Welcome to My Blog! This below is my story which I hope will inspire all aspiring technical analysts and traders!
I was born in a small village in northern Italy and went to state school till the age of 13 when I have taken 5 years accounting school till the age of 18.
I enjoyed school more for the fun and the friends than the real study stuff. Therefore after my high school finished, I decided to stop my studies and do something in the real world.
I went to work as an officer in the Italian army for nearly 2 years, and subsequently I started working in a large company as an administration clerk, registering invoices and reconciling bank statements.
I hated it, I hated it so much that not for one day I thought that would have been the job of my life.
So I have done self reflection and tried to understand what I really like doing. I figured out that my interest was the big things and topics, not the small details, and I was extremely curious about what's going on in the world, in the economies, in the social environment.
This curiosity drove me to start a university degree in politics and economics at Padova university as a part time student. Yes, part time because my family couldn't afford to sponsor my studies, therefore I was working 8 hours a day in my boring job, and studying other 6 hours a day.
I have done this for 7 years till I graduated.
Coincidentally my company was acquired by an American hedge fund and laid off the majority of employees. They asked me to stay for more money and a better position. I quit.
They paid me some liquidation money which I thought was a good idea to invest.
I asked my bank manager what he suggested me to do with that money. He said that because I was young and the stock market was doing very well he was suggesting that I buy investment funds with underlying technology companies. It was the year 2000. He sold me the top of the bubble. And I bought it because he was an expert. Months later I was -60% in my portfolio. I got my little money out and I cried.
Life throwing us shit to learn. And I learned a lot out of that episode.
I decided that never ever in my life I would have trusted anyone else than myself about my money. But I was quite ignorant in the investment field and I wanted to learn.
I knew that a good friend of mine, a really rich guy, was doing "trading". Didn't know what that meant, but I asked him and he explained it to me.
He told me about technical and fundamental analysis, about Elliott and cyclical analysis, and he told me that he was growing his small investment firm and if I wanted to help him for small pocket money he would have taught me what he knew.
He was young but brilliant. Just past his 20ies he already wrote a book on options trading and he was recognised as one of the young prodigy of Italian trading.
He was giving classes of trading and I was beside him changing the slides on the projector. I learned lots and I loved it. I loved it so much that one year passed with him. I became so confident and opinionated that we had to split because we had very different views of the market and internal conflict didn't help us when making trading decisions.
I found a job in a financial risk management company in my city where I was responsible for forecasting Forex and commodities movement to advise medium and large companies how to put together a strategy to cover their risk of fluctuations in the rates of exchange and commodities prices.
It was 2005, and after working for a year in this company I felt my role was not fulfilling my curiosity and thirst of learning, and I was struggling to read books and many financial materials in English because in school I didn't study it enough.
Therefore in summer 2005 I enrolled myself on a 2 weeks English course in the UK. 17 year later I am still here. I met my amazing wife (het surname is HSU, she is my life coach!) when I was studying my Master degree in this amazing country and always carried on with my passion for trading and investing.
Except for that 1 year when I worked with my friend in Italy I have never been a professional trader. I have always done something else along the line. From working in sales for a technology company, to running my own food business in the UK. This is me, I like to juggle different balls at the same time, and I like to experience different businesses because it gives me a first hand experience of what is happening in the real world and that helps me a lot when I am reading my charts. Being an analyst closed in his ivory tower is not me.
I can't say I am a diligent student. I am curious, I use books and online resources to get the information I need but rarely I read a book cover to cover.
I have blown several accounts before understanding that analysis is a small part of the tool bag of a trader. No money is made in trading without self discipline and money management.
At the age of 48 I can say that I know something about life and something about trading the markets, but I strive everyday to learn something new from everyone around me. Life is too boring without learning!
I have close friends which have been doing well following my advice in the last years, from buying gold in 2019 (and taking profit at the top of 2020), to buy bitcoin at 5k and taking profit at 65k, to short the Nasdaq beginning of this year just to mention a few good trades…I also get into bad trades, but my strength is that I don't want to be right, if I am wrong I close position and start fresh with something else.
Hope I haven't bored you to much, but some of you asked me what my story is and here you can see a taste of how I got here….
I wish you all the luck in your trading adventure and I wish you luck in finding nice people along the way that are passionate about helping you more than solely passionate about riping you some money….
Money is very important in your life, I suggest anyone take full responsibility and get educated. No matter if you will delegate the investment of your money to professionals, as my story teaches you, anyone can make bad mistakes, even professionals, and is your responsibility to keep an eye on your money.
In this space I offer my coaching programs to pass on some of my experience in financial markets, and many of you asked me if I can teach them.
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