A Chat with a Trader – CommuniTraders Interviews Modena

I was browsing through the leaderboard on the CommuniTraders forum and found Modena who is, at the time of writing this, ranked 2 with around 60% win rate and over 270 trades! Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out more about a trader who can achieve such great results? I’m sure there many others like me would love to hear Modena’s story. He is living in Netherlands with his family and he has two daughters. Modena worked his whole life in the Import/Export trading business and it’s therefor no surprise that he loves traveling, and trading. Other than trading, he enjoys music from 1948 to 1976 and is interested in sports and collecting stamps. Today he is an adviser for seniors in the city council.

– How did you first get introduced to Binary Options Trading?

I got introduced to binary options through spam, lots of SPAM mail. Oh, let’s not forget all the super exaggerated YouTube videos and their magic money-making-systems.

-How did you find your way to ThatSucks.com (former BinaryOptionsThatSuck.com) and CommuniTraders?

The idea of binary options was interesting to me, so I spent some time on Google, studying various websites. They were mostly selling robots and signals of course, among other scams that would supposedly make you rich within the shortest time.
Thankfully, I had experience from day trading on options since before, not to mention my bad experience with bank advisers and their blunders! So I did my research correctly and found ThatSucks.com (former BinaryOptionsThatSuck.com). I was confused by the “suck” part at first but when I started reading comments from other traders I knew I had come to the right place.

-If you studied at our school section, do you think it provided you with a good foundation?

Good question! If you follow the instructions there word by word and without further thinking, I would say – yes. However, it is the emotional part that changes things. I mean, you’ll have lots of doubts. In my case, I still would appreciate a practical exercise especially when it comes to how to select entries and expiries. I’m still making too many mistakes due to misjudgments.

-Did you fall for any scams before you found us? If so, which scam was it?

My experience from scams are largely from bank advisers from my day trading. They recommended worthless stuff such as Hagemeyer stocks with promises of big “potential turnovers”. I suppose this experience saved me from getting scammed in the BO world.

-Except for the scam, you have probably made some other mistakes so far, can you mention one or two of your biggest mistakes?

Oh yes, definitely! Being impatient, over-trading and wanna-be wiser than the market, you know the routine.

-How has your trading diary on CommuniTraders helped you develop so far?

I tried to keep a trading diary in the beginning but found out that it wasn’t of much help for me. I’m used to business trades under various circumstances like taking risks and making quick decisions. What’s important for me is the money and risk management (2-4%). My rules are “simple”: avoid to run against the same tree twice! And since I’m familiar with my mistakes and rules, I don’t feel that a diary is necessary.

-Are you trading live or on a demo account at the moment and how is it going?

I’m using the CommuniTraders demo platform. After a catastrophic start where I blew the entire virtual balance of 20,000 and had to ask the Admins to reset my demo balance, I came back stronger and had a great success on the demo.

-Have you used the CommuniTraders trading platform for practicing or copying trades?

Practicing only because you can only copy to Stockpair right now.

-What else would you like to see, or more of, in the forums and the homepage?

I know that most of the info is already there on the main page and in the forums but be patient with us newcomers in the forums and feel free to repeat answers to us… even if you have to repeat things over and over again. As an example; info about trading the news and how important it is to check various sources and read up on previous data. You know, like the influence of Dow on the Dollar and similar info. Also repeat more info about MetaTrader 4 and using the main indicators.

-Which broker or brokers are you with at the moment and are you happy with them?

I have a demo account with Optie 24 (not to confuse with 24Option) and it’s a simple platform, easy to handle. Their demo account is free and I enjoy their news calendar. The payments are good but I would love to see higher payouts. Their bonus offers are decent too but don’t get too excited about bonuses, read the terms and conditions first.

-Which charting software are you using for your technical analysis?

I am using MetaTrader 4.

-Which trading strategy or approach are you currently using?

On Optie 24, I tried short time trades – 1 & 2 minutes mostly. I quickly found out that such short expiries are like gambling. I trade the news too, I actually just had a nice 30 minute trade based on fundamentals on CAD/USD. I look them up on Investing.com and Bloomberg.com. I prefer indices over currency trading. For example, Dax, FTSE, CAC, SMI and others. The indicators I like are Bollinger bands, RSI, Stochastic, EMA 50/21 and I do 1 to 3 trades a day. Something special I want to share is that I set two extra lines on my RSI besides the overbought 70 and oversold 30 line. The two extra levels are: 45 and 55 as support and resistance lines and I don’t trade when the RSI is in between that range! Then I trade the breakouts from those levels that I confirm with Stochastic and I like the M15 and M5 timeframe for this strategy.

-What advice would you like to give to a beginner who is just getting started?

Be patient or otherwise you’ll be your greatest enemy. You can’t force success. Don’t trade with real money until you have understood the basics of binary options trading.
When Opening a Binary Options Account, don’t trade with brokers who want to convince you to start up with a large deposit just to become a VIP member or let you trade with a small deposit when their minimum trade size leaves not much leverage for a good risk and money management.

-If you got to ask yourself a question and answer it, what would it be about?

Hmm, maybe about how to stay positive? Like if you are getting older, you might wanna know how long it lasts. And that is the time, when I sure give a cheating answer =).

-What do you think of the future of binary options?

I’m not sure. Maybe there will be a new type of trading but no Binary options?

Final Words from Modena

Read carefully the recommendations of CommuniTraders and the comments of the members. Study seriously and know that patience is virtue and only then you can become a successful trader. Good luck!