295 · Steve Ruffley - Animal Speed, Size, and Being Right at the Right Time

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Everything you see. No, it doesn't have to necessarily be taking a pinch of salt, but it's not necessarily there to make you money. So the best thing you can do as a as a trader or a retail trader is to kind of fade out a little bit of this news. You know, look at the screens. What are the markets telling you? How are they moving? Don't get too pigeonholed into listening that some hedge fund manager's going to tell you what the next big stock's going to be because

They're all out there to make money. You know, this is a it's a tough, hard game. And it's like I said, you know, back on the floor. No trade is going to tell you exactly what they do because that's their edge. So be very kind of wary about what you're being told and expecting it to give you instant results because They don't. You know, the biggest things that are gonna kind of move the markets are the unexpected things.

But there are so few unexpected things because of that underlying narrative. And the big thing that will come, you probably miss it because it will be so big and so quick you haven't had time to prepare.

His name is Steve Ruffley. He trained as a professional and now defines himself as a pro retail trader. He's now spent nearly half his life honing his craft in the market, spanning a couple of decades. making the largest amount of money that he can from the least amount of time spent day trading, such as achieving five figure gains in a couple of minutes. Steve trades big size with three trade types and two entry styles, which we'll hear more about as we get into the chat.

Having been a trader from the trading floor in a highly competitive environment to then switching over to trading as a retail trader, a professional retail trader, makes it a very interesting perspective. Steve's entrance into trading wasn't planned, it was a mix of ambition,

timing and the right connections. Leaving university early, he took a finance job, moving to Gibotar, in the southern tip of Spain, where he met traders running a new trading floor. Intrigued, he joined their intense graduate program enduring the six weeks of brutal tests where failure meant dismissal. The trading floor itself was an adrenaline fueled world, rows of screens, high stakes trades, and the culture of both commodery and competition.

Definitely this experience had to have shaped his trading mindset, philosophy, and technique, where risk is not a dirty word, and size and speed are essential. Steve's also a trading mentor and author of his latest book called The Pro Retail Trader. By the way, this wasn't planned, but we included a little bonus snippet of a short conversation with Steve after the interview, for those interested in hanging around just for a couple minutes more.

So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, we are so pleased to present Steve Ruffly, currently based in New Zealand.

And I wasn't particularly interested or particularly connecting to uh what was being said and I I spoke to the lecturer at the time and he basically said, Well, you'll never get a good job, you'll never do anything without a degree. I kind of left and to prove him wrong, my first job was for uh Pricewater S. Coopers as uh as a graduate.

And uh I was basically uh started placing investments for high net worth individuals. So that's how I got to know a little bit about the finance world. And uh yeah, that kinda piqued my interest. From there, really um

Again, bizarrely as my life does, uh had the opportunity to live in Gibraltar, which is the southern tip of Spain. And I was in Gibraltar for a while and I was uh down at one of the the ports, Port of Benous, quite famous down there and uh well known for its uh its luxury, its yachts, its uh fancy cars, and I just bumped into these guys and um

Yeah, I that's what they did, you know, and after General Chat and they said, Well we're traders. We've we're we've started a trading floor in uh in Gibraltar. I'm like, Well That seems like something I could be interested in. So basically went uh for an interview and um yeah, I I was one of the uh original first Revco grads, it turned out to be. And that's really how my trading career started.

tests and you know to kind of you know prove you can perform under pressure. And uh they said, you know, if you didn't pass milestones, you know, daily weekly milestones, you were fired. Uh and people were. So it was uh it was a little bit brutal. So yeah, we had about six weeks of that and uh yeah, I passed and then the kind of um

the the the the prize or the goal of it was to uh actually be backed by Revco and uh be a trader on the floor. So my first experience of of of kind of floor trading was when they took us onto the live floor.

And it was like something I'd never seen. You know, you've got rows and rows of people, you know, guys with eight, ten, twelve screens. This place had its own um deli, it had its own arcade uh room. Uh it was just Uh like an atmosphere I'd never seen. It was uh you know, for a boy from Bolton it's pretty unbelievable. So uh yeah, when you actually get to sit down on your own desk and you're around, you know

You know, some legends. It was Andy Priston sat on my floor back at the time, Braveheart, you know, so some big names, people making huge amounts of money. And um and yeah, so that was that was basically it. That was my introduction to trading. And uh it's just it seems like a million, million, million years ago and it's so different to what I do now, obviously back being sat home with my own screens and my own home office.

