The SimCast – – Tradingsim

In this episode, you’ll learn about James’s path to consistency as he continues to grow his account. You’ll also hear the story behind how built the VWAP boulevard indicator, and an in-depth look at how he trades using these amazing tools. We cover some recent trades and dive into the charts about midway through the interview, so be sure to watch for that!

James Ferreira and his colleagues build a VWAP boulevard indicator

Who Is James Ferreira

James Ferreira is a tattoo artist turned trader who goes by @jmftattoo on Twitter. Before getting into trading, he was making good money living in Vegas as a tattoo artist. Living it up in his 20s and 30s all changed when his son came along 10 years ago, though. Since then, James has been devoted to not only his young family, but also trading.

After diving in head long into as many strategies, channels, and chat rooms he could find, he finally settled into a role as a moderator with his mentor Zach Hurwitz at thevwap.com. Zach has been profiled on such podcasts as ChatwithTraders and is a very proficient VWAP educator and trader.

What is the VWAP boulevard indicator?

As many of you know, we’re big fans of the #vwapboulevard strategy that All Day Faders teaches on Twitter. In fact, we love the strategy so much that we wrote the ultimate guide to it. Along those lines, James and his colleagues were instrumental in building one of the first free VWAP boulevard indicators for this strategy in TradingView and ThinkorSwim.

As you’ll learn in the interview, James first took his idea to Zach. Then, with the help of Australian coder @rumpypumpydumpy, they built a very dynamic and popular script for #vwapboulevard. Since then, James has evolved his own scripts to include dynamic VWAP boulevard indicators, VWAP boulevard heat maps, and more — though most of these aren’t publicly published.

SimCast Ep. 19 – Topics and Chapters

Here are some chapters and topics to look for:

Intro
James background with coding, TheVwap.com, and Strategies – 1:00
From Tattooer to Trader – 8:55
Top takeaways from James’s mentors – 14:00
Backtester vs. Outcome Review – 18:45
Using Discord as a Journal – 20:00
Importance of personality and self-awareness in trading – 23:15
Early blow-ups and adversity – 26:50
Risk management and trade management – 31:00
$F (FORD) Trade recap screenshare using #vwapboulevard indicators- 33:19
Using #vwapboulevard intraday to find bag-holders – 45:20
#vwapboulevard heat maps – 50:00
Countertrend moves using vwap – 1:00:00
Outro – 1:08:20

Mas is a day trader from Germany who loves to trade overextended gappers very early in the morning. Starting out almost a decade ago, it took him at least 5 years to really reach consistency. In this SimCast episode, Mas shares with us the adversity he faced and how he found the consistency he wanted. Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter as MasTrades.

Mas’s Early Adversity

In the early days, Mas shares with us how he started out blowing accounts in Forex. After reading a few books, and checking out Tim Sykes, he found success with one penny stock that took him up to $200k in profits on a single trade. However, as fate would have it, he HODLed a little too long, and rode it all the way back down.

Mas admits that pain and experience have been the best teachers for him. Those early experiences only drove him to succeed that much harder. Despite having to move in with his parents, he knew it was only a matter of time before he achieved success.

Finally Finding Consistency w/ 4am Gappers

Mas admits that it wasn’t until he took about 6 months off from trading to backtest a certain strategy that he found the success he wanted. He noticed a strategy centered around super-extended pre-market gappers. After screenshotting and studying hundreds of these charts, he found the confidence he needed to focus on this edge.

Mas's premarket gap strategy — Mas’s premarket gap strategy

During the interview, we get a sneak peak at some of Mas’s best trades. Not only that, but we get a peak at what he does when trades go against him, how he manages risk, and the spreadsheets he tracks everything with.

Mas is a huge advocate of discovering your own strategy. Although he finds benefit from chat rooms and other educational websites, it wasn’t until he tested his own strategies that he found consistency.

