People in the U.S.A take what we have for granted and if they actually
knew what poverty was, they would change their life instead of mooching.
...now back to the states...

Acceptance
Every son has a father but NOT every father is a dad. I finally gave up on my
dreams of making enough money to give my son the good life. I had finally
realized that life was meant to be hard (so I thought at the time). It was meant to
be a struggle so I returned back home to Virginia to try to reconcile my
relationship with my son and live whatever misery of a life I brought on myself.
I knocked on his mothers door and my son came to the door and spoke 2 words
that I will never forget. These 2 words, in a split second did more for me that all
the searching I had done prior to this moment. These 2 words changed me
instantly just like the poverty I witnessed had changed me in an instant...
Hi Ryan, he said.
I literally exploded with tears inside. I couldn't show my emotion then but my
very own son didn't even know who I was. How could he? He was 4 years old at
the time and I was just some stranger to him. He didn't know me at all. All he
knew was my name. I felt deeply ashamed that I had abandoned him for a
search that would never produce anything. I deserved that shame.
I couldn't afford to rent an apartment so his mother let me sleep on her couch for
while. Laying on the couch that night in his mothers apartment, I just accepted
the fact that I would work 2 jobs if I had to. My only concern at that point was
taking care of my son, regardless of how I felt. I needed to 'man up' and didn't
really care till this point that other people mattered in life. Maybe I was selfish.

Maybe I was clouded. The fact that I started putting my sons life above mine
started to change the way I though about life.
I could start to see more and more days of happiness when I would play with my
Joey and he would look at me and smile. On the days that it seemed a struggle
to take care of him, all that struggle seemed to disappear when he would come
to me and pinch me on the nose, while yelling, honk! Joey was a prankster
back then, for sure!
Don't get me wrong, I was still a piece of useless garbage at this time who was
still all screwed up but it was this time when I started to see things a little bit
differently in life. And then it happened...
We were playing with a ball. My son threw it and as I was chasing the ball, I
heard the sweetest voice say the best thing I have ever heard in my entire life
up till then! When a father hears his own son yell the name, Dad! for the first
time, something changes in the core of his soul. A son never realizes how
wonderful it is to be called dad until he experiences it for himself later in life. It
took years of struggle to make my relationship with my son work but the payoff
was better than anything I could have ever imagined.
By this point, I was starting to feel a wee bit happier about life. I worked quite
long hours and at least I could feed myself and my son. At the very least we had
clothes on our back. I had an old jalopy car to get us from point A to point B. We
didn't have a lot but we made it...barely.
At that point, I started becoming a dad, instead of just a sperm donor. I did,
however, become a little angrier every day that we didn't have a great big, fancy

life with fancy things. Even though I would never leave him again, I still struggled
with inner thoughts of disgust. Why could I not provide for him in a way that my
dad provided for me? Was it fate that we have the short end of a stick?
Every time we were at the park, I noticed other parents drive their kids to the
park in nice sedans. Every time we would window shop, I noticed another father
buying his kid a new bike. This period in life went on and on and flipping on! Not
only was I not allowed to buy my son the nicer things in life but I was also lonely.
I wanted someone to snuggle with at night... someone to love intimately.
How on earth could I get a woman to love me when I didn't even have enough
money to buy Joey a new toy? Hell, buying him a new pair of shoes took a huge
chunk of my paycheck. I felt myself start to think thoughts of abandonment
again, thoughts of just leaving again to try to find us a better life.
I will not! I will not! I will not leave him like that again! Life is misery again and I
might as well get used to it.... or I will fight on some more. Total confusion filled
my head so I began to pray for guidance. Lord, I am a selfish man. I want to
change but don't know how. A little help. Please. I started to turn that despair
into a fighter mentality. I started to remember what mom and dad told me when I
was a little kid, Always ask Why! and Put forth effort. I was bound and
determined to do something to change. I didn't know what that something was
but I was about to find out.
So I began asking why. Why does my life suck? Why does everything bad
always happen to me? Why do I hate everything? What am I always thinking
bad thoughts?Hmmm. So why do I think bad thoughts? What is the purpose of
thinking bad thoughts? Where do bad thoughts get me in life? What good comes

from bad thoughts? Hmmm. Maybe thinking bad thoughts are worthless.
Maybe thinking bad thoughts are actually hindering me from getting what I want
out of life.
For one full day, I vowed to only think good thoughts. Whenever a bad thought
entered my head, I would just say, No way! You leave! I tried many days to do
this and it seemed pointless. I kept 'trying' to think good thoughts even though
my life still sucked. I just kept trying everything I knew to lift my spirits. I would
attend church. I would watch a comedy on TV. I would laugh at jokes at work. I
just kept trying to fake happiness. I kept praying for guidance; kept on
searching.
In the town where lived, there was a huge yard sale that was about a mile long
called Plum Alley. On a warm Saturday afternoon, I was strolling through and
just browsing all the junk people were trying to sell. Then I noticed something
that was about to be the biggest game changer in my life up to this point.
It was a box of used cassette tapes by a man named Tony Robbins. The name
of this cassette series was 'Personal Power'. $1 for the entire 20 tape collection.
I had never heard of Tony Robbins but the box cover was so compelling that I
wanted it. It just looked neat.
The lady who was selling these tapes was dressed in very nice clothes and I
noticed just by the way she carried herself that she was 'well off'. I asked the
lady, Are these any good? She told me flat out, These tapes will change your
life if you do what he says to do. They changed my life. I thought, What would
it hurt to just give it a shot? and walked away the new owner of 'Personal
Power'.

These cassette tapes were a set of personal empowerment audios that

explained a way to get what you want out of life. I put cassette number 1 in the
tape deck one night while I laid down to sleep. That night, I finished about 5 of
these because what I heard got me super excited for the first time in a long time.
I was so excited, I hardly slept and could not wait to listen to more of them the
next day.
As I listened everyday, I was hearing ideas that I had never dreamed about.
Some of the things that were said seemed like absolute magic to my ears. This
set of tapes really did spark a new road in my life. From a yard sale in a Podunk
town, my life would change forever. Over the course of the next few weeks, I
listened to these gems of greatness over and over and over. Every time I
listened, I was being empowered. I felt myself actually getting excited about life
and learning how to retrain my brain into getting exactly what I wanted out of life
by taking action like a mad man!
I knew I didn't have the full answer but I was finally able to smile again. I started
to think differently and started to act differently as well. I started to actually
believe that life would allow me to have the things I desired. Pressing forward
with excitement, for once in my life, was so much fun.
Up until this point, I wanted to change but didn't really know how. I started to
realize that maybe the self help gurus were right, all along. Maybe Jesus was
right when He said in Mark 11:24, Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in
prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
For the record, I am a devout follower of Christianity. My belief relies upon the
knowledge that Jesus was born of a virgin, died on the cross for the sins of the

world, and rose on the third day. This does not, in any way, conflict with my
belief in the law of attraction; it enhances it. I don't care what you believe,
whether it is Buddha, Allah, Mother Earth, atheism, or the church of the flying
spaghetti monster because the simple fact is that your belief doesn't have
anything to do with me and I am not here to push my beliefs on you. In this
book, however, I am opening up and letting you know where I stand and what
works for me.
Prayer started to work. I remember thinking, Why didn't prayer work before?
The answer I was given may seem like a long shot and backwards but it really is
true. Prayed didn't work until I started to actually believe. In my opinion, you can
pray all day every day but if you don't believe, then it is all in vain. Whether it is
LOA, God, or something else, I may never know and will always ask why but
this is one time that I didn't care why. It was working...slowly at first and picking
up speed as my life progressed (as you are about to find out)

Break Through
Lord, I would like to have a girlfriend, I prayed. I know it sounds lame but just
humor me for a minute.
My excitement grew into action. I started writing down my thoughts and actual
battle plans for achieving my goals of getting a girlfriend. I had not achieved a
single goal YET but I could see over the horizon. I could 'feel' great things
starting to happen in my life, even though nothing had actually happened. My
thoughts were no longer as negative as they used to be and my smile was
actual a real one. To be able to start thinking differently and to start seeing
things in a new light was awesome.
The more I worked toward a goal, even though it was out of reach, the more it
felt like I actually had a shot at it, whether it was getting the girl of my dreams or
a job that I loved. The more I talked to myself, the more I talked to myself in a
positive manner.
Finally I was ready to go after my first big goal. I had no clue that what I was
about to overcome was to be the largest and most satisfying goal I had ever
even thought about achieving to this day. I asked God in prayer, Lord, please
send me a girl that you would see as a good fit for me. You know what I am
looking for. I kept that one thought in my head. I was specific, down to her hair
color and physique.
Through a chain of events, I ended up seeing this beautiful angel from the mind

of God right there on my myspace page! (Yes I said Myspace. Lol) As I checked
out the pictures of this hottie, I kept thinking, Should I even email this girl? She
seems waaaay out of my league.
So I did what any guy who was desperate for love would do. I sent her an email
that started with, So I see you like coffee... and then 1 second after hitting the
send button... NOOOOOO! What have I done? I am making a fool of myself!
She is too hot for me! She is gonna laugh at me and think I am a dork hole! Oh
well, whats done is done. I was somewhat embarrassed.
You see, she was everything I had ever prayed for in a wife from the time I was
a kid. My list of wants for a wife were rather selfish but this is what I prayed for...
What I am about to say may shock you but why should it? Just because I am
writing in a book doesn't mean you don''t have selfish thoughts that you pray for.
The only difference here is that I am being open about it. I wanted a girl who
was either Hispanic or Asian (No Joke!). This may sound a bit weird or some
may call it racist but it's what I wanted. Everyone has their own taste in a
spouse. This is mine.
I wanted a girl who had family values such as she would cook and I would mow
the lawn. A girl who would love me regardless of all the baggage I carried with
me. A girl who would lift me up to her level. A girl with a great head on her
shoulders. A girl that loved God. A girl that I could share my deepest secrets
with. A girl that I could give my all to. A girl that one day would share in a family
full of love, respect, and fun. I wanted perfection and as you will find out, that's
exactly what He gave me.

Yeah you think I am joking? I assure you I am telling you that this is what I
prayed for and the moment that I actually BELIEVED it could remotely be a
possibility and took action, this is EXACTLY what God brought to me. We are
married to this day and more in love now than the day we met. Even though at
the time, I may have prayed for some selfish things, our marriage today is FAR
from selfish. I give her my all and she gives me her all, everyday.
Can I actually think things into existence?, I wondered. It seems kind of absurd
that I could think, believe, take action and get what I want. Shouldn't it be harder
than that? You be the judge.
So this hot chick writes me back. I was so excited and would not even read the
message she sent to me until I got home from work. I wanted to devour every
word, even if it meant she was telling me to bug off but I had a hint she liked
what I had to say because her email to me was so long. I knew it was long
because I did peek at it for a few short moments.
Over the weeks to come, we emailed each other back and forth and became
quite fond of each others company. I looked forward to getting home from work
every day and reading the message that was waiting in my in-box. The way she
talked was sincere and she was a hoot! I would laugh harder at her jokes than
ever before. These emails helped me continue to raise my spirits each day.
The words she spoke seemed to be golden. She would lift me up. She would
make me smile. She would make me ponder life with her in my future. I spent
hours upon hours thinking of how I could better myself for my son and possibly
for her one day as well. I was actually thinking long term about someone who I
had never met. Am I crazy or am I falling head over heels for a girl was

technically just pictures and words on my screen?

I had to better myself if I was ever going to be serious with her because she
lived in The Philippines. To me that was like she lived on freaking Mars because
she was out of my reach at the time. I had no money to fly there and could not
afford a plane ticket for her to come here. I would not even think about the
tourist visa process at this time.
Since she was out of reach but God had given her to me just through a very
sincere and continuous prayer, I thought, I am going to say another prayer. I will
truly believe it, work toward it, and I WILL achieve it. I remember praying to
God, Lord, I need to make a decent living of $50,000 per year and I will even
be willing to sleep in a car if that will make it happen. Over and over, day after
day, I would say this prayer. It actually got to the point where I would start
visualizing myself sleeping in a car, across the front seat, with piles of money on
top of me for a blanket.
Then something happened and I was stunned all the way down to my bones.
What I had prayed for was getting ready to happen. The old saying says, 'Be
careful what you pray for because it may come true' actually has some validity.
I was on a daily regiment of calling companies to try to find a better job. I
thought, if I call 10 companies per day, then sooner or later, I would get a good
job. I was only calling companies that paid their workers higher than minimum
wage because in order to have a life, minimum wage would just not do. I needed
more.
FedEx called me back one day and said, Ryan, we do not currently have any

openings at our shipping facility (that was the position I applied for) but would
you be interested in driving for our Custom Critical department? I didn't know
what that was but I said yes anyway. 2 weeks later, I was kissing my son
goodbye at the greyhound bus station but this time I was not leaving him. This
time I was providing for him. This time I was proud to be departing because I
knew I would be back in a month with the money to actually provide him with a
life worth living.

Life in a van
So I headed out on this greyhound bus to North Carolina to pick up the van I
would be driving. The job entailed doing the same thing that 'over the road' truck
drivers do but with smaller shipments. I also did not have to abide by the hours
of service (HOS) law so I could drive unlimited hours to get my shipment to the
proper facility on time. This is why they called it 'Custom Critical'.
I remember that first night. It was somewhat cold and lonely as I laid there trying
to fall asleep in the back of a van, in the parking lot of a truck stop after driving
all day to Missouri. I was actually doing the very thing I had prayed for! I was
sleeping in a van instead of a car but it was really similar and making about
$50K per year now.
Living in a van is wildly different than living in a home. The lifestyle takes some
getting used to! Many people have asked me what it was like so I will explain
that for a few minutes and then get back to my story. I'll start with the night
time...
Trying to drift off to sleep, tucked inside a special forces sleeping bag, you feel
kind of like you are camping under the stars. The only exception is that the
bright, truck stop lights glare though the window unless you place a shield to
block out the light. A window shield also blocks out prying eyes of thieves and
robbers as well... but you are aware they are always out there lurking in the
shadows.

The sounds of trying to fall asleep has its troubles as well. You always hear
noise of the tractor trailers rolling through the parking lot, the sound of someone
parking right beside you and talking on their cellphone, the sounds of dogs
barking and teenagers blasting their god forsaken speakers at all hours of the
night.
Sometimes when I would take a load to a remote place, the feeling can be
downright eerie. I once took a load to the docks in the deep south, down in the
bayous of Louisiana. I had to drop the load at 7am and arrived around midnight.
The only place to park was along the side of a gravel road out in the middle of
nothing. I was in the swamp. No other humans for 20 miles it seemed like. I
don't think I slept a wink that night due to hearing noises I have never heard
before or since. It was like the Sasquatch was gonna jump out and eat me at
any moment. Another eerie place was near Marfa, Texas. I had to stop near this
town on several nights so I just awaited the aliens to snatch my body.
I slept in the slum of Detroit and awaited a gang of thugs to steal my tires and
then shoot me. I slept on the side f the intestate, stuck in a blizzard. I slept in a
locked warehouse. I slept everywhere.
I spent many night in freaky places but some of them were downright magical as
well. One night, I was parked on a mountain top in the rocky mountains and the
air was clear, fresh, and I could see the glow from the moon light up the
mountains in the distance. My thought was, WOW! Another time, I was parked
along side a beach in South Florida and the crash of the waves soothed me to
sleep.