But uh yeah, great experience and uh and and something that I'll that that kind of made me Not the trader I am, because you know, I d I do see a big distinction between the the pro world and, you know, myself as a as a pro retail trader. But it certainly gave you uh all all the um ambition, should I say, to uh to follow this through and to see where it could really take you. So yeah, great time, great experience.

Um, but everyone kind of quickly knew pretty soon who the big guys were. And it's aspirational, uh, but also, you know, a little bit intimidating. So uh yeah, I mean, talking about a baptism of fire, that was uh that that was one way to kind of uh to to put it.

And these guys have been doing it for years, you know, and they'll share a little bit of information, a little bit of knowledge. You know, traders, you know, uh they're just blokes, you know, they're they love a good gossip. But, you know, all we talked about was, you know, kind of what the markets was doing. And and money, you know, it all came back to money. I know that's a a a faux par thing to talk about money in trading, but

That's what we're all sat there for. Yeah, we're all sat there, you know, guys were going out in the lunch breaks, buying a Rolex when they had a good day. You know, it's not Wolf for Wall Street stuff, you know, that's a whole that's a whole you know kind of

different side of it. But yeah, there's a lot of guys there that were there to make money and, you know, people that, you know, you wouldn't necessarily think of traders. You know, you wouldn't be able to spot a trader if you walk past them on the street.

You know, you really wouldn't, you know, they're not they just look like normal blokes. And and though they were all blokes, I think there was maybe one woman on the floor in the entire time I was on there. So it was a very male environment, you know, very bravado. And yeah, I mean information

was passed around assured, but listen, nobody's gonna give you their edge. Nobody's gonna sit there and tell you what to do. And that was the whole point of the whole kind of graduate course. It's like they will teach you all you need to know about maybe charting, all you need to know about um you know the market structure products etc but they don't tell you how to make money

And that's something I didn't get originally. You know, it's kind of you either have something in you that you can make money or you don't. And they were that brutal. Like if you couldn't make it, you know, you just burnt out. You just went away. You didn't make the money. So it was it was quite an interesting

I don't know if you call it experiment, you know, or or what you call it. It's quite an interesting way of finding, you know, out who could actually do it when it really mattered. So yeah, quite uh quite an interesting time.

People, you know, can press the button to trade, you know, and have a multitude of reasons for doing it, your technicals, your fundamentals, but it's the guys that press the button that When it counts with the right kind of size when it counts and meets those big numbers. And that's either in you or it isn't.

And it's almost when you um I have to describe it in the past. You don't want to meet people that have it. You know, you can't describe it in her quotes, but somebody has that something present about them. They trust they're good, they're confident, but they're not arrogant. Okay, so that's what that kind of environment brings out. You can either do it or you can't.

And some people born with it, I believe, and we've all met those people, I presume. And uh some people have to manufacture it. I don't necessarily think I'm arrogant enough, Riley, so to say that I was born with it, but I had something, but I had to create my it over time. And yeah, I mean my only goal was to use as much size as possible and and to make those big wins. And you know, that that Really, you know, what trading

on the floor perspective is all about. Everyone's there to grind to make money day to day. But it, you know, you have to remember there's such high costs in pro trading that, you know, you have to be making money, sizable amounts of money, all the time.

Otherwise, you know, you can work for a year and by the time you paid your tax, you know, you're coming out with nothing. So it's not something you know uh to be taken lightly. And now we have to remember there's a trader's approach, there's a wage. You don't get paid. So that's why the whole mentality of the floor traders are you're there to make money, you're there to use size, trade the opportunities when they arrive.

You're there to be fastest finger first at the time, you know, back in the day. You know, you'd hear to listen to the big news events and the big data events, you know, because that's where you're going to make your money. And listen, every single trader, professional trader I know has a big win story. Every single one. They've done it when it counted.

But I mean again, you know, it it's it's communicated through people that trusted each other. It's not like you have to stand up and say, I lost this today. You know, end of the day, the way trading is on the floor, and as it was, your own business.