Mas Trades Chapters and Topics

Intro – 0:25
Mas’s Background in Trading from 2012 – 4:04
Forex Blowups – 7:08
The $200k Ride – 9:24
Quitting the investment banking job – 11:30
Pushing through pain and inconsistency – 15:20
Importance of Backtesting 20:20
Mas’s Trade Recaps 23:29
Adjusting Risk – 28:30
Covering based on data – 30:00
WAFU stops and R/R- 36:00
Using Evernote for Pattern Rec – 42:00
The Long Side of Mas – 43:45
Backtesting variables – 46:10
Mas’s P/L curve – 49:20
Big loss in 2021 – 50:34
Tracking discipline – 55:30
Profit goals – 1:08:00

In this episode of the SimCast, we were joined again by veteran trader Roman Bogomazov. Roman is the purveyor of WyckoffAnalytics.com and is one of the most prolific technical analysis educators in the world. His approach to trading mastery stems from a deep knowledge of advance market analysis techniques based on Richard Wyckoff.

In Part I and Part II of our interviews with Roman, we covered his trading history and the basic of the Wyckoff methodology. If you missed those episodes, please do yourself a favor and check them out.

Wyckoff Analytics home page, where Roman teaches trading mastery

The Path to Trading Mastery

In this episode, Roman breaks down his strategy for teaching trading mastery. As part of this, Roman discusses the importance of mentorship, speeding up the process, competing against yourself, and more. In addition, Roman shares his 4 steps to mastery:

Knowledge
Skill
Process
Mindset

These are his 4 core components to building mastery in trading. Along those lines, we take the time with each step in the interview, sharing practical examples of each.

For example, within the knowledge level, your goal is to read, read, and read. You read about technical analysis, psychology and more. Consequently, it isn’t until you reach the skill component that you begin to practice. This evolves into process and mindset where Roman recommends reading less, and doing more observing.

As an advanced trader, you should have the foundation already. Your time is better spent developing your skills and scaling up your consistency and wealth.

Lastly, Roman discusses the importance of community and feedback.

SimCast Ep. 10 Chapters and Topics

Intro
What is Mastery? – 0:45
Speeding up the Process – 13:20
Competing Against Yourself – 19:10
4 Steps – 26:50
Community – 38:15
Outro – 45:30

For more information about Roman, be sure to follow Wyckoff Analytics on Twitter.

Wei’s Journey to Profitability

Wei, also known as “Valckrie” on Twitter, is a software developer turned day trader. He got started during the Covid pandemic of 2020. After reading a few books on trading, watching youtube videos, and paper trading for 3 months, Wei jumped in.

Unfortunately, like most, Wei lost money to begin with. He refunded his account 7-8 times, he says. However, by January of 2021, Wei started to hit his stride, and the rest is history.

From a meager $1500, he has amassed over $600k in about a year, give or take.

Simcast Ep 17 Wei "Valckrie" Kinfo — Wei’s Kinfo Statistics

Wei’s Style of Trading

Wei is an intraday scalper. As you will see in the video, he typically trades break downs or break outs based on the chart. He starts with a larger time frame, then dials into the smaller time frames to judge his entries.

Wei “Valckrie” is also very calculated about his risk to reward. He believes in the Kelly Criteria for position calculating and managing risk.

Small caps or large caps, Wei doesn’t really care. He will trade whatever has momentum.

The Importance of Community and Mentorship

Mentorship and community have been important to Wei’s development. He credits videos from prop firms like SMB and 7 Points Capital, as well as Nate from InvestorsUnderground.com and Stephen Dux.

According to Wei, mentorship doesn’t have to be a 1-on-1 experience, but virtual in the sense that you can use the mentor’s material to guide you on your own.

SimCast Ep. 17 Topics and Chapters

Wei’s start in trading – 1:04
Transitioning from paper trading to real money – 4:00
Managing emotions through risk management – 7:15
Wei’s thoughts on mentorship and chat services – 15:20
Taking losses & the importance of review – 19:25
Wei’s P/L in January 2022 $150k – 28:30
Trade Recaps – 30:40
Where Wei puts his stops – 35:32
Wei’s long trades – 52:10
Hard stops vs. Mental stops – 55:00
2022 Goals and Beyond – 58:18

Who Is Kris Verma?