About two to three nights a week, I would grab a motel room on my usual routes
to refresh and recharge and ended up making some friends with the owners
over time. Ahhh Mr. Herron, so nice to see you again! Exclaimed this one
motel owner time and time again. The motels were not fancy but rather the
bottom of the barrel. I chose the cheapos due to saving money. All I wanted was
a clean place to sleep in a bed and get a clean shower before heading out on
the open road again.
Eating was a chore. I had 2 options... Cook my food or eat in over priced truck
stop restaurants. I often chose option number 3... Buying canned goods at the
local dollar store and just eating cold pasta from a can. I learned to live on coffee
and chips, burgers and pop. I finally wised up when my health took a dive. It was
about a year on the road, however before I really learned the ticks of the trade.
Showering... The shower is a needed luxury on the road so how do you shower
in a van? You don't. You pay $8 to shower in the truck stop. They are usually
pretty clean but I wore flip flops to keep my feet off the floor. The last thing I
wanted was some sort of nasty disease.
Often, I drove at night, pulling a 'red eye' from Laredo Texas to Memphis and left
out around 5pm, driving though the night. I kept myself awake by listening to a
weird show on XM radio called 'Coast to Coast AM'. This show is about all things
freaky. From aliens to conspiracy theories, but it helped keep me awake. I grew
fond of lots and lots of coffee as well!
Since I did a lot of my driving at night, the heat of the sun blaring down in the
middle of summer was the worst. Have you ever tried to sleep in a car on a hot
day? It's about darn near impossible. The problem is I could not leave my motor
running as it was a gas motor and I didn't want to overheat the engine while it

idled. So how did I sleep during the day in the middle of summer? I did about the
most ignorant thing alive... I opened up all the doors and windows, cranked up
my fan and slept. I could have been robbed numerous times but thankfully I
never was.
I have seen some strange things on the road. I have seen hookers climb out of a
truck to wash her hoohoo from a puddle on the ground. I have been asked by a
dude if he could 'perform sexual things' for me. I heard gunshots in the distance
while in Gary, Indiana. I have used my air horn to scare away potential bad
people on many occasions. I even got a 7-11 slushy thrown at me because I
didn't want to buy stolen goods. The road is a dangerous place from time to
time.
But I loved it! I loved seeing new places all the time. I saw the mountains of
Colorado, the desert of Nevada, northern Michigan in Winter, beautiful beaches
in Florida, and all the great landscapes in between. I have seen the inside of
government facilities that not too many people see. I have driven through the
Devils Canyon in Utah which is, by for, the coolest thing ever. I saw music stars
getting out of their tour buses. I even experienced driving as fast as I wanted
with a government escort once.
Most of all, I had time to study the art of trading. I studied most likely more than
every other person on earth during this time. My typical day was something
like... Wake up and read some trading books, listen to trading related audio
while I drove, watched trading related youtube when I dropped off the load, and
listening to more audio in my sleep. I studied, literally 16 hours per day at this
time. No joke.

I would learn all kinds of trading stuff from all the 'masters' out there. If they were
on youtube or had a website, I have most likely seen their stuff. I learned a lot of
great thing and a lot of garbage as well but the most important part was that
God gave me a job and lifestyle that allowed me to learn. I had more time to
learn this than most people because what else was I going to do while driving or
sitting in a parking lot? I tried to use my time wisely.
Note: My 'learning about trading' came a little later as you will read in a few
pages from now.
OK...back to story time...
It started to hit me that maybe all these years, had I just been a bit more
positive, that my life would be so much better now. The realization that this
driving job was the 2nd thing that had come to pass just after praying and
believing with all of my heart that it would happen. Was there something to this
mystical thinking? Was it quantum mechanic entanglement at its finest?
Back then, Dvds, were all the rage and I remember watching one that spun me
right on my head and made everything start to make sense. This DVD was
called, 'The Secret'. Some may call this movie a fake story of fakeness but the
principles in the movie have worked for me ever since I started trying them so
believe whatever you want. I know my beliefs so I don't really care what you
think.
In the movie 'The Secret', they convey 3 main points about the law of attraction.
1. See it. 2. Believe it. 3. Achieve it. To me, it seemed as this was a mind trick or
just a marketing effort but I decided, I don't have anything to lose by trying it and

so I did. I knew that positive thoughts were better. I knew that praying and
believing worked and didn't know why but I didn't actually care why for once.
This movie was even better than the Tony Robbins tapes I listened to earlier in
life.
The following is the honest to God truth of what happened. This is where it gets
weird...
Sitting in a Travel Center of America truck stop right outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, I
remember writing in my notebook... 'I will get a load to California and I will get a
load coming back out.' I did this and believed this because I was putting the law
of attraction to the test. I wanted to see if I could actually make something
happen out of thin air. I knew that FedEx did not go to California at that time
because there were no loads coming back out but I didn't care. I was giving it
my all and believing.
In order to test the theory, I had to actually get myself to believe that what I was
thinking was already a done deal. I had to con myself into believing what others
would say is false or a lie. I actually had to make up something and believe it as
real as anything I could touch. That day, I kept writing about plans for traveling to
California, the route I would take, the sites I would see along the way.
Ring ring ring. I picked up the phone, Ryan would you be interested in a load to
Sacramento, California? I was floored! I was amazed! At that point I was a
believer in this mambo jumbo called the law of attraction.
Getting that load is not even the freaky part that made me believe more in the
law of attraction; it was the load I was hauling. I picked up 10 bags of quickCrete concrete and took it over 2,000 miles to a Home Depot in Sacramento,

California. The load alone cost Home Depot over $4,000. This was a custom
critical load so why on Earth would they spend thousands on some bags of
concrete that they could have purchased from a local distributor?
When I arrived at the drop off location 3 days later, I wanted to find out why they
spent so much on this load of general concrete so I asked the shipping
manager. I asked him why. His response was that a mistake was made in the
order system and I was already there before they found the glitch. Well how
about that? What a coincidence.
Not only did I get a load to California, but I got a load from there to British
Colombia and then a load back to Omaha. All 3 combined paid out over $5,000
cash in my pocket for a week and a half of driving! Some may call this
coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence.
So here I am, living in a van, sleeping in parking lots, just happy as a lark! I was
making money hand over fist and had finally hit the point that I felt that my life
was worth something. I was able to provide for Joey and hopefully see this
girlfriend of mine soon.
My next prayer would lead me to the world of trading. I just didn't know it at the
time. I am out here on the road making a lot of money now, being able to send
money to my son, and doing whatever I wanted to do and I had a great Idea.
What if I could buy more vans and put drivers in them to make this money for
me? What a fantastic Idea! Through a lot of calculations and all that jazz, I
figured I would need about $40,000 to buy a few vans and get this business
rolling.

So I prayed, Lord I need $40,000 in order to start this business I was eager to
get that money. I believed as hard as I had believed about the California trip, the
girl, etc... I believed the $40K was on its way and it sure was! Just not in the way
I had thought...
While coming to a stop in a traffic jam in Memphis, Tennessee, a tractor trailer
plowed my van at about 40 miles per hour and a settlement came in the amount
of about $40,000. True Story. What the??? I know. Freaky, huh?
I took a few weeks off work because I didn't have a van as it was now a total
wreck. I had to buy a new one and I also wanted to hire a guy to drive one. The
purchases were made with the settlement from the wreck. After it was all said
and done, I was driving a van and had another guy driving one that I had
bought.
Through the coming months, I saw that this was NOT what I intended when I
needed the $40k. I was going down the wrong path even though I got was I was
asking for. I was somewhat scared of driving. Every time I saw a tractor trailer, I
would cringe. I even become more paranoid at sleeping the back of this van. I
was thankful to have a good job that paid the bills but I wanted more.
I wanted a life that was different. I was thankful of the one I now had but I guess
it was time to move on to the next step in this journey of life. I had not yet put my
actual wants into the proper thoughts though. I continued driving and thinking.
Driving and thinking. Instead of thinking like I used to think, Why am I so
miserable?, I would think on ways to better my life. I was happy now but I just
kept striving for more. Always looking for opportunity.

What the blank is a forex?

So I am sitting here at a Flying J truck stop and typing away on my laptop
looking for opportunities to make a bit more money. I would enter into the Yahoo
search engine words such as, How to make money from home or Businesses
to start for cheap and various queries like that.
Through the days to follow, I listed many items into my notebook that may be
things for me to look at in the future. I was brain storming at that time. My whole
focus was on one simple idea... I needed to find something that would offer
exponential growth.
Low and behold, I came across a website that offered a free stock trading game.
I did this after hearing a guy on TV talking about how short sellers were making
oodles of cash and I had no clue what a short seller was. All I did was buy a
stock and take profit 1 penny higher than where I bought it. Sometimes it took a
while but I had won every single time I had done this. I thought, OMG, I can not
lose!
I quickly found forex and was hooked. I had a lot to learn though. I didn't even
know what the bid/ask spread was and I was getting highly pissed off every time
I opened a position and was immediately at a loss. Through reading websites
such as forex factory and dailyfx, I soon realized that I didn't know what I didn't
know. Rednecks would say, You don't know squat!

I started looking for pod casts and audio books that I could listen to, about
trading, while I was driving. I came across a few but it would not be until a
certain trading pod caster Rob Booker decided to start his that my trading really
took off. More about that later.
I was researching everything I could find about trading from truck stops and by
sitting in the back of my van. Hours upon hours were spent searching and
looking and reading and trying and failing. I knew there had to be a way and I
knew that I would find that way very soon.
It was hot in the summer. There were days that I would have all the van doors
open to let in a cool breeze but the only thing that I felt was oven heated mush. I
would wipe the sweat from my face about every 3 minutes and keep reading
away on every website I could think of. I killed my battery more times than I can
imagine because I would just plug in my laptop for countless hours. Luckily I had
a battery re-starter and would just leave the van running till it charged up again.
If I was not driving 1,000 miles today, I was reading. I signed up and
downloaded every audio program related to trading that I could get my hands
on. So as I drove, I listened. I remember falling asleep every night listening to
Trader Interviews. I lived off cans of pasta, ramen noodles, Soda pop, and
smoked cigarettes like a freight train. I had papers of notes stuck up all over the
van with duct tape. The van was an absolute mess. I didn't care though. I was
on a mission.
As I am learning this thing called forex, I came to realize that if I could master it,
every single dream in life would become a reality. I began to wonder if I had
what it takes to be a trader. My skills were put to the test when I opened my first

live account with FXCM.

These were the days of 400:1 leverage. This is where I could trade $400 for
every $1 in my account. This type of leverage is stupid but I didn't know any
better at the time so I went all in. I remember placing a 50 micro lot trade on a
$200 account and doubled my account in 1 or 2 trades. Boy oh boy! I was set!
All I had to do is double my account about 12 more times and I was a
millionaire!! This is too easy!
As you would have guessed, I blew out my account on the very next trade or
two. I didn't care though. I was determined. I just deposited another $200 and
instead of trading with a 50 micro-lot size, I only traded with about 30. Well it
took a slightly longer time to blow out my account but I did it again. My $200
account went from $200 to about $400 all the way down to about 43 cents.
At this point, I was halfway pissed off and halfway excited. I knew there was a
way. I just had to find it. I knew that once I found it, I would be very wealthy. So
the true search began. I just had t slow down, take a step back, and do it the
right way.
I remember listening to those Tony Robbins tapes and he talked about modeling.
Modeling is basically copying what wealthy individuals do. If you copy them, you
will get the same results. I tried to model several traders to no avail at first. It
was not their trading that I could not profit from. It was my own psychology that
kept me down. I could not do what was required to make a profit with whatever
system I was trying to mirror. My own psychology kept me making the same
mistakes such as moving my stops or altering the strategies in some way.

I kept losing money because I could not follow the rules. I never blamed anyone
but myself but I still could not figure out why I could not just follow the rules and
make money. What was my major malfunction? I would learn how to control this
later during my journey.
I found all kinds of valuable information on the internet. I was building my own
system from scratch but I often think I could have made a great trader years
sooner if I had just given in to learn from a mentor. As you learned at the
beginning of this book, I am a rebel. I want to do things my way. This was a
major downfall in the early days of my trading career.
I was happy though. I had found something that finally got my creative juices
flowing and even if I was not making a profit yet, I would figure it out. The one
person to help give me the boost of confidence was my girlfriend who later
became my wife.
I went home to visit my son quite often and had plans to take him on a little
vacation. I had extra cash now so this was a possibility. I rolled up and said,
Son, lets go have some fun! We ended up going to the Gatlinburg/Pigeon
Forge area in Tennessee and we had a ball! We rode go carts till our butts were
sore. He rode a camel too. We did the mirror maze. We visited Ripley's
Aquarium. We did it all.
The weekend was so action packed that on Sunday night, I was laying in our
hotel just about to fall asleep when my son told me that this was the best time
he had ever had in his life.
The tears that followed were tears of joy. For the first time in my life, I could
actually treat my son to some of the finer things in life. For the first time, I didn't

feel like a total loser! My goodness! Had it been this easy all along? If I had
changed the way that I thought in my own mind, would I have been able to do
this sooner? I think so. I think that a person gets what they think about most of
the time. Trading forex would eventually make this type of lifestyle a reality all of
the time. I could feel it in my soul. I dedicated myself to learning this craft with
every ounce of my being.

Paradise
Through this time while I was living in my van and going back and forth to see
my son while also talking with my new internet girlfriend, and learning to
trade...an amazing thing happened. I kept the vision that we would all be able to
somehow be together. As the universe (or I call him GOD, Jesus, and the Holy
Spirit) would have it, she was offered a chance to come the the United States for
her job. Hmmm. How convenient! What a lovely coincidence...
I went to see her as she landed in Newark, New Jersey! I remember seeing here
walk off the ramp. She was the most beautiful girl that I had ever laid eyes on
(and still is)! This girl helped my trading career in ways that I can never describe.
Even though she knew nothing of trading, she would listen to me ramble on and
on and offer advice when she could.
I fell head over heels in love with her and we got the chance to spend a week
together, driving for my job and staying in a different city each day. We would be
driving through Vermont on Monday and be in Virginia on Tuesday. We hauled
loads all up and down the east coast. We stayed in nice hotels and ate at The
Waffle House. We even took a stroll though a civil war graveyard and pretended
that it was a secret portal. All week, we were in each other arms falling in love.
We had the best time ever!... and then she had to go back home. This was a
total bummer!

I was so upset that she was no longer there, I made plans to visit her in The
Philippines. Somehow, I had to do something to keep this girl and before long, I
found myself on a jet headed that way. Just like when I landed in Panama, the
heat from the Manila air just swept me away. It was that heat though that made
me stand back in awe for a moment and smile.
I stepped off the plane. Chris (That's her name, by the way) and I made our way
to Bacolod, Philippines on a small puddle jumper. This is where she lived at the
time. After a series of events, we ended up on a private island with only 2 other
couples on the whole island!

This tiny island about the size of a football field was a land of dreams. There
was no electricity in the daytime; just Chris and I spending time in our private
cove. We strolled along the beach talking for hours. In the evenings, we would
watch the sun set in the distance that cast a golden glow over the entire island.
The nights were filled with absolute passion as the moon gazed across the white
sand beach and the waves crashed on the shore. As the moon fell over the
horizon, it seemed as we could see a billion stars in the sky. Not another soul
(other than a few island inhabitants and another french couple) for 50 miles. We

were alone and in spectacular bliss.

Our meals were prepared for us each day under a white sheet blocking the rays
of the sun. Fresh crab and coke in a bottle. Ahh absolute awesome!
Just a few short years ago, I was almost ready to put a bullet in my head. I
hated everyone and everything and now look at me! I was literally sitting on a
private tropical island, feet in the water, with the girl of my dreams right by my
side. My son just had the best vacation of his life! I was too happy for words. I
realized on that beach that life is what you make it!
I finally knew that a person did not have to live the life he was handed but could
change it in an instant with a simple change in the way he thought. I still thank
God everyday for helping me change my life and subsequently changing the
lives of the people I love. When a person starts living a better life, it's kind of
funny how the lives of other people start to change as well. It's like happiness
breeds happiness.
People often ask me, Ryan was it hard living in a van? Were you homeless?
Oh no, my friend. Living in that van was one of the best things to ever happen to
me. I learned lesson inside that big hunk of metal that I will never forget for the
rest of my life. I got to travel and see the world. I got to give my son a life worth
living. I got the girl in the end. As the years went by, my girlfriend and I finally got
married in the most beautiful chapel in Paranaque, The Philippines.
Five more trips sent me back to The Philippines and on every trip, I learned
something new about life. There is something about being away from your
comfort zone that opens your eyes. There is something about experiencing new
places, new smells, new auditory enlightenment. New is good. To have a new

and fresh perspective on anything is a great place to start toying with the idea of
changing your life.
Remember when you were a kid and didn't have a worry in the world? If you are
depressed, change your thoughts, change your environment, change everything
about your life and start new. Start as if you were a kid. Start with the feeling of,
I have a second chance in life. and you will be amazed at how fast your life
can turn around.
I have no clue why God sent me to The Philippines and Panama. I don't know
why I chose to live in a van for several years. I have no idea how prayer or the
law of attraction works that helped me to rise from utter depression into a life
worth sharing. I will never know but in this journey, if you don't share your
experiences, then what's it all for? If you don't help others, then you have no
clue how much happiness you are missing out on.
What if you could have everything you ever wanted? I may be crazy. You may
call me a lunatic, a dreamer, a fanatic, a truth-er, or any array of names you can
think of but you know what? I would rather be crazy and have a family so full of
love than to worry for one second what the world thinks!
Try this experiment:
For the next 30 days, get one thing in your mind that you want. Be specific.
Write it down. Put a sticky note in the bathroom and a note in your car. Carry a
note in your wallet. Whatever you want, write it on the note. Everyday, visualize
yourself having it until you believe it to be true. Eliminate every negative thought
in your mind. Focus only on your one goal. You may be surprised of the

outcome!
Here is a trick. I actually still do this from time to time when I am having a bad
day. Wear a rubber band around your wrist. EVERY TIME a negative thought
enters your mind, snap that sucker, hard! What this does is cause somewhat of
an interference pattern in your brain that will help 'snap' you out of the current
thought level you are on. It really works! Yes it may look stupid but what do you
have to prove to anyone other than yourself and your family?
For the record: This lovely gem (the hot mama with her head on my shoulder)
now lives with me right outside of Knoxville Tennessee with our sons, Apollo and
Joey (Joey is the son I abandoned earlier). We are all one big happy family and
we all love life to the fullest.

