One trader on our desk offers a best practice to emulate.

This trader had been gross negative 3/4 past months prior to June.  He is a hard worker, focused on the markets, disciplined and well-trained.  He is one of the guys who can make it.

Yet, while I wouldn’t say it was a large deal that he was not yet positive consistently given his youth to trading others in his class are already consistently profitable.  He could do better.

Prior to the start of June, I chatted with him in my office about his edge.  He brought everything else needed to be a CPT.

Bella: Where do you have edge?

He responded in specificity.

Bella: Have you built custom filters alerting you to these setups?

Trader: I am working on it.  I could use a bump to my maximum share size so I can trade these trades bigger.

Bella: Okay I will bump you up.  Build those filters.

For the month of June the trader was positive. I had another chat with him.

Bella: What is the reason for your improvement this month?

Trader: The plays we discussed where I have edge I traded bigger.

This trader spotted his edge, then used technology to increase his edge.  We say he became Bionic.  This trader traded the setups where he had edge bigger.  This has made a substantial difference in his results.

What did I ask him at the start of July?

Bella:  Should we increase your max size so you can trade these setups even bigger?

“You can be better tomorrow than you are today!”

Mike Bellafiore is the Co-Founder of SMB Capital and SMBU, which provides trading education in stocks, options, forex and futures. Bella is the author of One Good Trade and The PlayBook.

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