You know, you're literally your own business, your own entity within, you know, the kind of the framework of of of the house. So um yeah, your business is your business. You want to tell people you had a good day, tell them. Maybe you tell them a bad day, tell them. If you don't, you don't. I mean, like most things, you know

It's generally the quiet guy sat in the corner that's trading thousands of lots and not making a sound. It's the people that are controlled emotions. But you know, the old guys from the floor and that kind of stuff, you know, they had a lot of emotions. Doesn't say they weren't making money.

sometimes they were making money and still angry about it. You know, it's just there's a there's a very there's a very different time back when I started. I think the transition through to more screen trading has led to a different type of trader over the years.

I became friends with uh the risk manager and you know, he taught me some things. He saw a different side of obviously the other side of what the traders were doing. And you know, do you get information where you can. I mean, at the end of the day, as I say, you know, it it's just the same for any trader. I just did it in a I guess a c

a more kind of concentrated stint. Everybody likes to think if they know a bit more about technical analysis or they bit more about, you know, the fundamental side, you know, if they just knew a bit more knowledge, then they'd be able to trade.

But as as I said before, what you have to learn is the psychology of understanding yourself, understanding, you know, what's important to you, you know, what what gives you the confidence and commitment to put that trade on. And everyone starts off with small size.

But again, you were discouraged from starting from very small size or even using demo accounts, you know, uh simulators that were available because you can't attach that emotion to it. So really, as I say, you're pretty much left to your own devices. And, you know, it was down to you to to pick knowledge from other traders where you could or, you know, just to kind of sit there, watch price action and just, you know, to kind of test it out. I mean

The the best lesson in trading for anybody is the more you trade, the more you know about yourself. Everyone thinks there's some magic. formula or, you know, some book or some webinar or some course. You know, but to get to that next level of when you can press the button and trade and make money and do that, you know, consistently and, you know, have those larger wins and also manage the losses. It's all done through experience. So

It was just a lot of that. It was a lot of that just screen time and

That was it really, you know. Um, I got to a certain level and you know, unfortunately it's kind of I'm not from money or anything. It's it's kind of after a year or so of trading, you're thinking, Well, I'm paying my desk fees, you know, I've had like ten thousand pound day. And you know, at the end of the you know, the kind of year you're drawing out a couple of thousand to live off. It's like

Well, this is not the kind of life I expected from a trader. So that was kind of a turning point for me. You have to remember when I started the uh the this grad uh scheme. to be able to buy yourself out of that grad scheme was a quarter of a million pounds. We were talking twenty years ago. So that's that's a sizable amount. So you had to make that in order to pay Revco back to uh then go on a different split or maybe back yourself.

So really after a you know, a year or so of doing this and not, you know, kind of generating enough money to kind of get by and stay in the game, I wasn't being able to draw enough money that made what I saw as my time investment pay. So I had a to talk to the guys and said, you know, it just isn't working for me and they said, Well, you know, you get on well with uh the risk manager, why don't you work in the risk department? And, you know, see what that's all about.

That's how well. Yeah. I mean I'm still in trading. I'm still on the on the floor as such. And uh yeah, so I spent uh just over a year actually um in in the kind of risk room and that's really when I I knew everybody knows about the size element and the money element and what can be made. But when you actually see it in real time, I'm not just talking about one or two traders, you know, you get to see what every trader does in real time.

So instead of your trading screens, you have big screens full of traders' PLs. And your job is to to manage those PLs and to understand what the market's doing and you know where the risk is for the house, where the risk is for the trader. So when you spend your year or so looking at multiple accounts over anything from a non farm payrolls to an interest rate decision, you know, you get to see patterns. And really, you know, patterns

The more I looked into, you know, kind of, you know, I'm a big fan of things like Fibonacci, but that's just one thing. You know, I'm a big fan of seeing patterns in everything. When you see patterns around activity, patterns around movement, patterns around how traders enter and exit trades. Also the kind of correlation between, you know, the severity of the event or the importance and the size used, the time they stay in trade.

I started putting together my own framework of what would happen if I was to go back to trading'cause that was always my ultimate aim. Nobody wants to be a risk manager. It's the most thankless time.

So all I saw was a load of guys making money. And my experience with risk was, you know, you have to be a fairly which I am affable guy. You have to be shouted at. But when you ring somebody up, it's never for good news. When you ring somebody up on the floor, it's always for bad news to be stopped out. The only times traders like you, when they knock on the door and politely ask if they can have thousand lock limits in the bond, just in case something happens, then you're all right.