OK Let us continue with this story...

Coming Home
I am married now to my lover. After a long a crazy struggle with immigration, she
boards a plane to come here to live. What would a loving husband do for his
new bride as she comes to live in a strange land? Take her on a 6 week sight
seeing tour of the U.S. Of course!
We set out driving all over Gods creation. We learned so much about one
another on this trip. We talked for hours... went silent for hours... sang songs...
played the license plate game... and just came to learn so much about one
another it seems insane. I have never, in my life, met someone that has the
exact same sense of humor as I do... until now!
We got to see things that others dream about. We saw the entire U.S. From the
skyscrapers of New York to rolling desert hills of west Texas. From the oceans of
South Carolina to the freaks in California. We would stop along the way to see
sights such as the worlds largest pistachio or an old abandoned church on a hill
in New Mexico or stop by an awesome pizza shop in Chicago. We even went to
Roswell, New Mexico to visit the Alien Museum!
This was, bar far, the best time of my life! We would sleep in hotels or in the
back of my van out in the middle of some dessert. It didn't matter. It was like we
were Forrest and Jenny! The time came to finally settle down and find a place to
live. Our plan was to get her set up in an apartment and I would continue to
drive while sending her money for the bills. I would continue to learn about

trading while all this was going on.

Yeah that didn't last long! I wasn't gone but for about 6 weeks when I wanted
come home. I could not stand to be away from her one more day! I had already
spent so much time away from her and worked so hard to bring here here to
only be away again? Bull Hockey!, I thought, I'm going home!
All of this time, I was still continuing to study the markets and find my niche. It
was time consuming and as the years went by, I learned a little bit more and a
little bit more. What I didn't realize at the time is that there were no secrets.
Everything was there for the taking and all I wanted was the holy grail.
I came home and was a bit scared... To be honest, I was terrified out of my
mind. I wanted to do my absolute best to take care of my family. We had some
money in savings but not enough to keep us up for very long so I set out to find
a job somewhere around Knoxville. Remember when it took me 2 days to find a
job? Well, after that, I finally found a company that would treat me well. It was a
medical courier company and I worked there for several years as we went
through struggles of a new married couple, having a baby, and tried to make
ends meet.
Even though we did not have a lot of money at the time, we paid the bills and
did what we wanted for the most part. We were both in bliss and happier than
ever! We had a new baby that added some long nights to our schedule but we
didn't care. We loved every minute of it! We also had our older son come and
live with us (The son I left 15 years earlier) and we were one big happy family
living in a 700 square foot apartment just excited about life!

That light bulb moment

As I was working for this courier company, doing my regular 9-5 every day, I was
always studying the markets. Reading the Wall Street Journal, listening to
traderspodcast.com scanning the message boards, and then it hit me...
I am going to take everything off my charts and just start trying to follow price. I
will use no indicators whatsoever. If price goes my way, I will take a profit. If
price goes against me, I will get out. After doing this, I was shocked at how often
I would profit. From that day forward, I never looked back! I started buying the
highs and selling the lows.
I have had many struggles since I started trading like this but I finally did
become profitable. I found the system that worked for me in what seemed like
one day. Through all the indicators and all of the theories and all of the analysts,
I found the one thing that works as far as I am concerned. This one thing is most
likely the simplest trading strategy on the planet and it just follows price. The
only indicator Is a line on the chart for the most part.
I want you to go Google something called a Donchian Channel. This was
created by a guy named Richard Donchian and it is by far the number one
indicator on this planet. If you use it properly, it will be magical how much easier
profits come to you. I will get more into this a bit later in the book.
I talked with my wife and we both decided, that since I was profitable now, it was
time to start reducing my hours at work to focus on my trading. I was making a

profit but not enough to become a millionaire overnight. As trading profits were
beginning to come in, I started reducing my hours at work. Finally I went to my
boss and told him I wanted to quit and I left on good terms in the event trading
didn't work out. It was not too scary to quit my job because my wife had a job at
this time that eased our budget as well. We had enough money in the bank to
live on while I increased my business of trading. We just vowed to keep hacking
away at it.
If I had to do over, I would have quit a long time ago once I found the strategy
that worked. Sometimes in life, we just have to go for it and that is exactly what I
did. It has been 16 months since I left the job world and there are new
opportunities every day that seem to open up. If you are looking to trade for a
living or want to be involved with anything in the trading world, you can not give
up. Keep trying! Keep calculating! Your wow moment will come!
The problem with trading has nothing to do with trading systems. They are all
over the place. The problem is that we, as humans, tend to try to fix something
that is not broken. There are numerous strategies that work. They have been
proven again and again over time. Traders do not want to follow the rules.
Traders want to create their own rules. This is fine and all but if you find
something that works and stick to it, you will also become a profitable trader. I
am going to give you one trading strategy that works. It has worked since the
beginning of time and continues to work today.
Will you trade this strategy? Probably not but by you taking a look at it, you will
see the possibility that something actually does work. When you see that
something does work, it will be up to you to follow it. Since most likely you wont
follow the rules, I will tell you how to break the rules and still be fine.

An unlikely chain of events...

It's kind of funny how when a trader gives it their all, an unlikely chain of events
can lead us to important people in the industry like magic. These people help
guide us in our path through our trading lives.
This next part is kind of backwards. You will learn in part 2 of this book about
how I met and became friends with Rob Booker, a well known guy in the trading
world. I would never have written this book the way I did if it had not been for
that friendship. It was a weird chain of events that led me from learning to trade
from many sources all the way up to the awesome stuff that's happening today. .
Here is a rundown...
I started searching for all things trading related which led me to podcasts about
trading. This led me to the traders podcast by Rob Booker. This led me to
profitability. This led me to meet Rob. This led me to end up at a traders
conference, in Arizona, where I met some executives from Cantor Exchange.
This led to the President of Cantor Exchange coming to my house and talking
with me and others for about 8 solid hours about the future of the exchange.
This led me to be listed on the cxmarkets website. And this will lead to whatever
God has in store for me next.
Are all these events that happened in my life a coincidence? Do all these chains
of events happen for nothing? Is it all luck or was it hard work? You be the judge
but if it can happen for me, it can totally happen for you as well. Get that idea
and go with it!

This unlikely chain of events was just cool, to say the least.

Rob Booker, Bradley Fried and I in 2012 in Knoxville, TN.

Hector (a trading buddy) and I attended the Trader's Conference in

Phoenix, AZ May 2015.

that led to Richard Jaycobs, President of Cantor Exchange, coming

to my house in Knoxville, TN in June 2015 to talk with me for 8 straight
hours about the future of Cantor Exchange before leading a group of
local traders in a discussion about how the exchange works.

That picture you see above is just a small snap shot of what went on that day.
We all had a blast and Richard is a great teacher. One thing I found out was that
this man had some great ideas that just knocked my socks off.
Troy Epperson, who works with Ninjacators, was also at this meeting. Troy kept
firing away question after question and Richard just kept answering every
question without delay.
After the meeting was over, I went to bed that night filled with so much
knowledge that I thought my head would fall off. I was so excited about the
future of this new exchange. I was going over scenario after scenario in my
head. This one meeting was another one of those life changing days.
Was all of this just chance? Heck no it's wasn't! Get a thought in your head and
then work your rear end off trying to achieve it! Keep that thought in your head
and let no man discourage you! Keep that thought close and visualize your
goals already being done! Work everyday like a madman toward your goal. You
WILL get there IF you allow zero negativity in.

Part 2
Let's get down to business

How to create your own profitable trading

strategy!
Alrighty folks, story time is over! Now let us get down to the nitty gritty. Let's take
a stroll down technical-how-to-ville. Get ready because I am about to blow your
mind!

The Rule
First, I want you to forget everything you know about trading for a little while.
Forget it, at least, till you finish reading this book. I don't care what you normally
do... If you use RSI or MacD or moving averages or heiken ashi, or anything for
that matter, forget it for a few moments. As you are reading the following pages
and you find yourself beginning to try to ADD your own spin to what I am saying,
try to block it out for a bit. I know 99% of traders will tend to try to take
something and add their own voodoo to it to try to make it 'better'. Do that
tomorrow but for today, just follow along.
Have an open mind...

6 Steps to creating your own profitable trading

strategy
1. Get an overwhelmingly awesome Idea
2. Modeling is Awesome
3. Money Management is Taught Wrong
4. Trial, Error, and Back Testing
5. Throw your own brain out the window
6. Demo to Live-Demo to live
Once you see all the steps of how it's done, at the end of this book, I will take
you through a series of screen shots about what we offer at Joaquin Trading.
We only use a handful of indicators and we like our charts to be super clean. I
will show you everything we do... But first...
I am going to take you through the steps to create your own trading strategy that
is suited for you and you alone. We all have different attitudes and we all trade
differently so no two traders will get identical results most of the time. The
indicators you see in here will be indicators that I personally use. You can find
them at joaquintrading.com if you so choose.
As stated above, no two traders are identical. There are several types of traders.
1. HFT and ARB Traders - Some like to scalp the market over and over for
pennies, (High Frequency Traders) or Arb traders (Traders that look for
various arbitrage opportunities).
2. Day Traders - Some traders like to trade a few times per day when they

see a set-up they like. These are called day traders. A day trader will place
3-10 trades per day on average.
3. Swing Traders - Other traders like to take a trade and hold it for a day or a
few days. This type of trader is called a swing trader. If, however, they
place a trade with a profit target and it profits immediately, then they can
also be out of the market in a few minutes.
4. Trend Followers In the typical sense, a trend follower will hold a trade for
weeks and even months in some instances. These traders try to go for
huge returns over time.
5. Buy and Hold These types of traders will buy a security and hold it for
retirement or dividends. This type of individual is not really a trader but
rather an investor.
6. Follow the Crowd These types of traders have no clue about the market
but they think they do. They listen to every Tom and Joe on TV and just
regurgitate whatever they hear to anyone that will listen.

So as you can see, there are many different types of traders. I often hear people
say that 'their' way is the only way that works....
HOG WASH! NONSENSE! BULL HOCKEY!
There are numerous strategies that work and as you will soon see, it isn't all
about the strategy but the more important aspect is money management. With a
proper money and risk management process, a trader can take a crappy system
and turn it into a profitable system.
Before I get into strategy, here is the cftc disclaimer that we are all used to by
now...

My own personal disclaimer:

I do not work for any forex broker. I do not work for Cantor Exchange. I mention
Cantor Exchange in this book for reference purposes. I teach strategies that
utilize the exchange to place trades. I do not work for, nor have any affiliation
with FXCM. I teach strategies about forex and FXCM is one of my brokers. Any
forex trade I speak about can be taken with any regulated forex broker. Any
binary option strategy can also be utilized with Nadex. Nadex strikes are
different than Cantor Exchange strikes so it may not be exactly the same but it
may be some what similar. I do not work for any of the mentors I mention in this
book. All trading results shown are from a live account as I do not use demo
accounts except for very early stages of testing. I am not affiliated with the cftc. I
am not affiliated with Think or Swim. Any and all referene about anything
mentioned in this book is true as of the date of this writing which is 11/3/2015.
Joaquin Trading is a forex, binary options, and digital option educational
company. Neither Joaquin Trading nor Ryan Herron manages assets other than
his own account. Trading is risky and may not be suitable for all investors.

Get an overwhelmingly awesome idea!

If you are a trader, quite often ideas spring into your mind like a bolt of lightning
vibrating your inner core. If you are at work and the idea hits, you are no longer
useful at work and can't wait to race home as fast as humanly possible to look at
your charts. Nothing else matters during the day but the single idea of thinking
and calculating in your head. If a friend tries to talk to you, you are short with
them and say, Hey buddy I'll call you later. You want nothing to wreck your
train of thought.
Here is how it usually happens to me... The other day my wife and I were at
Target shopping for clothes. I needed some pants because my oldest son has a
knack for wearing my pants while tromping through the forest and getting them
so nasty that I don't want them any longer. Looking through the racks of pants, I
noticed that the price of these pants and the price of identical pants on another
rack were off by a few dollars for some reason.
This could be an arbitrage play here! Woot woot! I could possibly get the pants I
wanted at the sale price and no one would be the wiser! I am a flipping genius!
This will save me $5 on every pair I buy! Unbeknownst to me, this would not
work because the cheap pants were just put there by a customer that was too
lazy to walk 4 doggone steps to place the pants back on the appropriate rack.
Bummer!
But it did spark a thought in my head about one of the trading methods I am

currently using. I was trading binary options through Cantor Exchange earlier
that day and was trying to figure out some arb plays. (An arb play is an arbitrage
opportunity.) So as I stood there 'looking' at pants, my mind was not there any
longer. It had slipped into an alternate universe of possibilities. I may have
looked like I was remotely interested in shopping but when the arb thought
occurred to me, I was no longer there in the department store.... where was I?
I had zoomed through a tunneling wormhole, in my mind, and landed right back
in front of my screen at home. This land of imagination brought mathematical
equations that floated through the air. I could see a chart go up and down and
could see my trades reacting to various different strategies at the same time.
Thoughts and visions of , What if this and what if that? But if this does that, then
I could do this. were swirling in my imagination. I was no longer interested in
shopping... AT ALL!
My wife knew I was in my la la land when she was talking to me and I said, I
am sorry honey but I was not listening. From that moment on, nothing else
mattered that day except taking a look and seeing if I was correct in my
assumption. The only way to see if I was correct was to get home and look at
my screen.
Does this sound remotely familiar?
Quite often, traders do not need to 'look' for a trading idea. One will just pop into
their head at any moment and for no reason at all. It's these ideas that have
always seemed to be the most profitable in my own trading. All traders are
different and we will all do it our own way. So how could I take an Idea, even if it
is not profitable, and turn it into something profitable? Has anyone done it

before?

Modeling is awesome!
Every single trader on this planet models someone. Either a mentor has taught
them or they are using someones strategy or possibly they have learned bits
and pieces from all kinds of other traders. There is not one single trader who has
learned how to trade on his own with no outside influence. We all take pieces of
the puzzle from everyone we learn from and put them together in a way we can
understand or interpret the market.
Modeling is the act of studying someone else who is already profitable and
doing what they do. There is nothing wrong with modeling because if it works for
them, then it may be able to work for you. Why try to reinvent the wheel when
there are many different wheels out there to already choose from?
Let's look at a few examples.
1. What do the companies GMC, Toyota, Kia, Nissan, and all the other car
companies have in common? The all modeled a guy named Henry Ford.
2. Who do companies like K-Mart and Target model? Would it be Sam
Walton?
3. Let's look at restaurants. You have Burger King, Hardees, and a slew of
all kinds of other fast food franchises. Would you estimate they modeled
the McDonalds concept?
In just about ever industry, you see modeling. It is not copying per se but rather

taking an idea or concept from someone who has been there and done that and
making it your own. There is a huge difference in modeling and theft so you
need to distinguish the difference in the two.
I model someone in the majority of my trades. His name is Richard Donchian.
He is known as the father of trend following and many millionaires have been
created by doing the things he taught. Whether trading with Foreign exchange
through FXCM, binary options on Cantor Exchange, or even with a futures
contract on Think or Swim, it doesn't matter. Trend following is trend following.
There are many trading models but I will choose one of mine for this example
and by no means am I implying that this way is the only way. The basic concept
behind trend following is you buy at the highs and sell at the lows. Some may
think this is crazy but it actually works if done properly.
In the spirit of modeling and sharing, I will share the main mentors that I model.
The first is Richard Donchian, the father of trend following. I learned about him
from listening to pod-casts by Michael Covel. I have also learned pieces of my
strategies through various other traders in the industry such as Rob Booker,
Hugh Kimura, and Darrell Martin as well. If I ever mention a trading educator, it
means that they have most likely mentored me in some way in the past.
What does a mentor actually do? Well a mentor may not even know your name.
They may have material that you use for your own trading; maybe a book;
maybe a course; and maybe you know them on a personal level. One of the
most awesome things about trading is there is room enough for everyone and
that's why I give credit where it's due.

