I wanted to share a link to another excellent interview in the series from Charles Kirk at the Kirk Report.

This weekend’s interview is with Mike Bellafiore of SMB Capital, who also is the author of the new and popular book One Good Trade (see my earlier book review).

As is my custom, I wanted to highlight a few great quotes from the interview to draw your attention to read the whole piece!

Mike is a proponent of combining sports analogies with trading, and he does that well in his book.  This segment comes from the interview:

“We treat our traders like elite athletes. There are four elements to become great at anything:

1. Acquiring domain knowledge
2. Motivation or sustained energy
3. Critical feedback
4. Purposeful practice (what we call simulation)”

Next:

Kirk:   I’m curious to know – if your son or daughter just graduated from college would you encourage them to become a trader? Why or why not?

Mike Bellafiore:  My dad told me when I was young to find something I enjoyed and stick with that. I would offer the same advice.

[I had the same advice from my father when I was discovering careers to pursue]

More:

Kirk:  Why do you think most traders fail?

Mike Bellafiore:  Traders fail because they do not develop the skills necessary to succeed. I wrote a whole chapter about this in One Good Trade including some great anecdotes about why some have failed.

Kirk:  [W]hat information do you think every trader needs to have in their trading journal?

Mike Bellafiore: We have developed an extensive trading journal. It is long, detailed, and takes a half hour at a minimum to fill out each day.

[That is dedication - but it facilitates SO much learning]

Head on over to the Kirk Report for the full interview which was posted Friday and read more about Mike’s trading tips and rules, HFT insights, elite performance, and so much more. He also links to articles written in SFO Magazine for more details.

And to follow Mike and the team at SMB Capital, visit their training blog.

Corey Rosenbloom, CMT