Kris Verma is a successful pharmacist and sports better turned day trader. After retiring from being a pharmacist, Verma decided to apply his statistical edge in sports betting to the markets. The result has been stellar, with over $1million in profits in just a few short years.

Kris Verma is a statistician of sorts. His approach to trading and betting is deeply rooted in mathematics. As the saying goes, an edge is nothing more than a probable outcome in your favor. Sure, you’re going to lose some, but as long as the winners outweigh the losers over time, you come out on top. Verma has taken this to a whole new level.

The Kelly Criteria and Verma’s Formula

On Kris’s blog, he discuss the basis for his formulaic approach to the markets. It is based upon the Kelly Criterion, which allows Chris to calculate his statistical edge and optimal position sizing according to backtested data.

Kris Verma's Kelly Criteria. — Kelly Criteria Chart

As you can see, there is a point of diminishing returns if you size in too much (blue line). Optimal position sizing keeps your risk (volatility) in check, if your data is accurate. Kris mentions this at time stamp 53:18 in the interview.

In the video, Kris shares a link to a template for his strategy in a spreadsheet. You can find that link here:

Tracking-Log Download

Kris discusses this around 1:05:00 in the video.

Kris Verma Interview Topics and Chapters

Verma’s Background on Stats and Mathematics – 1:00
Ego vs. Backtesting / Discretion vs. Systematic – 10:00
How to find an edge – 19:42
The NNVC trade explanation – 23:40
Kris on Trading Psychology – 36:30
A+ Setups: Day 2 Short into Resistance – 39:25
Habits of Winning/Losing Traders – 44:43
Using Kelly Criteria to determine position sizing – 57:15
Trading Database Template – 1:09:35
Liquidity Traps and changing markets – 1:21:45
Basic Kelly Criteria calculator -1:27:42
Accountability – 1:32:30

Going from Day Trading to Swing Trading using “Fractals”

Jack Tacher, known as @alphacharts365 on Twitter, came on the SimCast for episode 15 to discuss with us the fractal nature of markets. After sharing with us his trading history and style, we were able to pull out a few correlations between the indexes, TSLA. and a few low float day trades.

Sounds weird, right? What do the QQQs, TSLA, and some little known stock like SBEV have in common? Interestingly enough, their technicals were almost identical, just on different time frames.

For this reason, we thought it would be cool to show our viewers how going from day trading to swing trading doesn’t have to be a huge leap. A lot of the same patterns and setups play out in the swing trading world. The only real difference, besides fundamentals, is the time frame.

About Jack Tacher from @alphacharts365

Jack Tacher twitter profile

Jack is a swing trader from Florida. He has a lot of experience in technical analysis and shares his wisdom on his YouTube channel. In the interview, Jack reveals that he’s a bit of an amalgamation of many different successful traders, from Bill O’Neil to Mark Minervini. Yet, he has developed his own style and process.

He’s definitely worth following if you want to get a feel for larger time frame trades work.

SimCast Ep. 15 w/ Jack from @alphacharts365 Topics and Chapters

Intro
Jack’s Background and Early Trades – 1:12
Jack’s Process & Trading Personality – 6:10
Trade Review on SFM – 13:55
Using the Equity Put/Call Ratio – 19:08
Market Observations – 22:06
GLD divergence w/ the Market – 28:06
Jack’s Fractal Setups – 32:48
Taking cheat entries – 35:25
Analyzing a TSLA volatility contraction pattern – 40:00
Daytrading volatility contraction patterns – 44:32
Liquidity traps – big picture idea – 51:49
Outcome testing and trade tracking – 54:58
Outro – 58:18

SimCast Ep. 19 – James Ferreira on Trading w/ VWAP Boulevard Indicator

Category: The SimCast