For these five traders, I will list what I learned from each.
1. Michael Covel taught me that trend following works. I saw how billions
were made.
2. Rob Booker taught me about money management and how it can turn a
crappy trading system into a profitable one. His pod casts are top notch.
3. Hugh Kimura taught me that it was very possible for an every day person
to become a profitable trader. His interviews at tradingheroes.com helped
me dream and get excited.
4. Darrel Martin taught me how volatility statistically affected trades.
All that being said, I learned nothing from any one of them that I could use as
my own but rather a little from all of them. It was a journey of enlightenment to
say the least. I say all that to say this. If you EVER encounter a trader that says
he has THE answer and that HE developed everything on HIS own, he may very
well be telling you a big, fat, horrible lie. Whether in life or trading, we always
learn things from others and can never attribute everything to ourselves.
We do, after years of learning from others, develop our own ideas and our own

strategies but none of it would have been possible without learning from others
first. Even a few bits and pieces from forex factory, cxmarkets, or baby-pips may
help you start developing your own way to trade.

Why do you need a mentor?

There are numerous reasons why it may behoove you to gain a mentor in your
trading endeavors. I will list a few below:
1. Mentors have been there and done that. - They know the pitfalls already
and may save you from doing something stupid.
2. Mentors can help open doors for you They know people that you don't.
Maybe they can help get your foot in the door.
3. Reading a book is one thing but a mentor help can shape you You can't
learn karate from a book but a good karate instructor can teach you how
it's really done.
4. A mentor can help ease your anxiety Maybe you are having a bad
trading day and think the end is near. Maybe your mentor can help ease
that discomfort.
5. A mentor can inspire Quite often, inspiration comes from the lips of
someone you trust. They can propel you to reach for your dreams.
6. Mentors can help you create a plan Do you have a trading plan or a road
map to success? Maybe if you did, you could see more clearly.
7. Mentors can keep you accountable If you had someone that could call
you out when you are wrong, it may be the best thing to help in your
trading career.
8. You may not even know the questions to ask What if you should do
something but did not even know that it was available?
9. You can bounce ideas off of a mentor Maybe you have an idea. Bounce

it off someone who already knows and find out it it may be a worthwhile
effort.
10.

A mentor can help you think differently Instead of thinking in a

linear fashion, a mentor might be able to help you think about different
paths.
11.

A mentor can cheer you on There is nothing like a great cheer

leader or someone who can say, Great job, today! Keep it up!
12.

A mentor can be unbiased Quite often, we are told what we want

to hear instead of what we need to be told. This will hurt you in the long
run.

Get a mentor. Model what they do. Ask lots of questions. Bounce lots of ideas.
Over time, their knowledge can do more for you in a year than in 10 years of you
learning on your own. A mentor will help cut years of of your learning curve. If
you could even cut one year from your learning curve, would you do it? Of
course you would.
Don't expect a mentor to be free. You get what you pay for. Many times in the
trading world, I will hear a trader say, Well if he is so good at what he does, why
does he have to charge for it? This is absolutely a stupid way to think. Why
should a mentor give his all and spend time with you for nothing? Maybe he will
do somethings for free. Maybe he will charge for his services. I see nothing
wrong with charging for services if the service is worthwhile or you learn
something. It is kind of a give give situation. The mentor will give you his
knowledge and you will give him your money for said services in return.
Don't be fooled though. There are a lot of 'Mentors' or 'trading educators'
charging ungodly fees for their services. I am sorry but if a person charges
$5,000 for a one day 'Super Secret' trading course, then expect to get ripped off.
There are numerous services out there for less than $100 per month and the
educators are top notch.

How to keep from getting ripped off or

scammed
I wish I didn't have to cover this. I wish everyone in the trading realm was pretty
honest but the simple fact is there are so many jerks out there, it's insane. I can
type in something about 'How to learn forex' or 'profitable trading systems' into
Google and as I scroll through the pages, I find page after page of these big
long sales letters that show people sitting in their sports cars while smoking a
cigar and rolling in one hundred dollar bills. This is nonsense. Below are some
questions to ask before paying a mentor, trading educator, trading service, etc...
one single dime.
1. Can you contact them? - If a trading educator or mentor can only be
contacted AFTER subscribing, then steer clear. You should communicate
with a service, somehow before you join or pay. Make sure they are
actually in the business and not just marketers.
2. Are their services in line with other similar services, price wise? - If you
see that most of the services are charging $100 per month and then one
comes along and charges $500 per month, it does not mean their product
is better. Find out why they justify the increase in price.
3. Have you read reviews or searched about their reputation? - Do a Google
search and find out what other traders say about the service. Make sure
that the reviews you read are traders who have actually used the service
though because there are many turds out there who just bitch and
complain for the sole purpose of bitching and complaining.

4. Does their offering make sense to you? - If you are scanning their page
and it is talking about some super complicated algo that requires super
computers and MIT mathematicians to figure out, then just find something
that will be simpler for you to understand. There is nothing worse than not
being able to understand a trading system and feeling like you are in the
dark.
5. Do they explain what it is that they actually do? - If you see a page where
all they speak of are things like, Our traders are making so much
money! or By using our system, you will make money. then this may be
a sign that you want to look elsewhere.
6. Do they make outlandish claims? - If a service claims that they have 100%
wins or can double your account every week, then run away fast! These
fart-knockers are monsters that just want your wallet. If it were that easy,
they would own the earth in a month.

It is pretty easy to spot a scam. I think the best question you could ask yourself,
when you are researching a mentor or trading educator is this...
Does their service look and feel like what a trader or a marketer would put out?
The good ones WILL stand out! Hint: Many of you may not know this but quite
often, the best trading educators are the worst marketers!
As a kid, my dad told me, If it looks too good to be true, it usually is. This
doesn't mean that it's not. It means you need to pay close attention to whatever
you are doing.

Who is my favorite trading mentor of all time?

Who is my favorite mentor? By far, it has to be Rob Booker. This is a man who
has a passion to communicate ideas with traders. His products are awesome in
every way and I found that even though I don't trade his systems, I learned more
from this man than any other trader, ever, bar none. He taught me about the
psychology of the markets and WHY I was losing money when I first began.
I am giving him props in this book for the simple fact that he gives away an
ungodly amount of stuff for free. He puts on conferences that are meant to help
traders instead of just to sell products. He puts an insane amount of time into
producing high quality stuff.
For those of you who know me, I used to drive a lot. All those thousands of
hours in my old van were spent listening to the Traders Podcast over and over,
day after day. This led me to devise profitable systems while learning how others
had done it before me. I learned that it would not be overnight but it could be
done. Rob gave me hope when I was at the bottom of the barrel and for that, I
am and will always be truly grateful.
After becoming profitable, I took a shot at meeting him. I found out Rob was
doing a cross country trip for his podcast and I put my name in the hat to be
interviewed. He picked me and it sparked a friendship that has lasted to this day.
He has always treated me with respect as a fellow trader and as a friend.

I think one of the reasons I respect him is the simple fact that he lives a normal
life, drives a normal car, lives in a normal house, loves his family, and never
flaunts his wealth. I remember standing in his back yard and thinking, This guy
helped me realize my dream and NEVER asked for anything in return.
Rob has no clue that I am writing this about him but if you read this, please be
sure to check out his live conference in its entirety absolutely free
http://robbookerlive.com/ and his podcast, also free, at
http://traderspodcast.com/ Below are some episodes where I chatted with Rob
on the Traders Podcast. Have a listen!
1. Episode 145: The Guy Who Lived Out of a Van and Traded

http://traderspodcast.com/episode145/
2. Episode 188: Knoxville Ryan The Indiana Jones of Currency

Trading http://traderspodcast.com/episode188/
3. Episode 389: Ask Rob Real Traders, Part 1

http://traderspodcast.com/episode389/
4. Episode 398: Getting to Know Rob

http://traderspodcast.com/episode398/
5. Episode 402: Getting to Know Rob, Part 2

http://traderspodcast.com/episode402/
6. Episode 404: How to Trade Binary Options

http://traderspodcast.com/episode404/

Thank you Rob!

A Start To A Strategy
OK so let's get started. Before getting all sentimental, I was talking about
modeling. Below, you will see a basic trend following strategy that I employ. This
strategy is a culmination of everything I have learned all my years of trading and
all the mentors I model. A little knowledge here and a little knowledge there
mixed with some of my own analytic mind all smashed into a strategy that
works. This is a result of modeling from several traders such as Richard
Donchian and Jesse Livermore.

Ed Seykota, A well known Trend Follower sums up my thoughts completely

when he said, My style is basically trend following, with some special pattern
recognition and money management algorithms.

Now look at the number 1 above. This tiny red arrow tells me that price has
broken a major support level on a certain time frame and I will want to sell it. If I
did, it gave me profits very quickly and I can wait for a pullback and break below
again to sell it again if I want to do that.
You can see the entry at number 2 was not so friendly and did a really big
pullback before eventually giving a profit at number 3 and continuing the down
trend. Whether I stopped myself out or not is irrelevant at this point in the game.
Here is a real world example of the trade I placed using this concept this
morning, October 27, 2015.

Now why on Gods Green Earth am I willing to incur a huge draw down to make
a small amount of money with a tight profit target? Because it works and I don't
care about rules made up by someone else for the most part. All I care about
are results. Richard Donchian and the other traders told me how they do it. Then
I put my own spin on it and turned into my own strategy.
Modeling is more difficult in the trading world than in other businesses because
the market is always changing and evolving. Strategies stop working over time.
Other strategies start to work better. The market is ALWAYS changing so we
have to strive to stay on top of it. The trend following strategies that were taught
by Richard Donchian do not work without a set of strict money management and
do not work anywhere close to what they resembled back in the 70s and 80s but
the concepts still works all day every day.
So there you have it. I have told you who several of my trader mentors are.
There are so many great traders out there that write articles or make pod casts
about the things they do. Pick one that you like. If you are a counter trend trader,
pick someone who uses counter trend trading. If you are a super hyper scalper,
pick a high frequency strategy. The simple fact is you can take almost ANY
losing strategy and turn it into a winner with the proper money management
concepts.
Now go pick 3 trading dudes that you like. Compare what they do and do that. If
they are profitable and you do what they do, you will also become profitable over
time. There is always a learning curve which may take quite some time but in
the end, if you stick with it, you will get it. And by all means, lose the naysayers!
If anyone tells you, 'it can't be done', drop them faster than a hooker drops a guy
that forgot his wallet at home.

Money Management is Taught Wrong!

This money management part will be the longest of this entire book. Ways to
manage your money are endless and if you get it right, you will be able to
manage your account through views that many people often ignore.
Here is the part where I will either piss you off or make you a happy camper.
First of all, there are different philosophies of money management. Let's talk
about the usual one you see splattered all over the internet....Cut your losses
early and let your profits run. Risk 1 to make 3.
This sounds all good but in reality, have you tried this? Does it work for you?
Maybe it does and maybe it does not but there are many strategies where this
method does not work. You will need to maintain a win rate of 33.33% to break
even with this method. To have a chance at a profitable strategy, this needs to
work in the range of 50% or better to be worthwhile.
Lets us look at an example.
What if you have a strategy that wins 50% of the time where you are risking 1 to
make 3? This sounds great in testing. What you need to realize, also, is the
consecutive loser rule. The consecutive loser rule looks at how many losses
incurred, one right after the other without a win, over the past X number of
trades. What if you are employing this strategy and do not take into account the
consecutive loser rule? Maybe the strategy has had 15 consecutive losers in a

row over the past 1,000 trades.

Can you withstand the mental anguish that comes with 15 consecutive losers in
a row? If you say yes you can, you must first know that unless you have taken
15 losers in a row, there is no possible way for you to actually know if you could
do this or not. Trader psychology will play a huge role in affecting your trades if
you have no understanding of the consecutive losses., you will go batty trying to
continue a trading system that has a high loss rate at various points over the
past 1,000 trades.
Now let's flip it around. Let us let our losses run and take profits early. What????
Are you freaking kidding me??!! This goes against everything I have ever been
taught about trading, Mr. Ryan! There is no way in Hades I will even think of
this!... so you say...
No worries, reader. You will do it anyway. Yep, I will predict that you are going to
trade the 'wrong way' even though you say you wont. No I am not wrong. Stop
arguing with me because you are gonna do it, I assure you. How do I know?
Well that's a secret, Mr. Trader von trading man.
Since you are going to average down and break all the rules anyway, I will
attempt to show you how to potentially make something work a little better. If
you are going to do it, allow me to show you a better way. Look at the picture
below. You will see an entry where you are buying at the high and what happens
right after you placed the entry.
****WARNING**** Never EVER Martingale!!!! You WILL lose it all one day if you
employ this concept. Martingale doubles down on every loser. This is a concept

that works most of the time but the times it does not work will kill your account.
Every trading disaster out there was made due to the martingale concept. Look
up 'Long Term Capital Management' and watch the movie 'Rogue Trader' to find
out how bad things can get when you martingale.

You can see that price had pulled back, hard, right after you entered. You
incurred draw down. Draw down is when you place a trade and it is going
against you drawing your account balance down. What would have happened if
you would have had a 'risk 1 to make 3' stop loss? You would have lost this
trade. Maybe you can try again later, maybe you would have forgotten about it
later. Simple fact is you would have been stopped out.
Richard Donchian speaks about allowing for volatility instead of tight stops. Well
since I was modeling him, that is what I will decide to point out here. Trends
develop for a reason. When you have the right strategy to catch these trends,
and you follow the rules of the strategy, you have a far better probability of

winning your trade by allowing room for volatility, instead of using a tight stop.
This is because when price is rallying hard. It's going up, up, up, and you want
to buy, you know with an almost uncanny accuracy that price WILL conduct pull
backs within the midst of a trend. These pullbacks ( This is when price pulls
back in an opposing direction for a short period of time) happen for an array of
reasons. Maybe traders are taking profits. Maybe traders are fading the trend.
Your guess is as good as mine but they do happen.
Can one of these pull backs stop a trend? Sometimes yes but in the vast
majority of circumstances, the trend will eventually continue in the same
direction as it is currently going. So now lets look at an expanded picture of the
exact trade you see above.

You can see here that allowing for volatility actually kept you in the trade instead
of stopping you out. By leaving a wider stop loss, you actually profited from this
trade. What is volatility, you ask?

According to Investopedia, volatility is statistical measure of the dispersion of

returns for a given security or market index. Volatility can either be measured by
using the standard deviation or variance between returns from that same
security or market index. Commonly, the higher the volatility, the riskier the
security.
In other words, volatility refers to the amount of uncertainty or risk about the size
of changes in a security's value. A higher volatility means that a security's value
can potentially be spread out over a larger range of values. This means that the
price of the security can change dramatically over a short time period in either
direction. A lower volatility means that a security's value does not fluctuate
dramatically, but changes in value at a steady pace over a period of time.
Now here is the kicker most traders do not even think about. If you are risking 1
to make 3, you traded 3 times to lose 30 pips in this picture whereas allowing for
volatility netted you 90 pips of profit. Take a look below.
Notice the 3 entry areas depicted by the green squares.
Notice the profit targets depicted by the red horizontal lines and when the profit
targets actually hit depicted by the blue squares

Its kind of uncanny how allowing for volatility instead of risking 1 to make 3
works better in the vast majority of circumstances. The reason most people tell
you to risk 1 to make 3 is because they are counter trend traders. By being a
trend follower, such as myself, I know the trend will continue most of the time
and therefore my stop can be a lot larger. Catastrophic stop losses are my stops
of choice.

A picture below will show you where your volatility or catastrophic stop could go.

Buying during a pullback

You can buy during a pull back in the midst of a trend as well. Here is a picture
of my trades from this morning, October 27, 2015.

