Part of an ongoing trader interview series — the same set of questions put to different traders, covering background, psychology, strategy, and lessons learned. Originally published on Traders Questions.
Steve describes himself as a full-time trader with extensive experience coding trading tools. His primary objective involves developing automated systems so he can dedicate more time to leisure: “My number one goal, with trading, is to create a robot to do all the trading for me.”
About me
What was your journey that led you into trading?
Steve’s interest began during economics studies through a bank-sponsored investment competition where his team placed third. He subsequently traded long-term equities and short-term CFDs before transitioning to day trading after a friend began doing it.
What trading challenges are you currently facing and how do you have a plan to get through them?
Steve identifies automation as his primary challenge, requiring significant time and patience. Otherwise, he expresses satisfaction with his current trading position and reports no other substantial obstacles.
What inspires you and what are your specific reasons to pursue trading?
Steve finds inspiration in “the ability to predict the movement of price and identify the price magnets and potential reversal zones.” He emphasizes that trading represents continuous education: “Every day at the charts is another day at trading school. No two days are ever the same.”
In your head — the tricky topic of psychology
What’s the thing you enjoy most about working as a trader and what was your most painful experience?
He most enjoys “the high RR trades from low pip/point risk entries.” His most painful experience involved selling investments at a massive loss during 9/11 instead of holding through the correction — a lesson that stuck with him.
What are the key factors that separate successful day traders from those who fail?
Steve emphasizes psychological discipline: “If you can’t trade like a robot, devoid of any emotion, you will struggle to succeed.” He identifies fear, revenge trading, poor planning, and overtrading as primary failure factors.
How do you deal with frustration, self-doubt, and other emotional aspects of trading?
His approach involves stepping away from trading temporarily. He notes that emotions shouldn’t influence trading decisions, but acknowledges the value of self-recognition following successful trades.
We all have off days — do you have a process or criteria to understand if it’s a day to not trade?
Steve practices self-awareness regarding internal trading impulses: “If those voices are defying logic, contrary to what the price is telling you, or against the trading rules … you know it’s time to take 30 minutes off for some mindfulness.”
Strategy and trading plan
What does your typical trading session, including pre and post, look like?
Pre-session involves multi-timeframe analysis on target instruments, identifying direction, price magnets, and PRZs, plus checking scheduled news. Sessions typically last a couple of hours with occasional higher-timeframe checks. Post-session now focuses on robot development rather than journaling.
What market or markets and timeframes do you trade and why?
Steve primarily trades DAX, DOW, and NASD “due to the spread/ADR value.” He enters from M1 charts for optimal risk-reward but uses higher timeframes (M15 through D1) for targets, occasionally using M1 targets when sufficient reward potential exists.
Give 1 or 2 examples of your strategy explaining your reasons for entering the trade, how you managed the trade and your exit.
After identifying the strongest higher-timeframe price magnets, Steve enters corrective moves at PRZs with high confluence. In one example, he identified an M15 target zone as the primary session magnet, bought the dip at demand, waited for significant movement and correction, then moved stops accordingly. He closed early approaching resistance rather than risking a substantial correction — his typical approach of trailing price bars near targets.
What platform, indicators and other tools do you rely on for analysis, placing and managing a trade?
MT4/MT5, eWavesHarmonics, the ABC123 indicator, custom tools he developed, and Advanced Trade Manager.
Do you have contact with other traders?
He engages daily within a trading group, valuing companionship since “trading can be a lonely game,” and benefiting from multiple perspectives identifying quality set-ups.
How do you adapt your trading strategies to different market environments?
During slow or choppy price action, Steve avoids trading. He prefers fast-moving markets and reduces reward expectations during unclear higher-timeframe conditions, targeting 3-5R rather than pursuing larger gains.
Old hands
How long did it take for you to really get trading down?
“Many, many years.”
If you could start over what would you do different?
Steve would avoid purchasing services from scammers, and stop the time-consuming experimentation with countless indicator combinations pursuing perfect entries.
Was there a notable time when you started to regularly make a profit?
Profitability emerged when documenting his technical analysis discoveries, eventually leading to course creation that crystallized his thinking. Developing indicators like eWavesHarmonics and ABC123 proved transformative — requiring logic to translate visual pattern recognition into programmable code for highlighting high-probability setups.
What are the things that are going to separate you from the large majority of traders who fail?
Mental attitude, above all else.
Tags
Old hand, 5 years+, indices, day trader, price action trader, forex.