So yeah, the connotation is that the the risk is negative for traders as in the risk department because they will stop them trading to protect their capital, which is a good thing. And that's the thing, you know, retail traders, I guess, don't necessarily have. You have to be your own risk manager. It's your own money. You can do whatever you want. But on the floor, I guess you split into two types of traders, own account traders and back traders. So the back traders are backed by their house.

So they have different risk parameters. And this is always money. It's never a percentage of account, like you taught. It's never one or two percent of your capital. It's a like a daily stop. It's like, right, you're a thousand down in the morning. That was bad. Okay, so you've got another thousand pounds in the afternoon to make it back. You can't trade till the afternoon and that's it. That's how the risk works.

So it's nothing to do with how retail think and it's more to do with you being under st able to understand what that trade has done in the past, you know, what you can do in the future. And you know, many a times, you know, traders would lose in the morning, end up winning in the afternoon. But it's having that somebody else outside. And it obviously is there for a reason. It's someone outside of the floor, outside of you that says

And you've got to be very tactful. And sometimes I got this wrong. Uh, you know, I got shouted at. And uh and that's fine. You know, this is how you kind of you you figure things out for yourself and how you kind of you know get through and grow and understand what traders are going through.

But yeah, plenty of people that you know kind of Would lose in the morning, then win in the afternoon, or were winning in the afternoon and it looked like they were starting to lose money and, you know, sides up and try too hard. So you go out and have a word and say, Well, that's a pretty good day. You're up X amount. Maybe you should call it a day. And it's having that external influence and it's not to say I've got more experience, it's just I see what everyone else is doing.

And, you know, you say maybe that's enough for today. And I think that's something that, you know, really is missing from uh the the kind of retail side and just guys doing it on their own. Who have they got to talk to? Who's there? You know, you have to do it for yourself. So having that kind of risk manager experience mentality and that kind of stuff, it's something that

brought something else to my trading. And you know, as I say, a lot of traders, uh even, you know, big traders on the floor, they can't go into the the risk room. You know, you're not allowed. You're not allowed to see other people's PL. So, you know, I got an insight into what other people did that many, many, many traders will never get to see. And I'm not saying that, you know, I I I saw the matrix and cracked the code or anything.

I just saw what was actually achievable and people really, really doing it. And, you know, some of the kind of aspects and and and key points that I took were were speed and size. And that really, you know, hit home with me. And that was something that When I was to go back to trading, that was that was my aim. My ultimate aim was speed and size.

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Obviously these flaws existed for a reason, you know, to kind of create that buzz, to create that kind of sense of urgency and, you know, bravado and to push you to do better. And that that works to a certain point. Um, but what I found is, you know, uh after a

you know, after we will continue on without my story, is you know, it can be a little bit counterproductive. You know, always being in that pressurized environment where you're trying to be the absolute best, you know, it i i it can be can be disheartened.

And that's all they do. They try to learn more technical analysis. They try to understand all the the you know the the different parts of the fundamental analysis that makes up the market. And they don't progress. because they don't get the confidence to press the button when it matters because everything seems to constantly conflict.

So traders, the retail traders, will try and get that consistency. That's all all traders, you know, that I've mentored and kind of worked with over the years try to do is get their consistency. And when they get their consistency, they'll size up. Okay, there's no easy time to size up. There's no easy time to kind of make that next psychological step. You just have to do it. And that will be different for every trader, every trader's personality.

But on on the trading journey as I call it, every every trader, you know, you know, the professionals, um, the retail, the good, the bad, the ugly, they will go on this journey. They will hit different points at different times. But it will still be the same journey for everyone until you actually get into a point where you're confident up to press the button and do it consistently for yourself. So the the the main retail kind of traits that that

I see is that people lack the ability to give them permission to know what they need to do anyway. Everyone can say this is what I'm gonna do. This is what they say my planet. But very few people actually follow it through, and very few people follow it through with a plan that actually relates back to money.

So this is the other thing why I always talk about money.'Cause it's all very well saying that yeah, I'm consistent, I made ten winning trades this week and I've made a hundred dollars. Okay, well a hundred dollars a week, four hundred dollars, four and a half grand a year. Is that worth ten hours a day sat at your your screen? No. So you've got to kind of make these things worth

Wow. And you you know, you your time's important. You know, time's much more important to me these days than money. And it always has been since I kind of I click er quotes got it. And so that's my balance, you know, as from my kind of side, because I do class myself as a retail trader because I I am. I I trade on a retail platform. I'm I may be the pro level of money, I guess, to some extent.