So now that you have seen some ways I do it, maybe you can take a look at
whatever strategy you employ and see if a wider stop would create more profits
that you are currently experiencing.
Now let us dive into the realm of the big 'no no'. We will take a look at something
that is frowned upon. This next method of money management is taught as the
biggest account killer of all time. What you may not realize though is that the
banks do it. The hedge funds do it. You can see it on a chart of the Dow Jones
Industrial Average. You can see it implemented all over the place... yet no one
says they do it. Hmmm. Maybe they are all full of malarkey and just wont admit
they average down for fear of looking bad. Maybe they don't actually want you to
know what works.
Something is amiss here. If you can spot it on a chart (and yes you can see it if
you have the skills) then someone has to be doing it and furthermore, if you can
spot it on a daily chart of the DJIA, then a vast MAJORITY of people must do it.
This one thing can be the most awesome part of your trading and give you
returns more than you realize but it is also risky and you ALWAYS have to know
your 'out' point.
What is an 'out' point? This is an area where you will get out of the market at all
costs. The out point is where you are dead wrong and can not take any more
pain. The losses at your out point will suck but the profits when you win the trade
will be amazing. What is this method?
Averaging down, dollar cost averaging, scaling in, building your position. It has
many names. The large investment firms try to make it sound appealing but it is
just a very simple concept and there are unlimited ways to utilize your positions.

This type of adding to a position can be extremely profitable if done right. In

order to trade this way, you MUST ALWAYS know your out point because you
DO NOT want to add to a trend in the wrong direction. Always know your out.

Real World Examples

Here is a trade I placed on October 26, 2015

Here is another real world example from yesterday, October 26, 2015

I have shown you my trades from yesterday and today and just to sooth your
wandering mind, I did not cherry pick the trades for this book. Here is a shot of
my trades in my order window since yesterday.

Know your 'OUT'!

Look for a minute at the next part of money management of which I touched on
earlier. Consecutive loss rule. Earlier in this chapter, I spoke of looking at the
maximum number of trades that are losses in a row. This is especially useful

when trading binary options and allows you to wait for an optimal entry point for
your trades.
I trade binary options with Cantor Exchange so I will be looking at these types of
trades in the examples. You will be looking at a 5 minute chart and using a 5
minute binary option. These examples will be using a totally different type of
trend following system on a 5 minute trend instead of a longer term trend.

Look at the examples 1, 2, and 3.

#1 shows that the indicator looks back over the past 1,000 trades.
#2 shows that an ITM trade has a 97.60% ITM expiry rate which means price
has expired in the money 199 times in a row at its maximum point and expired
out of the money (worthless) only 2 times in a row over the past 1,000 trades.

#3 shows where there is a Cantor Exchange Strike line.

If I know that a strike has a 97% probability of expiring in the money and I also
know it has expired worthless only 2 consecutive times in a row over the past
1,000 trades, I may want to take deep ITM contracts. The question remains
though... Would I be able to get filled?

Yes I can get filled. Due to volatility, I can often get filled at less that the
probability price. These deep itm contracts were 93 and had a potential payout
of 7.
Trading deep itm contracts is quite scary for some traders but you can look at
the chart and see the probabilities of closing itm, atm, or otm in the example.
One of the reasons that trading otm, or out of the money strikes are not a good
idea for this type of strategy is because the win rate is too low for my taste. The
win rate for otm is 20.6% with 26 consecutive max losses over 1,000 trades.
Otm contracts are good for other things but not this strategy.

What does ITM, OTM, and ATM actually

mean?
This is a topic for another day and there are numerous videos online if you want
to explore it further at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?
list=PLygwgAo2bDYV9oyN7WKv1bw7DC7-bfizj but in simple terms:
1. ITM means that you are risking more money to make less money. Trading
with options or binary options, you can buy a contract where price does
not even have to move in order for you to make money.
2. ATM means that you are buying a contract exactly where price is at the
current moment. For a binary option, you are risking 50 to potentially win
or lose 50.
3. OTM means that you are risking less than 50 but price has to move in
order for you to realize a profit.
Since we are on the subject of ITM trades, or risking more money to make less
money, then what are the actual probabilities that it can be done over the course
of time? Does it sound too good to be true? Let's take a look at some real world
examples from two different traders.
We will dive into a couple of accounts from myself and a fellow beta tester in a
few minutes. In these examples, we are testing a strategy that risks 90 to
potentially make 10. These are deep in the money trades and are not suitable
for all traders if you don't know what you are doing. Just keep that in mind. With
a proper strategy, however, it can be lucrative.

What you will see are super small 'micro contracts'. We are using $1 risk to try to
make pennies in a 'live-demo' that we will discuss later in this book. The trades
you are about to see are still in testing so we are risking real money but not
enough to hurt us if the test proves to be inaccurate according to our back
tested results.
The results you will see a bit further down are from Cantor Exchange which is a
binary options trading exchange. There are only 2 currently that are legit. Cantor
Exchange and Nadex. We are using Cantor Exchange because it is very easy to
test something with real money without using a lot of money to do it and Cantor
Exchange offers more choices for trading than the competition.
If you are looking to learn how to trade on the exchange in detail, please visit
one of the following:
1. http://joaquintrading.com/
2. http://cxmarkets.com/

Below is a simple primer on what you can expect when trading with Cantor
Exchange. I will not go into all the details in this book but I can assure you that
trading on the exchange may open your eyes to different opportunities than you
have thought of before.

A simple primer on Cantor Exchange

Traders can now enter the regulated binary options market with small accounts.
Before Cantor Exchange (otherwise known as CX) began offering this option,
the only way traders could participate in the market was either having large
accounts or risking a large portion of their accounts on each trade.
For instance, if a trader wants to trade with the competitor of Cantor Exchange,
they have to trade with $100 binary options contracts. Taking an At the money
trade will cost $50. Cantor Exchange now offers similar contracts for a very
small amount of $0.50-$0.60, roughly, per contract for an At the money trade.
The entire contract is worth $1.00 per contract. One dollar contracts allows
virtually ANYBODY to participate in the market.
I took a survey a while back on the average account size of regulated binary
options traders and found that the average account was $500-$1,000 for the
group surveyed. For a trader with a $500-$1,000 account, taking an at the
money trade, he is risking a whopping 5%-10% on each trade. This is
considered an abnormally large risk in the trading realm.
Cantor Exchange offers fifty cents of risk for that similar trade. A trader with a
$1,000 account can easily trade a fifty cent contract, without the worry of
blowing up their account. They can also leg into positions, trade multiple strikes
at the same time, and manage risk far better than with the current competitor.

Cantor Exchange also offers free API access. This free, open source, access
will allow any trader with programming knowledge to program their own
indicators and automated strategies for regulated binary options via the mt4
platform as well as any other programming they feel the need to do. This is
going to open up the way for tools such as web applications, automated trading,
etc to work their way all across the internet. So far, this has been limited to
only the best funded traders at other exchanges due to the sheer cost and
capability. They also offer API rebates as well which will save you money.
One of the best things, since sliced bread, with Cantor Exchange is their rolling
strikes. A rolling strike is a strike price that opens up no matter how far the
market moves. On another binary options exchange, if the market price moves
X number of pips, you can run out of strikes. If you run out of available strikes,
then you can't trade, you cant manage any open positions, and you cant
hedge. On Cantor Exchange, it does not matter how far the market moves, there
will always be the available strike so you will be able to participate in the market
at any price level.
Trading and settlement fees are another great factor with Cantor Exchange.
There are zero fees associated with any market orders. In essence, a trader
could trade with absolutely zero trading fees, ever, if they chose to do that. Now
how about that! Trading with zero trading and settlement fees... wow! Quite
often, a spread, commission of some sort, a trading or settlement fee, or any
other fee that an exchange or broker charges can eat away at your profits,
especially if you are a scalper. Below shows that it is possible to 'stick it to the
man!' LOL
For the record, I love what Cantor Exchange is offering and I want them to stay

in business so I am willing to pay trading and settlement fees for my trades but
the fact that I don't actually have to is just super!

They also have something that is going to just, flat out rock the binary options
world. This one thing is better than anything the bucket shops can offer, better
than anything traditional options can offer, and better than what Nadex currently
offers. This exciting jewel is known as the ability to write your own strike price
and also write your own expiration time.
Here is why I am excited... Let us assume that I have a strategy where I know I
have a 94% probability that a certain strike will produce a profit. One of the
problem with binaries is that you do not have an adequate strike price on your
signal or either your expiration is off. What if you wanted to trade a strike that
was 3 pips away with an expiration at 2:47pm? With Cantor Exchange, you have
the ability to choose that.

I am not sayin, I'm just sayin... With other binary options, what if you want to
place a true straddle? Can you buy the same strike for both a put and a call? No
you can not. With the 'write your own strike and expiry' coolness, you can do
this...almost.
Cantor Exchange also has 20 minute forex binaries. I have often heard forex
traders tell me that if they could have the opportunity to trade a 20 minute forex
binary, they would be all over that. Well Cantor Exchange offers that. One of the
main things I like about the 20 minute binaries is the fact that a 5 minute binary
is often too short and an hourly is often too long. What if you want a 45 minute
binary expiration? Well just write it and trade it.
Cantor Exchange will pay you to refer participants to the exchange. For
example, let's pretend you know a guy who trades very large. Did you know that
if you refer him and he begins trading on the exchange, you will get paid for
every single trade he makes? Awesome huh?
So let's recap... You can trade on an exchange that offers any strike you want,
any expiration you want, rebates on api, will also pay you if your friends trade,
and allows you to trade with zero fees. Why on earth wouldn't you want to get
involved?

What is a Cantor Exchange contract?

A contract on Cantor Exchange is when 2 traders enter into an agreement to
transact business just like an auction house does it. You have a person that
wants to buy and a person that wants to sell.
What do they want to buy or sell? A contract that consists of a strike price that
expires at an agreed upon time in the future. Trader A might be looking at a price
on a chart and say to himself, Self, trader godlike awesomeness that I am, I
think I want to buy a call at that strike at a certain price.
Meanwhile, another trader may say to himself, while looking at the same exact
strike, Self, trader super smooth, I think I want to buy a put at that strike at a
certain price. These two trader will enter into an agreement to transact business
and whammo! The deal is sealed.
There are a few components that a contract is made of:
1. Strike Price
2. Expiration
3. Call/Put
4. Trading Fees
That's it. Once 2 traders agree on these things, they have a trade on. Below are
some examples of what that looks like.

What is OTM? (OUT OF THE MONEY)

An out of the money trade is where I pay a fraction of the cost of the contract. I
may pay 10 or 20 to get into a trade with a maximum payout of 80 or 90. In this
scenario, the market has to move beyond my strike price in order for me to
realize a profit but the small amount I pay clearly justifies the trade.
An OTM trade may be used during a news release, for example. If the market
moves a lot right after a significant news release, your payoff will be greater than
your risk.
An OTM trade may be a good way to hedge an open position in another market;
forex for example. Maybe you have a long position in forex but you do not want
to lose if price falls. You can buy an OTM put that will help protect your position
in the event that your forex position loses because if price moves and expires
beyond your strike, you will win the trade.

What is ATM? (AT THE MONEY)

ATM trades are 'at the money' or price is exactly where the strike price is at the
current moment in time. An ATM trade may be sued when your calculation
support a reversal or a continuation from a specific level in the market.
For instance, let's pretend that there is a strike price at, or very near, a major
support level in the underlying forex market. You know that there is a high likely
hood or probability that price will 'bounce' off of this support level. You can
purchase an ATM Call in this example.
The payout is at or near 50. Since all contracts on Cantor Exchange are equal to
100, and you purchase a call at 50, then the most you can profit or lose is 50.
This is a fully collateralized contract. If you are wrong in your assumption, you
will lose your trade but the most you can lose is 50, even if the market dive
bombs 400 pips.

What is ITM? (IN THE MONEY)

An ITM trade is one of my favorites, even though you have to risk more money
than you are willing to profit. ITM trades are something that are not fully
understood in the digital or binary options world and if more traders knew how
great they were, then more possibilities would open up.
An ITM trade is one where the market does not even have to move in order for
you to realize a profit. How about them apples? How many times have you
placed a forex trade and it just sat there and sat there and sat there and did
diddly squat for an hour or two? Did you know there are ways to profit from
these trades?
If you place an ITM trade and price expires a mere 1 tick on the correct side of
your strike price, you win a full payout of the contract. Here is a kicker... What if
you buy a call at 1.1155 and the current underlying price is 1.1158, and price
falls to 1.1156? What happens? You bought it so technically it has to go up in
order for you to profit, right?
Nope! It can fall and you can still profit! As long as price does not fall under and
expire on the other side of the strike, you will realize a profit.

What is a PUT?
A put is basically saying that you want price to fall in value or remain below a
given strike price at expiration.

What is a CALL?
A call is basically saying that you want price to rise in value or remain above a
given strike price at expiration.

What is a STRIKE PRICE?

A strike price is the line in the sand. This is a price where you can buy a
contract. There are numerous strike prices for each security offered with Cantor
Exchange and most of them, on forex, are 5 pips wide.
For instance, on the EUR/USD example below, given enough time till expiration,
you can buy a strike at 1.1155. You can also buy a strike at 1.1150. How about
buying the strike at 1.1145? There are many different strikes you can choose
from.

What is an EXPIRY?
An expiry is just the time when your contract is over. In the example below, there
is 3 minutes and 46 seconds left till expiry. This means that in 3 minutes and 46
seconds, your contract will be finished. You can not carry the trade over that
time. At expiry, the 2 traders that entered into an agreement to participate in the
trade will get their payouts, minus any trading or settlement fees.
If I choose an expiry at 4pm eastern, then this means that at exactly 4pm, my
contract is over, done, kaput, bye bye... I will either have a profit or a loss at that
time.
You can close your trade at any time before expiration if someone will take the
other side of your trade. Up until just a few minutes before expiration, there are
put and call quotes that will allow you to close your trade out early if you wish.

Frank and the Bucket Shop Scandal!

Before I go any further, I will tell you that binary options have a bad rap in the
trading world. This is due to unscrupulous 'bucket shops' who prey on
unsuspecting victims. I am trying to help put a stop to all that garbage so before
you rule out binary options, please pay attention to this little story...
ITS A SHAME BUT STORIES SIMILAR TO THE ONE BELOW HAPPEN ALL
THE TIME
The heat of the sun is beating down hard and sweat is dripping into the eyes of
a construction worker. Every day, he toils. Every day he hates his job and is
looking for better opportunities in life. One day, he does an online search and
finds articles about binary options.
As he digs and researches, he is getting very excited about this 'fortune' that he
is getting ready to make. He sees advertisements where he can make sooo
much money! The dollar signs are now replacing his eyes. He runs to tell his
wife that he just found something a secret that no one knows about! He tells
her how he can make 70% profit on every single trade and not only that; He can
deposit $500 and they will just give him another $500 'bonus' to double his
money right out of the gate!! How awesome is this! Even further, he can just
follow their signals and make money every hour of every day!

So this construction worker goes to a local payday loan place and borrows
$500. He knows the interest is high but with all of the profits he will make, he
can pay off the loan in no time! Boy oh boy is he happy! He calculates that he
will be able to pay off the payday loan on Wednesday because by that time, his
account will have grown from $500 to well over $1000. It's true because that
was their 'guarantee'!
Driving home, he grins as he plays a mental picture of what his life will be like in
6 months. He has seen all the pictures of guys driving fancy cars. He has
listened to story after story of untold riches on this website the easy money...
the good life is coming! He also dreams of laying in his hammock by the beach
while drinking liquor, with a fancy umbrella, out of coconut.
He gets home and promptly deposits his money in a binary options broker that is
located across the ocean on some little island no one has every heard of. He
accepted their generous offer of a 100% sign on bonus. He is getting ready to
start trading. He can taste his millions!
Trade one WINNER!!! Wow! He is so excited. He invested $100 and they
payed him $70 for total of $170. This is totally mind blowing! It would take years
and years to make 70% in a savings account. He has never seen anything so
good.
Trade two Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!! OMG! He took that $170 and
invested all of it. Now he has $289. He can hardly believe it! What had he been
waiting for all his life? He starts to think, So this is how it's done on Wall
Street.

