WRAP-UP INTERVIEW WITH TEAM LEADERS (PART 2)
Tips from team mentors Nov 06, 2019
WSDT I saw a stellar display of trading skills, a wind of assertiveness and competitive spiritedness
There was a tremendous emotional bubbling going on. While many were making good trades, others were blowing up their accounts.
The mentors rallied their teams and marshaled their best strategies to win the WSDT. We previously brought you a synopsis from the interviews with Stelios Stylianou and Jerremy Newsome.
In this article, we bring you part II of the interviews we had with the rest of our WSDT mentors — Ali Biggz, James Mason, and Pablo Martinez Garcia.
EMOTIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY
“Emotion is the most important part of trading and by doing a competition like this, and where essentially there are prizes on the line, gets people’s heart pumping in and out of the trade. I think it was amazing and great and I think a lot of people took it seriously.”
Ali Biggz accentuated the pivotal role of emotional and mental psychology in WSDT. He felt the prizes at stake stirred up emotional tensions which put many on edge in the competition. The ones who were able to quench or balance this emotional whirlpool made good headway in the end.
On the other hand, Pablo projected the whole aspect of emotional and mental psychology from a different angle. He channeled it in a sense of collectivism and responsibility.
Even though both mentors took this subject from different angles, it still converges at the fact that emotion is one of the most important pillars in day trading, especially in such fierce competitions like WSDT.
TEAM
As for the teamwork, Ali described an actual feel of the boiler room to us. His team had the main goal of getting the team to the top. He thought the best part of the competition was that a single member’s success would affect the whole team.
He also highlighted the effectiveness of communication among the team members which helped them to discuss trades and devise new strategies and tactics every day.
Pablo expressed his gratitude to the team for their synergistic efforts. He added that their success in the competition stemmed from the live streams, that made members of the team follow through the trading sessions.
James Mason recounted how everyone in the team was looking out for each other in the market, how everybody was calling out tickers and supporting each other in diverse ways.
He was also impressed to see the altruistic atmosphere which came off naturally in such a competitive environment.
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ADVICE
Beginners are a very important focus group for all mentors. So the mentors geared special attention towards their growth in day trading and their performance in the competition as a whole.
Ali Biggz hammered on the relevance of taking small sizes as beginners in the competition and highlighted on the repercussion of taking large trade sizes.
He urged beginners to cut their losses quickly and let their winners run.
James Mason explained to beginner traders that one of the main drawbacks of taking small sizes was the toll it took on their emotions, especially when the odds were going against them. He felt that young traders couldn’t focus enough to even read charts clearly, which would result in far greater losses.
CHALLENGES
The effervescence of every competition always creates a challenging atmosphere. Some say it is like a furnace, which refines and brings out the raw pure gold in competitors.
Team leaders experience this heat the most because they need to lead their teams and leading people is not a simple task. Garnering a large size of traders from different backgrounds and varying trading experiences come with a lot of challenges.
The mentors expressed how they tackled this burden and, surprisingly, split positions on the degree of challenges they felt.
Ali didn’t feel much of the weight because he had a good setup to communicate with his team effectively. He added that he put up his watchlists on Discord which helped him to moderate the plans for the trading day. On his part, coordination was very good and effective and he had no regrets on how everything went.
Pablo maximized the usage of his Youtube channel by streaming his trades live. He had an easy pass with coordinating the team because the majority of the team used to be with him during his live sessions.
James Mason found it a bit challenging trying to keep up with the influx of messages from multiple chat platforms because he was running one of the largest teams in WSDT I.
PAPER TRADING vs REAL TRADING
“The whole psychological aspect of real money versus paper money is two different worlds of their own."
One of the most important aspects of the competition we cannot overlook is how it feels like to trade a paper and a real account.
This is a major transitional factor that every beginner in WSDT deeply considers, as to whether they want to launch out into the deep or continue to enjoy the shallow waters.
Ali put the whole vasculature in a very profound way. He opined that trading with a paper account is pretty close to trading with a real account. He stated that a lot of the traders felt their heartbeats when they were in and out of the trade, even when they are trading with a paper account.
Pablo didn’t go off on a different tangent either and seemed to concur with what his colleague said. On his part, trading with a paper account gives you a simulative feel of how the real account works.
However, James Mason thought about this differently. According to him, there are always going to be fewer emotions involved while trading with a demo account. But when you put your real money on the line and if trades go against you, you will probably forget everything you have ever learned.
He claimed that it is important to build the foundation of paper trading and then slowly transition into trading with real money.
STRATEGY
“In our case, we implemented more aggressive strategies with a higher size. If we wanted to try to win the competition, it was necessary to risk more with our own accounts.”
The right strategy for WSDT was the main factor that set the mentors apart. They used a variety of tactics and strategies and molded them in various forms to suit the moving market.
James Mason had to change his trading style for the competition. According to him, he took far more aggressive risks in the competition that how he would do with his real account.
Ali didn’t have a different opinion on this point. He also took heavy risks but made sure he resounded the idea of taking it slow and steady among his team. Ali was excited how this advice helped 3 guys on his team, who won prizes by steadily increasing their profits.
Pablo went on the same path too. He implemented more aggressive strategies with higher trade sizes. He said that if one wanted to win the competition, he had to take necessary risks.
Overall, it may be said that it is quite interesting how the mentors advised their team to take it slow and steady but took large trade sizes themselves.
Did they feel they could handle the large trade sizes because they are more experienced? That might have been an underlying factor.
