I came into the office Saturday to get some work done. Just prior my son finished a baseball doubleheader in Queens. We drove back home, dropped his bags at our apartment, changed, and headed to the office. His mom and sister were at our beach house so it was just the boys.
To keep Luke occupied, while I worked, we visited the Lego Store Fifth Avenue right across the street from our office. Perhaps better said, I bribed him to come with me to the office for a visit to and purchase at the Lego Store. Luke bought two Lego boxes to build and we crossed the street to settle in our office. As you can see from the picture above, Luke took over one of our conference rooms and went to work building. And I took my seat at my trading station, and banged out some work I needed to finish.
During a break, he came out of the office and walked the trading floor to find me. He was thirsty and asked for a drink. So we headed to the kitchen to grab something. On the way there, I introduced him to a trader who was in the office working on his trading game.
This trader was involved in his Saturday trading strategy. He was reviewing charts. He was looking over his trading stats. He was making notes in his trading journal. He was building a few trading PlayBooks on easy money trades from the prior week. He was reviewing some PlayBooks from the past week. He was game planning for the week ahead. He probably was also watching trading tape. Also, he probably was communicating with some traders on his team about potential setups from the next week.
As we walked to the kitchen Luke asked, “Why is that trader in office on Saturday?”
I responded, “He is working on his trading game. He is practicing to get better.”
Luke then replied, “Oh… like we practice together before a game?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh…he is gonna be pretty good then, isn’t he?” Luke asked.
“I hope so. But he doing everything he can to be good,” I answered.
“Well Dad make sure you tell him he is doing a great job of practicing,” Luke suggested.
“I will. Good idea,” I returned.
And then he grabbed his lime sparkling water and headed back to the conference room to finish his next Lego.
So I ask: what is your Saturday trading strategy? What are you doing, when most aren’t working, so you succeed?
Oh, and Luke’s team swept the doubleheader.
From all of us at SMB, train and trade well!
Mike Bellafiore is the Co-Founder of SMB Capital, a proprietary trading desk, and SMB Training, which provides trading education in stocks, options, and futures. Bella is the author of One Good Trade and The PlayBook. He welcomes your trading questions at [email protected].