Trade 3 WINNER!!! This is just insane! On trade number 3, he decided to up

the game and invested $500. Now his payout is $850! He is just in heaven. He
thinks, I can do this every day! Just sit here and make money hand over fist.
At this point, he KNOWS he is a real trader so he decides to take the profits out
and just start with the house money he just won. He calls up XYZ binary options
broker and asks to withdraw his funds. The person on the phone politely informs
him that he has not made the minimum number of trades and to check the fine
print. No worries, this guy thinks. Im sure it is not a lot of money I have to make
before I can withdraw my money. He decides to read the fine print anyway
What the hell!!!!!!?????? In the fine print, he is informed that since he took the
bonus money, he is not eligible for a withdraw of any amount until he makes a
total of $25,000 or a total of 1,000 trades, whichever comes first.
His heart just sinks. He is determined though so he will see this through. OK
Frank, All I have to do is trade like I have been doing and I will be up to $25,000
by the end of the month, he tells himself. He starts trading again and places a
bet quite larger than normal to get up to $25,000 faster so that he can pay off
his payday loan.
LOSS... Well that's OK. We all know that we lose on rare occasions. Frank
thought.
He places another trade and it 'looks' like a winner12 seconds left..8
seconds.woo hoo! This is gonna be a winner..2 seconds left.. A price
spike occurs. LOSS. What the #$#??!?!?! So Frank checks other charts on other

platforms and there was no price spike at all. What's going on here?
Frank is pissed but tries to hold his composure while he calls up the broker and
demands to know why the price spiked at the last possible moment. The broker
informs him that forex does not have a central exchange and that price spikes
do often occur on one broker and not another. Our broker had a price spike due
to a large trader entering the market 1 second before our expiration ended. This
is a super rare coincidence and should not happen anymore. We apologize for
any inconvenience but we can show you how to keep this from happening
again., the broker said.
Before getting off the phone, the guy on the other end offers Frank a special top
secret deal. All he has to do to learn the Secret no one knows about is invest
$1000 into learning the system that will produce more profits than he could ever
dream. The guy is super convincing and Frank is getting ready to invest more
money. The one drawback is that Frank doesnt have any more money. He still
owes the payday loan place.
Frustrated, Frank hangs up the phone. If he could somehow come up with the
money to invest, in order to learn this top secret system, then maybe everything
will be better. He thinks and ponders. Boom! He has it. He goes to his mom and
tells her how much money he is making and convinces her to let him borrow the
money. He can never tell his wife this though because she is becoming
suspicious of this binary broker anyway.
After promptly getting back home and waiting for his wife to hop in the shower,
he calls up his binary options business. The guy on the other end gladly accepts
his money and gives him the best speech Frank had ever heard. Frank quickly
checks his email to learn this super secret system he just paid $1,000 for and he

is happy because the $1,000 is still going into his account. I can just work
harder to get to that $25,000 goal so that I can withdraw the $500 to pay off my
payday loan and the $1,000 back to mom., he thinks.
Click click. The email opens. He reads this super complicated system that has
no entry points. It is all talking about stuff he cant even understand such as
economic releases and interest rates. Frank is so upset and is starting to feel
like he is being taken advantage of. What can he do? His money is tied up and
the super secret system is too hard to understand.
6 months goes by. Frank has tried everything. Those first 3 winners were just
plain luck. He has ups and downs and he still has $800 in his account. He just
wants out. He wants to take his money and run so he starts looking for someone
to help him learn to trade. All he wants is to learn to trade. He has been bitten by
the trading bug and his life is consumed by it. He loves trading but just sucks at
it.
All this time, he has been paying the interest on his payday loan. He actually
took out a second payday loan to pay back his mother back part of her
'investment' because he was too embarrassed about the situation he was in. So
now he owed 2 payday loan companies and also owed about $500 more to his
mom.
He joins a http://facebook.com/groups/joaquintrading group and learns that there are
trainers in the group. He asks one of the trainers, Can you teach me how to get
my money out of the binary options business? I have an account but cant
withdraw it.

The first words out of the trainers mouth are, I am so sorry but what you are
involved with has nothing to do with trading and your money is pretty much
gone.
BLASPHEMY!!!!! Frank thinks and he goes to another group for assistance,
http://facebook.com/groups/cantorexchange. He gets the same response. I am
sorry Frank, but you are not trading. You have been scammed by a business
who has nothing to do with trading and you will never be able to get your money
back, most likely.
Frank soon learns that all of the brokers are not brokers at all. They are private
businesses that are scams and designed to take your money. Many of these
scams dont even place real money when you are placing trades. What you are
trading is just a demo account because you will never see that money again
anyway. He learns that he is trading with no one... a casino... and he has been
on the wrong end of an elaborate hoax.
Frank learns that being regulated through some obscure authority somewhere
means absolutely nothing. This is not real regulation. Its all just one big lie. He
learns that the only way to trade binary options is through a real cftc regulated
exchange such as Cantor Exchange or Nadex. Thats it. There is no other way
to keep your money safe. There is no other way to actually trade binary options.
Now Frank is devastated. He works overtime at his job to pay back the loans
and his mom. His wife eventually finds out what happened and offers support
but she never wants Frank to trade again. Frank has a passion for trading but
now he is torn between his wife and trading. He ultimately chooses his wife and
never trades again. Trading is ALWAYS on his mind though.

Meanwhile, the bucket shop owners are smiling all the way to the bank and
looking for their next victim. They could not give a hoot about anything but
getting people to make deposits with them. They know that once a deposit is
made, there is nothing the U.S. government can do about it because the bucket
shop is outside of the U.S.
What if Frank had what it took to be a great trader if he was just given a chance
instead of being robbed? What if Frank would have been one of those super
traders? Frank will never know.

Regulated Binary Options Exchange VS

Unregulated Bucket Shops
Cantor Exchange and Nadex are both regulated by The U.S. Commodity
Futures Trading Commission. The mission of the Commodity Futures Trading
Commission (CFTC) is to foster open, transparent, competitive, and financially
sound markets, to avoid systemic risk, and to protect the market users and their
funds, consumers, and the public from fraud, manipulation, and abusive
practices related to derivatives and other products that are subject to the
Commodity Exchange Act.
Furthermore Cantor Clearinghouse, L.P. ("Cantor Clearinghouse") has been
approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC") as a
registered Derivatives Clearing Organization. Cantor Clearinghouse provides
clearing services for all Cantor Exchange contracts. All Participants are
protected by and are subject to the rules of Cantor Clearinghouse. Participant
funds deposited at Cantor Clearinghouse are segregated and placed into a
specially regulated account at Harris Bank, N.A.
Cantor Futures Exchange, L.P. ("Cantor Exchange") has been approved by the
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC") as a Designated
Contract Market. Cantor Exchange establishes the rules of fair trading, offers the
electronic trading platform for matching buyers and sellers, and supervises the
trading practices of all participants in the market. Cantor Clearinghouse, L.P.
("Cantor Clearinghouse"), a sister company of Cantor Exchange, has been

approved by the CFTC as a registered Derivatives Clearing Organization.

Cantor Clearinghouse settles all trades between buyers and sellers on the
Cantor Exchange and ensures the integrity of the marketplace. All Participants
in Cantor Exchange, once approved, automatically become Participants in
Cantor Clearinghouse upon funding of their accounts.
Cantor Exchange is a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. ("Cantor Fitzgerald"),
a leading global financial services firm at the forefront of financial and
technological innovation that has been a proven and resilient leader for over 65
years. Cantor Fitzgerald is a preeminent capital markets investment bank
serving more than 5,000 institutional clients around the world, recognized for its
strengths in institutional equity and fixed income sales and trading and for its
expanding presence serving the middle market with investment and merchant
banking services, prime brokerage, and commercial real estate financing.
Cantor Fitzgerald also is a leader in new businesses and marketplaces including
gaming technology, emissions trading, e-commerce, insurance and other
ventures.
Now it's time to explain the unregulated binary options brokers ie. 'Bucket
shops'. According to Wikipedia, "Bucket shop" is a defined term under the
criminal law of many states in the United States that make it a crime to operate
a bucket shop. This refers to an operation in which the customer is sold what is
supposed to be a derivative interest in a security or commodity future, but there
is no transaction made on any exchange. The transaction goes 'in the bucket'
and is never executed. Without an actual underlying transaction, the customer is
betting against the bucket shop operator (the company where you deposit your
money), and in no way participating in the market. Alternatively, the bucket shop
operator "literally 'plays the bank,' as in a gambling house, against the

customer." Operating a bucket shop in the United States would also likely
involve violations of several provisions of federal securities or commodity futures
laws.
Why do you think binary options bucket shops operate overseas instead of
setting up their operations within The U.S?
Did you catch that part about how the trade 'goes into the bucket' and is never
executed? Trading with a bucket shop is not trading.

Why I chose Cantor Exchange over other

Binary Options
Since I am speaking about Cantor Exchange quite a bit in this book, I will now
explain why I am so excited about trading on this exciting exchange.
I feel like I am getting in on the ground floor of something exciting. This
exchange is brand new and no one knows about them yet. The last time Cantor
Exchange offered trading products, the only reason it wasn't a success was
because out wonderful government decided that regular people should not
participate in the profits of movie receipts.
The management team is working tooth and nail to make sure that the launch of
various products offer traders all kinds of access and ability to participate in the
market no matter what their net worth is. CX Markets is also providing retail
traders the access to educational materials that will help them read the markets
more effectively.
When Tom Sosnoff began his journey trying to create the 'Think or Swim'
platform, everyone scoffed and thought he was a bit crazy. When Steve jobs
started 'Apple' in his garage, he was laughed at. When Colonel Sanders started
KFC, they all thought he was a nut job. Now in the beginning stages of Cantor
Exchange, it's no different and I choose to look far down the road in the
expectation that this exchange will be around years from now.

The larger the exchange grows, the larger I grow. Even though I don't work for
the exchange, opportunity is everywhere and this makes me extremely excited!
This is why I choose Cantor Exchange over any other binary options exchange.
Being there in the beginning is something I find to be super cool.

Real World Examples Again

Now, all that being said about regulated vs unregulated, is it possible to become
profitable with regulated binary options? Well let us take a look. Remember
when we were describing a strategy earlier in the book? Below are some
examples of what we were testing. The following are some screen shots from
Ryan and Terry last week and one screen shot from today. So let's take a look at
those results from trying to make 10, while risking 90. Is it stupid or can it be
done? You decide...

The question was: So let's take a look at those results from trying to make 10,
while risking 90. Is it stupid or can it be done? Of course it can be done. The
next time a trader say you are crazy for risking 90 to make 10, you tell them, It
all depends on strategy, Mr. Naysayer.
***Just please, dear Lord in Heaven, stay away from the bucket shops!!!
Why are you talking so heavily about Cantor Exchange, Ryan? I am glad you
asked!

Remember that time I talked about opportunity? Remember when I said

something like, Reach out and grab it.? Well this is one of those opportunities.
Cantor Exchange offers something the trading world has needed for quite some
time. I see it. Many other traders see it, and we are hopping on board to ride this
train! Take a look at what they have to offer at cxmarkets.com and see if trading
on this exchange may be right for you.
There are so many different types of opportunities by utilizing the exchange
such as hedging, collecting premium, trend following, reversion to the mean,
deviation trading, statistical arbitrage just to name a few. You trade what is right
for you and forget junk if you realize it is a waste of time.

The Magic of OTM!

In the above examples, you were shown an ITM strategy that works. In the
money binaries are awesome. However, since trading on Cantor Exchange uses
such small contract sizes, it is possible to take even a losing system and turn it
into something quite amazing by reversing direction and using some money
management principles. Wait till you see this!
First, let me post a screen shot of an itm strategy where the strategy wasn't
working so well when it was tested.

Now look at the above numbers. Is this a winning strategy? Well if you add up all
the winners and losers, you will have:
Profits = $4.75
Losses = ($7.08)
Total p/l = (2.33)
Let's just do an experiment for a moment. Let us take each one of these trades
and flip them around. Instead of buying a call, we will buy a put. Instead of
buying a put, we will buy a call. Also, when we flip them around, we will add one
additional contract for each trade until we get a winning trade. Now in this
example, I will be estimating what I could have bought a reverse position for.
This is just something for you to look at and think about.
Lets take the first set of +.15, +0.08, +.12, +0.00, (0.44). Let's flip it around. I will
be adding 10 to each one to figure in the 'spread' between the call and put price.
1 contract -0.25 = -.25
2 contracts -0.18 = -0.36 total
3 contracts -0.22 = -0.66 total
4 contracts -0.10 = -0.40 total
5 contracts +0.66 = +$3.30
What's the grand total? +$1.63 minus all trading fees. Let's assume they are 2
pennies per contract. This equals 30 cents. So +$1.63 minus 30 cents equals
+1.33 instead of a net loss of -0.39. This a HUGE INCREASE in the profit
outcome. If you do not know how I came up with the numbers, you will need to
study Cantor Exchange pricing and you will be able to understand.

Do the math in the above scenario. Try looking at adding contracts on each
additional loss. The reason we can add contracts on a loss is the fact that we
are risk a small amount in relation to the potential outcome. Trade 1 contract on
the first trade, 2 contracts on the 2 nd trade, 3 contracts on the 3rd and so on. If
you took 10 OTM trades and paid $0.10 for each of them, then at the end of 10
losing trades in a row, what would the outcome be? How much would you be at
a loss?
You would be at a loss of $4.50.
What if you won the 11th trade?, You would make a profit of $10.10
$10.10 minus $4.50 minus all trading fees of $2.22 maximum equals a net profit
of +$3.38

Adding to OTM trades are awesome. You will win less but when you win, the
payouts will be a lot larger than normal!
But Ryan, you are spending time talking about ITM trades in this book. Now you
are referring to OTM...What the hell, bro?! Yes I know, reader... I am trying to get
you to open your mind...your eyes...possibilities...
***WARNING*** Adding to losses in this fashion only pertain to OTM trades and
NOT ITM trades because if you lost 10 ITM trades in a row, and added every
time, you would be down a whopping $50 on the 10 th trade to try to make about
a dollar. The math does not work when doing this with ITM trades. Luckily, the
probabilities of losing 10 ITM trades in a row is extremely slim.
Everyone in the trading world will try to pour their 'knowledge' on you and think
they are right. Heck, I am doing it right now and trying to convince you that
everything I have learned by most of the 'trading educators' has been wrong. I
didn't become profitable until I listened to a select few who had proven results
that could be modeled. Those traders were mentioned earlier in this book.
Those strategies are touched upon in this book as well.
So now you have seen some of my results and some of my money management
concepts. Lets us go deeper down the rabbit hole
I don't give a flip if you are looking at ITM or reversing and doing OTM. Just start
to think about all the different kinds of possibilities.
And now we get to the grunt work of

... back testing...

Trial, Error, and Back Testing

Back Testing is the key to creating a profitable trading system. The back test is
very simple to do and when you do it properly, you will have a trading model that
can have quantifiable results. It is quite difficult to quantify a trading system with
binary options but it can be somewhat simulated. Traditional markets such as
forex, futures, stocks, etc... are much easier to back test.
Here is the basic process.
Look back over 1,000 trades minimum and see what happened. Were the trades
profitable or losses? How big were the profits/losses? What were the
consecutive winners vs. losers? How long did it take the trades to hit their profit
targets or stop losses. What was the average winner vs. average loser?
A back test will show you how a certain trading strategy performed over time if
the 'rules' of a given system were followed identically. These tests are super
important because you need to know how the past performance did. If a back
test performed at a 90% win rate over 1,000 trades, for instance, then the
probabilities are somewhat good that you will win going forward in the future.
I will take you through a set of pictures to show you how I do it with all of my
Joaquin Trading Indicators. Any of these indicators are available at
joaquintrading.com , by the way.

OK step one is trying to make a strategy perform really good over time. This part
is trial and error. I have a strategy that is good but I want to make it dang good! I
want to make it better than anything else I have ever traded. This part is time
consuming and I start inputting data on what I want to see.

You can see in this picture that 3 different settings produce 3 different results.
The first result was just a baseline I was looking at. As I looked at the numbers, I
thought things like, How can I increase the OTM win rate without diminishing
the ITM win rate? I did it through trial and error. Inputting different parameters
that the indicator looks for while trying to choose optimal strikes. Trial and error
is just changing the indicator to show different types of results of things that
happened in the past.
We always need to know how a strategy performed in the past because if we
don't, we are just throwing a dart through the air hoping and praying that it lands
somewhere in nice territory. Without a back test, we are flying blind. Without
knowing historical records, we are gambling hard core. By knowing the

outcomes of past trades, it allows us the knowledge of understanding. I will try to

explain it with a couple of stories. You decide which story you would want to
follow.
Story #1 You are driving your car on a road trip from New York to Los Angeles.
You have never driven this route and don't have a map or gps. You are just
driving blind, pretty much. You start down the road and some guy at a red light,
rolls down his window and says, You wanna take route 66 because it's the most
scenic. You don't know this guy but you trust him because he seemed to know
what he was talking about. You take this route and end up getting lost because
you didn't know that route 66 does not go from New York to Los Angeles.

