A Chat with a Trader – CommuniTraders Interviews Gabriel
We decided to interview Gabriel, our youngest trader who started learning how to trade with our community already when he was 17. He is known as Gabbe in the forums and you can check out his trading diary here. Gabriel has been really good on keeping his trading diary updated and you will notice he loves short term expiries! Besides trading, he enjoys CrossFit and loves boating.
How did you first get introduced to Binary Options Trading?
Advertisements! I saw an ad on how to get rich quickly on some site and I just had to check it out for myself.
How did you find your way to thatsucks.com and CommuniTraders?
I was looking for binary options education and I ended up reading the entire school before realizing that there was also a forum too – the CommuniTraders forum.
If you studied at our school section, do you think it provided you with a good foundation?
It was surprising to finally find something worth reading! Because I quickly realized that everything I knew from before, basically all I learned elsewhere, was pretty useless so I was very happy with the proper education the school section here offered me.
Did you fall for any scams before you found us? If so, which scam was it?
After seeing those first ads I was about to fall for some nonsense but then something didn’t feel right and logic kicked in – thankfully! I knew making money wouldn’t be that easy without the necessary education and that’s how the search for a proper education started.
Except for the scam, you have probably made some other mistakes so far, can you mention one or two of your biggest mistakes?
Yes. I would say it was a mistake losing my first deposit of 500€. This was before finding thatsucks.com, when I was reading on a few other websites and I thought I knew it all and got greedy. But the loss made me realize I still needed additional education and that what I had learned was no good.
How has your trading diary on CommuniTraders helped you develop so far?
Really a whole lot because once in a while I go back and re-read my entire trading diary and I feel like it has helped me grow as a trader.
Are you trading live or on a demo account at the moment and how is it going?
Kind of both, I started doing only demo and the goal was to go live when I turned 18 but after my birthday I decided I would keep doing more demo as I know there is still room to grow. When it comes to trading live, I made a smaller deposit with the broker Ayrex and got a bonus and I actually managed to reach the required volume and generate some profits!
Have you used the CommuniTraders trading platform for practicing or copying trades?
Yes, I have tried it in the early days as a demo account until I knew which broker I was going to use which then lead to using the Ayrex Demo Account.
What else would you like to see, or more of, in the forums and the homepage?
To be honest, most of the things you can ask for is already there and I can’t say I know any better forums than the CommuniTraders forum.
Which broker or brokers are you with at the moment and are you happy with them?
Currently I am with Ayrex as mentioned earlier. There were some issues in the beginning when they were very new but thanks to their recent upgrades the platform is now better than before. Their platform works well with my short term trading and last month they offered 90% payouts which was great but I wish they would do that more frequently!
Which charting software are you using for your technical analysis?
I tried both MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 but MT4 is the one I prefer.
Which trading strategy or approach are you currently using? (talk expiry, favorite indicators or whatever, even fundamentals)
I am a technical trader. I use support and resistance lines, reversals, trendlines and Japanese candlesticks. To summarize it: I use price action trading. In the beginning I used too many indicators but then decided to focus on the price action. What made me lean towards these techniques was the CommuniTraders Live YouTube channel and also some trading diaries in the Members War Room on forums.
My absolute favorite binary options expiry right now is the 3 minute duration but I also use the 5 minute expiry now and then. Regarding my favorite indicators, I like using exponential moving averages, 14, 21, 100 and the 200 EMA. See my trading diary for detailed examples with pictures!
What advice would you like to give to a beginner who is just getting started?
Don’t chase wins – greed is no good. The main focus should be on getting a proper education and remember that practice makes perfect!
If you got to ask yourself a question and answer it, what would it be about?
My question to myself would be: “How can I improve my trading, how can I get better from here on?” The response would be: I need to gain more experience, through learning more trading techniques, learning to read and recognize candlestick patterns and perhaps even study other indicators to learn from them too.
What do you think of the future of binary options?
Binary Options are most probably here to stay and will surely grow. I would like the industry to get cleaned up so that we can get rid of the “gambling” stamp that is often connected to trading binary options.
Gabriel’s Current Goal and Message
My current goal is to get started fully with the live trading and increase the frequency of my trades so I can start earning bigger sums. How I get there is by not giving up and keep studying and practicing. I believe that the more live trading I do, the more confident I will become. Trading a live account is mentally a challenge and what I learned from going live was that you should start trading with very small sums until you gain control over your emotions and gain the necessary skills for trading profitably.