A Chat with a Trader – CommuniTraders Interviews Anno
Today’s interviewee is Anno from Netherlands. He is 21, studies business and economics and the knowledge acquired from those studies turned out to save him from scams. On his free time, he enjoys European football but he is a musician too, he plays the piano and the guitar. Back in August 2016, Anno started keeping a trading diary and it has truly paid off because he won the November “Trade of the Month” challenge.
How did you first get introduced to Binary Options Trading?
I saw an ad about a forex broker but then stumbled upon Binary Options on YouTube and it seemed so much easier to trade than forex. Those videos were falsely advertising trading as something that required no effort at all. So I got interested in Binary Options but I still knew that I needed to do more research.
How did you find your way to thatsucks.com and CommuniTraders?
As I mentioned earlier, I knew I had to do my own research so I Googled about binary options and found the binary options school. I then read the school and in some of the articles it was recommended to join the CommuniTraders forum to grow together with a community of real traders so it was clear that I needed to join.
If you studied at our school section, do you think it provided you with a good foundation?
Yes, yes absolutely. I spent a great deal of time going through the school and the articles were really helpful.
Did you fall for any scams before you found us? If so, which scam was it?
No, no I luckily did not! Since I am studying business, I know to never get involved in anything before reading and doing my own research. In retrospect, I am glad I did my due diligence.
Except for the scam, you have probably made some other mistakes so far, can you mention one or two of your biggest mistakes?
I used to follow indicators blindly and had no real understanding of how important it was to read the price action. Thankfully, that has changed!
How has your trading diary on CommuniTraders helped you develop so far?
It helped me a lot, I look back at how I started and I can see how much progress I have made thanks to the feedback I got from all the pro traders, including yourself. Of course, I didn’t wait to be spoon-fed and did my own studies together with good old trial and error and on my way, I got guided right by the community!
Are you trading live or on a demo account at the moment and how is it going?
I am still on a demo account and planning on going live in January and start with a small amount to see how I perform and how trading a live account actually feels like. Obviously, I already understand that there is a big difference between trading on a demo account and a live account. When I start live, I will keep you posted on how it goes in my trading journal.
Have you used the CommuniTraders trading platform for practicing or copying trades?
No, I have only used the demo accounts provided to me by the binary options brokers.
What else would you like to see, or more of, in the forums and the homepage?
To be honest, I haven’t really missed anything, I think the info provided there is great already!
Which broker or brokers are you with at the moment and are you happy with them?
I am currently using the IQOption demo and I am not 100% sure whether I will use them for live trading – there seems to be some mixed reviews about them.
Which charting software are you using for your technical analysis?
Originally I was using MetaTrader 4 but I switched to TradingView because I like the way I can draw lines on TradingView better than MT4.
Which trading strategy or approach are you currently using? (talk expiry, favorite indicators or whatever, even fundamentals)
I am trading the trends so I am a trend trader. For example, I trade breakouts and micro-trends. Basically, you could say that I trade price action. My favorite indicator is Stochastic Oscillator and it’s the only one I currently use. When it comes to selecting expiries, I tend to go with 15 up to 60 minutes and I use the M5 charts to analyze my charts. I don’t use Fundamentals for trading but I always keep an eye on the news calendar and avoid major news announcements that could affect my trading results.
What advice would you like to give to a beginner who is just getting started?
Don’t rely much on indicators and try to learn price action and of course, I would recommend everyone to open a trading diary – that’s how you improve your trading skills.
If you got to ask yourself a question and answer it, what would it be about?
Hmm, probably: “How come you won the Trade of the Month Contest?”
Because I used advanced technical analysis to pick good trades and shared them in my diary together with an explanation.
What do you think of the future of binary options?
I am optimistic, there are tougher regulations and it might go the same way as Forex did – towards an industry with less scams.
Graduating and Looking Forward
I will be graduating soon and I would actually love to write something about binary options since the paper I need to write is about business and economics! That would be a fantastic opportunity to combine the two subjects. Finally, the main goal is going live but I am not in a hurry and have not set any economic goals for that, only that I will start with a low amount and then we’ll take it from there.