Story #2 You set out on your trip this time and before you leave, you have a
road map and a gps. You also have a passenger who was a former truck driver.
This guy guides you because he has driven this route a hundred times already
and knows what to look for. He can tell you the absolute best route to take. Your
gps tells you exactly how long it will take. Your road map tells you what possible
alternate routes there are in case you don't like your current route.
Which story would you want to follow? Of course it would be story #2. Why?
Because you now have information that is reliable. Reliable information in back
testing is key. You need to know how price has affected whatever indicator you
are looking at.
***A note about back testing*** I am going to pause for a minute and give you a
dire warning. Have you ever back tested a strategy and it looked good but then
in live trading, it did nothing like what the back tests promoted? Of course you
have! We have all done this. In case you don't already know... Most strategies
CAN NOT be back tested properly when using lagging indicators such as Macd,
Rsi, Moving averages and the slew of other widely available indicators out there.
There is one reason why the back tests in no way resemble what happens in the
live market. This reason is called 'shifting'. If you don't know how to shift an
indicator using a closed bar by at least 1 period, this is something you need to
understand before back testing ANY strategy. I teach my clients this at
joaquintrading.com but if you already know what I am talking about, you can
disregard this warning.
OK back to back testing...
So let's assume you did a back test. In the above picture it shows a back test

over the past 50 trades. What you want to find out is if a strategy performs
relatively the same over all market conditions whether it is the past 50 trades or
the past 5 trades or the past 1,000 trades. If the indicator performs the same
results or at the least similar results, then you have something to look at further.
If the back tests produce vastly different results over different look back periods,
then you do not want to try using the strategy. Lets take a look...
In the picture below, you can see the outcomes of results from the past 25
trades all the way up to the past five thousand flipping trades! Now I want you to
look at the maximum consecutive losses in this test. For any clients of mine that
are reading this, I am using 'Joaquin Trading Cantor Exchange Trend Arrows
with a setting of 2,1,3,1 with a 1 bar expiry on a 5 minute binary option.'

What is the maximum consecutive loss at ITM LV2 (about 10 pips away) over
the past 5,000 trades? The answer is 2. There have been instances of losses of
only 2 consecutive losses in the example below. Does this mean you will always
get a strike? No but it gives you something to think about.

So what if I am trading on Cantor Exchange and I can not find a binary option
strike that I can get filled at in the money? Look at the last column where it says,
'OTM LV2 3.14%'. This means it has a 3.14% probability of closing profitable
and a 96.86% probability of closing unprofitable.
Here is the kicker... If it closes unprofitable 96.86% of the time if I trade in the
direction of the signal, what if I traded in the opposing direction? Would this

mean that I would have a 96.86% probability of price closing in the money if I
reversed the strategy? That is a correct assumption, smart people!
Back testing gives you all kinds of data that you could not otherwise know. I
have had my indicators written to show me the probability of price being in a
specific place at a specific time and I don't always have to trade binary options
with Cantor Exchange. I can trade forex, futures, Nadex, or whatever the crap I
feel like when I know the probabilities of an outcome.
Back testing leaves me with open possibilities. What if I want to know how often
something touches so I can trade forex? Check out the picture below. You will
see that in this example, price has touched about 40 pips away within 12 hours
61% of the time using the settings in the indicator. What if I am a scalper and
only want 5-10 pips? Well it does that 94.8% of the time over the past 500
trades. This is information I need in order to be able to make educated
decisions.

All in all, back testing is key. You need to know what has happened in the past in
order to give you a probability of success in the future. Trading models do not
stop working in a day. If they stop working, it will be over the course of time and
you will be able to see the win rate or the itm expiry rate start to slow down by
using these methods.
However you back test is up to you but if you don't know the probabilities of
outcomes, you are doing yourself a disservice. If you can't see the outcomes at
a glance, it will take you forever to back test manually. Get yourself a good tool
like the one I use at joaquintrading.com. If you trade a strategy and you can not
tell yourself the win rate over 1,000 trades, then hang it up and go home
because the big boys will eat you alive in the markets!

I spoke about itm trades. In other words, risking 80 or 90 to make 10 or 20. Let
us take a look at a conservative example:
Over 5,000 trades, assuming it has a 97.5% itm win rate...
4,875 of those trade will expire itm
125 will expire otm or worthless.
Let's pretend that (to be super conservative) on 35% of those potential trades,
you can't get filled because price is too far from the strike..
That means that you only got filled on 3,168 of the potential 4,875 trades.
Assuming you got filled at an average price of 90 risk.
3,168 profitable trades = 3169 x 10 = 31,680
125 loss trades = 125 x -90 = -11,250
Now let's take 31,680 minus 11,250. This is a total gross profit of 20,430. After
settlement fees, on Cantor Exchange for instance, your real profit would be
13,844.
This example is a profitable system. You already know your probabilities. You
already know your maximum losers in a row. You now have an estimated
profitability potential if a full 35% of those trade opportunities could not have
been taken so now you have something you can build upon. Now you have
hope that you CAN write a profitable strategy.

Compound Interest The 8th wonder of the

world
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it,
earns it he who doesnt pays it. Albert Einstein
I will start this part by asking you to try to forget, for a moment, absolutely
everything you have ever read, heard, or watched about growing a small
account to a larger account. Forget it all. Now open your mind and listen
because the action of making a living by trading could actually be more realistic
than you might think. Im going to prove it to you.
What I want you to focus on, for the time being, is another money management
aspect of trading. Oh I know... we are back on the lame subject of money
management. How boring...Haven't you already covered this, Ryan? Yep, I have
but I want to pound into your head some more.
Money management is a...no..THE key ingredient in any trading strategy and if
you perform the active role as your own money manager, then the following
statements may sound an alarm bell for you. That light bulb may just turn on!
Question If you had $10,000 to invest, what would be your rate of return if you
let it sit in a bank account at the current absurdly low rates of 0.70% to a
whopping 1%? Well in 20 years, your $10,000 would grow to $12,201. Whoopty
freaking doo!

UmHelloooo! You would be LOSING money by depositing your money in the

bank. At an average inflation rate of just 3%, by keeping your money in a bank
would create a net loss of -2% each year. This is your real return.
OK but you have a bright idea. You want to throw your money into stocks and
ride them for an average market return of 8% according to many studies. After
all, 8% is 8 times better than your savings account returns. So in 20 years, what
will your $10,000 grow to (potentially)? Now it grows to $46,600 in 20 years.
These are still poor returns. You are looking to create income, to retire wealthy,
to live the good life. How can you do this with such meager returns on your
investment? Well listen closely, because it's just about to get interesting.
One of the best aspects of Cantor Exchange or forex, or any regulated
broker/exchange for that matter, is the act of leverage. Leverage will allow you
to take your $10,000 and trade it as if you were trading $50,000 or $100,000.
Now leverage is a double edge sword but if used correctly, your account has a
potential to grow tremendously. Lets take a look at the math
Let's open a hypothetical account with $1,000 instead of the $10,000 I
mentioned earlier and try grow it by trading with forex or binary options and see
if it would be possible to grow this to some crazy awesome levels. The following
concept is the same thing I teach in my free trading course, Zero Guess Work
at joaquintrading.com, by the way. This concept will blow your mind!

If you have a trading strategy that produces results over time, do you think it is
possible, just possible to make an average daily profit (inclusive of any fees and
losses) of $2 from your $1,000 account? Im dead serious Can you make $2
per day?
This is absolutely all it takes to create $3 million in 20 years. The concept is the
same. The math is the same. The ONLY thing that will hold you back is your (or
my) own, screwed up mind. Anyone can learn a profitable trading strategy. This
has been proven time and time again.
So how, on Gods green earth can I make $3 Million by making only $2 per day?
Well, let us remember the quote from the beginning of this article Compound
interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it he
who doesnt pays it. Albert Einstein- If you want to understand it, read on!
Here is the math
A $1,000 account making $2 per day equals how much profit in one year, based
upon 250 trading days per year? It gains $500 profit for the year. What is $500
profit, in percentage, of $1,000? That is a whopping 50% profit for the year. Now
you must realize that whether you are making $2 per day in 5 trades per week
or $20 once every two weeks on one trade, it does not matter because the math
is almost the same.
Now making $2 per day is just the start. Let us assume you have made your $2
on a consistent basis and your account is now $1,500 after year one. Now
instead of creating a profit of $2 per day, now you will need to make a profit of
$3 per day. This is still so achievable its almost insane. As your account grows,
so will your contract size.

Would you think it is possibly... just possible to make an average profit of $3 per
day, taking into account the losing days as well, on a $1,500 account? Is this
remotely possible? You bet your hooty patooty it is!
Growing slowly is key. If you are impatient and want it now, you are more prone
to failure than following a plan such as the one I am discussing. The reason
many traders fail is that they try to make $100 profit on their $1,000 account
instead of $2. They want it now, risk more than they should, and so they fail.
Lets skip forward a few years to year 5. In year 5, if you are following this plan,
your account is now worth $7,500. You still can not live on this but if you
continue to perform, you now need to profit an average of $15 per trading day to
stay on track. Can you do this? Can you, possibly make $15 per day on an
account of $7,500? Of course you can if you have a profitable strategy that
works. $15 per day profit is so doable, its almost a joke on an account of that
size. If you are trading binary options on Cantor Exchange for example,
depending on what type of contract you choose, even after year 5, you are still
only trading just a handful of contracts... Maybe 20 or 30. I mean, come on,
folks!
Let us jump to year 10. In your 10 th year of this 20 year plan, your account
should now be at a little over $57,000. At this point, 10 years into your journey,
you still only need an average daily profit of $114 to continue to be successful.
Your contract size has increased a bit (maybe to 100-150 CX contracts) but as
you can see, the increment is so small, it is hardly noticed on a weekly basis.
Compounding your returns will begin to snowball at this point. In year 15, your
account should be at almost $438,000. Now how in the world did it take 10

years to reach $57,000 but in the following 5 years, it snowballed to $438,000?

This is compound interest at work. In year 15, you will need to make an average
daily profit of $876. Making $876 per day may sound like a lot to you right now
but that is because you dont have almost a half a million to invest. Once you
have $438,000, then making a profit of only $876 will seem the same as making
that $2 profit on your initial $1,000 account. The math is the same.
Since the math doesnt lie, then in year 20, your account is now at
$3,325,256.73. You, my friend, are a multimillionaire. So what if you started with
$10,000 instead of $1,000? This account, using the same methodology would
be worth a mind boggling $33.2 Million!
Now since the math is correct, and I have just laid out how you can grow
$10,000 to $33 Million, do you think it is possible to at the very least grow
$10,000 to $1 Million? If I just read your thoughts correctly, I think I just heard
you say, Duuuuuh! Of course it is, you silly rascal!
I have laid out the math. Can you do this? Can I do this? Well time will tell but
this is the plan that I am on with my own account. It keeps working the same
way week after week.
Of course you CAN, given that you have a profitable strategy. The question is
WILL you do this? Most likely not. The vast majority of traders lose money year
in and year out. They want it now and so they fail. How bad do you want to
succeed? That is the question.

Throw your Brain out the window!

I don't know diddly squat about the markets and neither do you! No one does.
No one can tell us where price is going tomorrow or even in the next hour. We
all think we can but we are wrong. If people knew where the markets were
going, they would own the Earth in a few weeks. Every trading strategy uses
past data to try to determine what the probabilities of an outcome will be.
I don't care if you are Goldman Sachs, Cantor Fitzgerald, Citibank, a hedge fund
or a loud mouth TV show host on CNBC. The simple fact is no one knows what
the 'F' is going to happen. If they tell you they know, run the other way... and
fast!

I often find myself thinking that I have a feeling or I think the market will do
something. In most circumstances I am dead wrong. In the circumstances that I
am actually right, its just luck but that luck feeds my brain false information that
leads me to believe I know what I am doing. This is bad. It's very bad for traders
to try to predict market direction. We can't do it. We never have been able to do
it and we never will be able to do it. None of us know what the sparkle farkle is
going on! The thing that separates profitable traders from unprofitable traders is
the ability to stick to a proven strategy like clockwork.
Why do you think market sentiment is a good indicator price direction. Market
sentiment will show what the majority of traders are holding or thinking. When
the majority of traders are long, for instance, then why does the market go the
opposite direction most of the time? This is true and quite often, if 80% of
traders are long, the market continues to fall.
Take a look at this following chart. You can see that when everyone is bearish,
the market goes up and when everyone is bullish, the market goes down.

Source: http://blogs-images.forbes.com/johntobey/files/2014/10/2014-10-10-IIRsentiment.jpg

If this is the case then the majority are wrong! They will always be wrong and the
majority lose in trading. This is the reason that spews the market cycle of fear
and greed that you all have most likely seen out there in internet land
somewhere...
OK so we now have pretty much concluded that we are all very dumb! I know
this therefore I listen to no one except those who have proven themselves and
try as much as possible to trade according to my back tested results. From time
to time, I find myself veering off course and trying to tell myself that the market
will do this or that. I sometimes talk myself out of a trade because what I see on
the chart doesn't 'look' good. Thinking the chart looks good, bad, or ugly is just
baloney! We don't know anything!
It's a funny thing that the trades I talk myself out of taking are the most profitable
ones. It is also strange that the trades I do take, but take super small profits on
(because I KNOW they are gonna turn around), would have been the most
profitable trades ever.
The market is screwed, stupid, and a bunch of crazy nonsense but we can try to
control our emotions and trade according to the actual data instead of relying on
our emotions.
***WARNING!*** Once you pull the trigger on a trade, ALWAYS stick to what you
said you were going to do before placing the trade. Once we are 'in' a trade, all
intellect goes out the window and we are just mental patients in a psych ward
until the trade is over. During a trade, we lose all sense of anything resembling
rational thinking.
Below is a picture to prove my point.

Here is the moral to the story:

I shall relyeth unto mine indicators and probabilities and shuteth offeth thine TV
or any man who tells me anything that can not be tested with absolute accuracy.
Amen.

When you talk yourself out of a trade, it sucks. This does not mean you were
incorrect. I will show you about a forex trade I talked myself out of and where it
is today. At the time I am writing this, it is October 29, 2015. I made a trade call
on February 13,2014.

...and what happened?

Moral of the story: Trends stay in place for a reason. If you get stopped out and
your strategy calls for your to get back in, then why not?

Another important aspect of how our brains screw with us is the simple fact that
when we know someone is watching, we tend to do things differently. Maybe we
don't want to look like a failure. Maybe we don't want others to lose money if
they are following us (which is my case). Maybe we don't want others to see us
break our own rules. Our own mind is our worst enemy when trading and when
we know people are watching, you can just about triple the amount of stress we
place on ourselves.
I make a point to post most everything I do online, whether it is on Facebook, in
my group, via a blog or whatever. If someone wants to find out what I am doing,
it's there for all to see to an extent. I did an experiment earlier this year where I
said, OK I will allow everyone to see me trade live on every trade. This was
stupid. I had no clue my mind would cause myself so much grief. I wont do that
anymore because I can see the results and I don't like them. The experiment
taught me how much I did not know about my own mind.

Moral of the story: Know your trading limitations;your strengths as a trader and
your weaknesses. Don't make the same mistake again.

Demo to Live-Demo to Live Trading

By now you have learned how to come up with an idea. You have learned how
to model a profitable trader. You have learned how to test your systems and how
to explore money management principles. You also know by now that humans
are dorks and we know nothing without data we can rely upon. Now, lets us take
a look at how to implement your strategy.
This process is fairly simple but many traders don't use their heads when it
comes to testing a system. I had a call with a guy the other day that told me he
had lost $30,000 over the past year. I know a guy that has lost $200,000. I ask
them what strategy they use and they they tell me whatever great and wonderful
thing this strategy is. I then ask what the back tested win rate is and can it be
proven. The answer is either 'I don't know' or 'No'.
I go on to ask them if they just jumped in after learning a strategy from someone
and the answer is always yes. Many losses can be dealt with or eliminated by
following the 3 simple steps below. I will assure you it will take away all those
nights of worry. It will get rid of those stomach problems you have when you lose
money.
Before I tell you the steps, I will tell you the reason you will most likely not heed
this advice. Greed. You want it now. You don't want to waste time testing when
you could be making money. You don't want to put in the grunt work. Greed.
Greed. Greed.

