About Trading Coach Directory
The Trading Coach directory provides a list of coaches that can coach or mentor you in trading the markets. Most coaches offer coaching via phone, email or internet and may travel to see clients. Please note that this directory is provided for informational purposes only. It is not providing advice or specific recommendations to use a particular coach or service. To learn more about trading coaching, click here.
Interview with Brent Penfold
Could you tell us a little about yourself?
I’m a futures and forex
trader. I trade full time. I’m a license advisor (AFSL 225946). I publish
newsletters for active currency and index traders. I personally trade every
recommendation I make and I publish my fills for my subscribers. I help teach
people to trade. I present at Trading Expos through
How did you get started trading?
When I joined Bank
How long have you been trading now?
27 years.
What do you like best about trading?
The financial
independence and flexible work hours.
What markets do you trade?
The five main currency
pairs and global index futures.
What style of trading do you use?
I’m a mechanical or
systematic trader following 100% objective rule based strategies.
What have been the biggest influences on your development as a trader?
Geoff Morgan, my mentor
and good friend who sorted me out.
What is the one biggest lesson that you have learnt since starting trading?
Be objective, trade
small and know your personal risk-of-ruin.
About Your Trading Coaching
How did you get interested in coaching other traders?
I don’t really coach
traders.
What I do is different.
I’ve created what I
feel is revolution in trader education.
Personally I feel that
I can only teach others to trade what I personally trade myself. To do
otherwise would make me feel a little uncomfortable if you understand what I
mean.
What I do is make
available rule based strategies that I personally trade for a price. Experience
traders usually just take the “theory” and run with it. Those less experienced
traders who wish more assistance can subscribe to the particular strategy’s
newsletter where they are able to personally watch me apply the strategy each
day looking for set-ups and trades. When set-ups appear they will see the
correct trade plan. In addition they receive a copy of my actual orders to my
personal broker. The daily newsletter provides the practical experience and
compliments the theory. The objective of the newsletter is to reinforce
traders’ knowledge of the strategy and to show them what trading is really all
about. They see both the loses and the wins. They see the bumps and bruises and
nasty losses. There is no sugar coating with live trading.
It’s all about teaching
people to trade successfully by allowing them to watch me trade live.
I’m all about showing
people how to trade through live trading in real markets with real money.
Consistently applying the strategy they have bought and learnt.
I’ve been doing this
since 2001 when I became a licensed
Futures Advisor.
I personally think talk
is cheap in coaching others to trade. Anyone can talk. Anyone can read a good
trading book and know what to do. What many people cannot do is trade successfully
by consistently applying a robust strategy.
There are two main contributing
reasons for this.
One, there aren’t too
many ways to trade successfully. So much of what is taught or coached has no
objective validity to it.
And secondly, not many
coaches, I’m sorry to say, are successful traders. If they were then you would
have far more “coaches” allowing students to watch them personally trade live,
day in day out.
What I do is not rocket
science. And yet very few “coaches” are doing it. Very few let students watch
over their shoulders as they trade. It’s
gotta make you think doesn’t it?
As I’ve said I’ve
created a revolution in trader education and I wish more coaches would do less
“coaching” and more doing.
Do you focus on coaching of one particular area of trading, e.g. risk management / psychology or finding trades?
I teach rule based
strategies. Everything else you can read in good books.
How do you work together with your clients? E.g. phone / email / screen sharing?
They subscribe to a
particular strategy’s newsletter which they receive each morning before the
markets open. And naturally I answer all email queries and have an occasional
telephone conversation if they call.
What sort of results do your clients get after coaching with you?
No idea. They don’t
forward me their trading statements. But for me personally, I certainly can
have losing periods, however over the long-term I make money trading the
strategies I teach.
What is the most satisfying part of coaching traders?
Doing what “professional
trading coaches” are reluctant to do – teach by trading live.
What is the biggest but most easily fixed mistake that you see traders make?
Trading unproven
subjective methodologies and trading over optimised and curve fitted mechanical
strategies.
Do you recommend journals or other record keeping as an important part of trading?
Of course. Every trade
must be recorded and reconciled against trading statements.
What are the most common issues that you see in your clients that prevent them from becoming better traders?
Being too trust worthy
and not independently verify trading ideas.
General Advice
What advice would you give traders who are just starting out?
Understand the concept
of risk-of-ruin. In my opinion it is the most important concept in trading.
Nothing else comes close. They need to be able to calculate their own personal
risk-of-ruin. If it’s above 0% then they have no business trading the markets.
What 3 books do you recommend traders read?
The Universal Principles of Successful Trading (Penfold, John Wiley
2010)
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom (Van Tharp, McGraw Hill
1999).
Trading for a Living (Elder, John Wiley 1993).