Take no word from anyone for anything in the trading world. Not mine, not Jim
Cramer, not the president of Cantor Exchange, Not Janet Yellen, not Bill Cosby,
not your stock broker, not Big Bird, not the Pope, and definitely not Hillary
Clinton! Believe no one until your strategy has been tested. Below is how you
can test it. Of course the first part was creating a strategy and back testing it.
The next step is demo.
Demo test This involves spending no money and only using funny money. You
are acting as if. Acting as if you are trading but you are really not. You are doing
this in the live market with real world market conditions. If you see an entry
signal, you either take it on a demo account or simply write it on a piece of
paper. Follow your rules to a T. Test it in demo for a week, a month, however
long it takes to see how your strategy is performing in the real market.
Live-Demo Remember the screen shots earlier in this book where I posted
some Cantor Exchange tests? These were live-demo trades. You can use this
method once your demo testing has proven profitable. Trade small amounts of
money such as micro lots on forex or only 1 contract on Cantor Exchange. This
will ensure that if you start trading in the real world with live money, you will not
lose your account in one or two trades. If for some reason, after back testing
and demo testing, your live trading fails, you will only lose a small amount of
money.
In forex, a micro lot is 10 cents per pip. To lose $100, you will have to lose 1,000
pips. On Cantor Exchange, to lose $100 for at the money trades, you will need
to lose about 200 trades (given an atm trade is .50). This super small size will
allow you to be in the market, to actually participate in live trading without worry

or risk of losing your house. I am almost sure your wife will not divorce you if you
lose $100. Only after your live demo is profitable should you start to transition
into actual live trading with larger lot or contract sizes.
Live Trading This is not a set in stone concept but as your live-demo is
profitable, you can start to increase your size from 1 micro lot to 2 micro lots.
Trade that size for a while. When you are comfortable and still making profits
overall, increase to 3 micro lots. The simple fact is that if you have a profitable
strategy (which you will have by doing what this book tells you to do) and you
increase your micro lots up by 1 per week, at the end of the year you will be
trading with about 5 mini lots.
Let us take look at Cantor Exchange contracts. Assuming you are starting with 1
contract that is worth $1 total, and you increase your size by 1 contract each
week, you will be trading 50 contracts by the end of the year as well. It's the
same thing. Increasing by small amounts will ensure you don't lose thousands of
dollars in live trading right from the start.
Let's pretend it takes you a year to move up to trading 50 binary options
contracts on Cantor Exchange. This is not chump change. Look at it this way.
What if, on average, you are taking 10 trades per day on the exchange. Well if
you win them all (hypothetically) you would make $250 that day for an at the
money contract. That is about a $65,000 per year salary. You will not win every
trade and to think so is just absurd but do the math. In the trading world, you can
get to where you want to be faster than any other profession in the world.

As you start to increase your trade size, you will feel uncomfortable. It will push
you a little out of your comfort zone. This is OK and normal. Trade just a bit out
of your comfort zone as you increase the contracts. Do not trade too large
though! Trading too large will hinder all the work, in your mind, that you have
already accomplished. You will know if you are trading too large if your hand
start sweating, your breathing becomes heavy, or you jump at the sound of a
door slamming. If you are worried about your trades, you are trading too large.
Be like a scientist. Imagine what a scientist does deep in the amazon looking for
a cure of some kind. What does a scientist do? He will test a theory. He will find
what works and what is useless. He then uses the stuff that may work and adds
new stuff. Always testing. Always trying to find that cure. All he is really doing is
trial and error until he finds what works.

How Ryan does it - A primer on what we offer

at Joaquin Trading
Now is the time where I show you some of the things we do at Joaquin Trading.
Everything prior to this was trying to open your eyes about different possibilities.
Now I will show you what our charts look like, some of the indicators we use,
and what our trading looks like.
I can't go any further without saying, Congrats! You made it this far! You read
all the jumbled mess spewing out of my freaky mind and if you are still reading,
then you like what I have to say, I assume. If you like what I have to say, the pay
attention folks because you are about to see what my charts look like.
The following are tools I use in my own trading. All of these tools may not appeal
to you but one of them might. I always tell my clients to pick one thing and get
good at it so if you see a tool below, then great!
At Joaquin Trading, we only use a handful of trading strategies.
1. Our daily morning trade at 9am eastern every day
2. Trend Arrows Indicator
3. Inverted Movers Indicator
4. The Cross Bow Indicator (Which is actually similar to our trend arrows)
5. The Grid Reverse (An automated strategy that takes forex trades for you)
6. Our Chat room

Traders will continue to use stuff that simply does not work, has never worked,
and will never work. Remember that time I told you to find someone who is
doing it and model what they do? Well this is the part where I show you what I
do. If you like the stuff I do, then great! We would love to have you as a client. If
you don't like what we do, that's fine as well. Continue searching until you find
someone who you are compatible with.
Below, you will see what we offer at Joaquin Trading and you can decide if you
would like to check us out. Our web links are listed first.

1. Sign up for a free membership to get free stuff from time to time at

http://joaquintrading.com/
2. Visit our Facebook groups at facebook.com/groups/cantorexchange and

http://facebook.com/groups/joaquintrading
3. Visit us on YouTube at http://youtube.com/ryanherronjoaquintrading

Joaquin Trading Daily Signals

Our Joaquin Trading Chat Room is just a place for myself to communicate with
clients who use our indicators. In the mornings, a trade call is placed at 9am
eastern and looks like this picture below.

So how did the trades you see above play out?

Oct 20, 2015 buy chf/jpy @ 125.95

Price never reached our entry so no trade.

Oct 21, 2015 sell aud/usd @ 0.7210 +28 pips were attained

Oct 22, 2015 sell eurnzd @ 165.43

+380 pips were attained

Oct 23, 2015 sell nzdusd @0.6760

+24 pips were attained

To see more about how these trades turned out, watch this powerful youtube
video https://youtu.be/bdp7IPWOCZE

Joaquin Trading Trend Arrows

Joaquin Trading Trend Arrows can be used for forex, Cantor Exchange binary
options, Nadex, futures, traditional options, and even stocks if your MT4 broker
offers pricing. This is what they look like.
Look at the #1 in the picture. How to read the table in a nutshell...
ITM LV1 WIN 78% (14)
ITMLV1 LOSS 22% (3)
ITMLV1 means 'In the money Level 1'. 78% means that price closed within that
level 78% of the time. The number (14) means it won 14 consecutive times in a
row during the period tested.

Below are a couple of more pictures of the Joaquin Trading Trend Arrows.

Now let's see what happened!

We have another trade that just fired off! Let's see where it closes. If I were to
take this trade live, I would be choosing a 20 minute binary option contract,
using Cantor Exchange.

Now let's see what happened!

As you can see, price expired in the money on several of those ITM contracts.
Trend Arrows can also be traded in the forex market for true trend followers and

can show us the start of monster trends that just never stop, it seems. Have a
look at the chart below. In this chart, a signal was sent out that showed the
beginning of a super trend that went on for months and months.
The setting in the indicator can point you to small trends on the 1 minute and
also point you in the direction that the hedge funds and banks are looking at as
well. This is, by far, one of the best trend following tools on the planet.

Below, you will see how professionals do it...

Now let us take a look at trades on a daily chart in consecutive order (This can
be used with forex and futures)...

1994 through 1996

1997 through 2002

2002 though 2008

2008 till 2015 at the time of this writing

Show me any losses! Trend following works. It has always worked. It will
continue to work going forward. Of course you will never get all of those pips but
could you get a handful? You are dang right you can!
For reference, the trend following settings are 240,240,240,240 on a daily chart
for those of you who already have the indicator.

Joaquin Trading Inverted Movers

Now let us dive into another one of the things we use. We will look at our
Joaquin Trading Inverted Movers indicator. This little ditty just shows us what is
moving 'right now' without having to scan our charts. Below you will see how its
used. There are many ways to use it and it can be customized to suit your
trading style.

So what happened later?

The Joaquin Trading Inverted Movers is one of our neat tools and it's super fun
to watch in action. Many times, I am focused on a certain pair and then the IVM
fires off (IVM is our little nickname for it) so I will hop over to a different chart to
take a trade.
The concept behind it is buying when ALL the currency pairs in a given group is
strong and going up and selling when ALL pairs of another group is going down.
This keeps us from buying a pair that has no momentum behind it.
It can also alert us when we should stay out of the market.
Here is one thing to remember. A trend is always relative to the chart you are
looking at. A trend can exist on a daily chart all the way down to a 1 minute
chart. If you are looking at a down trend on a daily chart and someone else is
looking at an up trend on a 15 minute chart, you are both right so taking a binary
options position with the trend on a small price movement can still be lucrative
even if it goes against the longer term trend. Why? Because no one knows what
the market will do tomorrow.

Joaquin Trading Cross Bow

Now let us dive into another indicator. This one is called the Joaquin Trading
Cross Bow. This uses similar concepts that our Joaquin Trading Trend Arrows
use but for longer time periods and multiple entries. You see the Cross Bow in
earlier parts of this document but we will look a bit further at them now.

...and another chart on a larger time frame...

Joaquin Trading Grid Reverse

Our next topic of conversation is about automated trading. Automated trading is
where you do not have to touch your keyboard. The platform will take trades
even if you are sleeping or away from your computer.
We have an automated trading strategy that is normally a reversion to the mean
strategy but you can also set it up to trend follow. It works best on EURUSD but
can be used on almost any pairs. Below is an equity curve of back testing on a
few pairs.

Now, let's look at an the USDJPY and see if it works there as well, on the next
page.

Since the back tester stopped working, I just finished the test with the USDJPY
and here were the results.

Simple fact is...

1. The EURUSD gave a 170% return with a 23.5% draw down
2. The USDJPY gave a 336% return with a 22.8% draw down.
Draw down is when your account is being drawn down by a negative
equity curve due to trades going against you. This is our automated
trading program called Grid Reverse.

Joaquin Trading Chat Room

Below is a picture of our chat room. Yes, I omit names because a lot of people
do not want anyone to know they are with me. This is just a place for us to
gather and communicate. Some times it is super busy in there and other times it
is very slow. All that depends on if anyone wants to talk or if the market is doing
something stupid. This is the best way for clients to contact me because I leave
it open all day long while I am trading.
We have some awesome people in there that will help out with anything you
need.... Unless you are rude and mean and then we banish you to the outer
realm! Lol I seriously have made some real nice friends along the way and all of
my clients know that they can call me on the phone at any time as well but
chatting is best for most issues.
Unlike most chat rooms, this one is not filled with a lot of garbage. Simple
answers to questions. This is where you have access to a mentor and other
trading educators if you have questions. This is NOT a 'What do you think the
market will do' or 'Wheres the trades, You son of a one eyed prairy dog!?!?!'
type of room.

I can't wait to see you in our chat room!

A look inside our website

Alrightyroo! Here is what our website looks like (Once you sign up for a free
membership).

What is inside our website at joaquintrading.com?

1. Free indicators and premium indicators for premium clients
2. All kinds of how to videos
3. links to all kinds of trading related reality TV shows and documentaries
4. Trader tools to help you with your analysis
5. A free 6 day intensive course for newer traders called 'Zero Guesswork'
6. ...more!

Joaquin Trading Forex and Binary Options

Group on Facebook
...and here is our Facebook group. I post a lot of what I do each week in here.

Things discussed in our Joaquin Trading Facebook group:

1. I post my activities each week
2. I post youtube videos about forex and binary options
3. I answer questions regarding my services
4. I help traders learn the markets
5. ...more!

Joaquin Trading Cantor Exchange Facebook

group
How about our Cantor Exchange group? Well, here you go! We discuss various
things associated with Cantor Exchange and binary options in here.

Things discussed in our Cantor Exchange Facebook group:

1. Binary options
2. Strikes and rolling strikes
3. Binary Options expiration or expiry
4. Binary Options strategies
5. The future of Cantor Exchange
6. Technical analysis
7. Account set up
8. ...more!

Joaquin Trading YouTube Channel

Would you like to be informed whenever we upload a youtube video? Well it's as
easy as 1,2,3. Just subscribe to our Joaquin Trading YouTube Channel!

What kind of videos do I offer?

1. Live Back testing of various strategies
2. Live trading in forex and binary options
3. How to videos
4. Market analysis videos
5. General rants that I do from time to time
6. ...more!

Trading Educator Link on CXMARKETS.COM

Inside cxmarkets.com you will find video tutorials on:

1. How to open and fund your account
2. Overview of SpotOption Interface
3. Basic Binary Options terms and Definitions
4. Trade Entry Settlement Example
5. Closing a trade early
6. Standard assets, strikes, and expiries on Cantor Exchange
7. and more

Joaquin Trading Client Services

OK Ryan, what's the cost of your program? I am so glad you asked because I
will lay it all out for you. I hate hate hate how all these different services out
there with all kinds of tiers and if you pay more, you get some super secret that
the lower paying traders can't get access to.
Um... Whats the point? To teach trading or to screw your own clients because
maybe they are not as wealthy as someone else? I have a flat rate and ALL of
my clients are treated equally.

That's it. No up sell.

1. No super secret for an additional $99
2. No indicator THEY don't want you to know about for $199
3. No 'Hurry because it may be gone!'
4. None of that garbage!

Recap! What did you learn today?

1. You have learned about my humble beginnings

2. You have learned about my failures and successes
3. You learned about how to create your own profitable strategy and the
steps to take in order to do that.
4. You have learned why traditional money management principles may not
always be the best way to trade.
5. You learned about my mentors and how they helped me become a
profitable trader.
6. You learned about modeling another persons behavior
7. You learned why I use trend following models
8. You have seen my indicators and auto-traders
9. You have taken a look at the sites I monitor.
10.

You earned about Cantor Exchange and forex

11.

You now have a better understanding of why I do what I do.

My only wish is that you learned something. Even if you think 99% of this book
is bunk and garbage, if you learned one thing that can help you as a trader,
that's all I am concerned with.

Pay it Forward
Do you remember the 2000 movie called 'Pay it Forward'? It was the story of a
social studies teacher who gives an assignment to his junior high school class to
think of an idea to change the world for the better, then put it into action. When
one student creates a plan for "paying forward" favors, he not only affects the
life of his struggling single mother, but he sets in motion an unprecedented wave
of human kindness which, unbeknownst to him, has blossomed into a profound
national phenomenon to this day.
The world is a crazy place with too much selfishness, too much hatred, and way
too much, Whats in it for me? We are all selfish creatures to an extent but why
can we not take our selfishness and help others? We can.
Pay it forward and help someone. If you come across a struggling trader and
they ask a question, give them an answer. If they cry, Give them a hanky, slap
'em around a bit and tell them to man up... but stand with your fellow struggling
trader buddies. If they need hep, and it is within your power to help, then help.
Don't wait on the next guy to help. You be the one. You stand up and say, I got
this! This world needs more great people. This world needs more love.

Here is my request to you... Pay it forward.

I poured my heart and soul into this book and it is the first one I have ever
written in my life. If you learned at least one thing inside these pages that may
help you be a better trader, please reciprocate and share this book with a
fellow trader.
You will never see any of those big, long, one page advertisements about how I
have the one thing that can make you a million dollars in a day by using only my
super secret indicator the banks are trying to ban! You will never see me state
that my way is the only way. If someone comes out with something really good, I
always give them props. I love this business and I love hanging out with traders
every day.
How can you share this book?
1. Share it on Facebook
2. Tweet it out on Twitter
3. Plus it up with Google +
4. Film a YouTube review
5. Review it on your blog
6. email it to your trading buddy
7. Send it to your friend who is interested in the market
Thank you in advance! Happy Trading and rock on!!!!
That's all I got so I love you all and will see you in the markets!
Ryan

The End

Why are you still reading? I said it's the end.

Please Stop Reading!

STOP IT!!!

What? Are you some kind of Rule Breaker? STOP READING! There is no more
content!

Secret Message that has nothing to do with

trading
Ok. If you are still reading, There is a hidden message on the cover of this book.
Can you solve the riddle? Here is a hint... The Dharma Initiative.

Happy Trading!

Copyright 2015 Ryan Herron