But I'm still a pro trader. So what I'm always doing is balancing out, do I need to be sat in front of the screen trading or could I be do something else when I am in sat in front of the screens? It's for a reason. I'm not sat there necessarily waiting for something to happen. I've, you know, I have alerts. I have, you know, things set up on my chart.

My office is always open. I'm generally around the house or or nearby. So I can go back to the screen when I need to trade and do something. And when I do, it will be, you know, for for whatever reason and it will be degree of size and to make a degree of money. I'm not just clicking the button for the fun of it or for the sake of it or just to kind of be in the market. I'm I'm purely there to make money. And that's really what I I kind of get.

confuse the concern with the retail traders is because they want to make the money, but they're not doing the right things in order to do it.

All my three trade types revolve around time. I've got a scalp that lasts up to 15 minutes, an average trade which lasts up to two hours, and a day trade that lasts um up to eight hours. So a big trade for me, a big trade means staying in a trade for a longer amount of time, which can be up to eight hours. So some of my trades have been minutes.

seconds even. So minutes, hours are a long time for me in trading. You know, I'm predominantly a scalper. But if I'm looking for a big trick trade, you know, something to break, you know, something to break out of the trend. And that can be triggered by a piece of data, it could be triggered by a comment, or it could be just be triggered that I will want to leave some money on the table. But this is important. So when I'm a a scalper, I try and take the profit the first time it is offered to me.

Okay, so I'm trying to take money out of the market quickly and not leave it on the table. So when you do an average trade and you bring the element of time in, especially a day trade, your PL will fluctuate, it will go up and down. So I don't like leaving money on the table. So if you're leaving something and you think it's worth holding the time risk,

you're going to be seeing that P and L fluctuate and going down, which is counterintuitive for me. But The big trades I generally use smaller size on, so I can make bigger wins. with I guess less perceived risk by letting time come into it. Cause generally the shorter the time I'm in for a trade, the bigger size I'm using to compensate for the small amount of time in the market.

What you're looking for is a time element. I'm looking for the market to make a directional shift. And it's not it's the absolute high or low. It's from the current trend. It's moving out of what it's doing. And this can be anything. It can be, you know, a you know a reaction to data, it can be a reaction to something that's said, you know, it could just be profit taking for the big players.

you know, at the end of the day, you know, things will range and they will move and that's you know kind of good for scalping. And then when markets break out, sometimes you have to add the extra element of time and position yourself in a different way to benefit from bigger pip tick movements.

Okay. So if you think you're going to trade the non fan pay or see a piece of data, that's actually quite a dangerous piece of data to trade because the market in the short term can do the exact opposite of what opposite of what you think. So what you're really trying to do, you know, and and that's what any trade is trying to do, is seeing how the narrative, how the market has built up its sentiment, what it's thinking, and will it continue or will it reverse?

That's all you ever I'm ever really thinking. And all I'm ever thinking is, is this a a short opportunity to scalp within that range or that breakout? Because again, I've got two different entry types. I either follow the market or I fade what I see. So is this a fifteen minute opportunity of volatility? Is it a two hour opportunity of volatility? Or is it a day trade opportunity where the market will move, consolidate and then continue? Because that

the biggest trade in pit wise you're going to get. When something consolidates, you know, it's confirmed, confirmation, and then it continues. Because when I'm scalping, I'm never looking for confirmation. I'm just looking for price action and the market to get to levels that I said. and I incrementally increase my size to have more risk and to have more

short-term pain in order for the market to pull back quickly. So it's all everything I do is is based around looking for types of movement and volatility and how I can apply my framework in time work. in in a in a time frame to what's happening in the market.

and then leave the scalping to another account to build that up. So I'm always looking for certain types of movement and it's either very, very quick movement that breaks out of the range. And that again, that could be from something that said, you know, anything can move the markets. Look at Trump right now. You know, he's back another four years.

You know he didn't mention um crypto in his uh inauguration speak and it dropped. Now he signed an executive order just today and it went up and then it dropped. So that things that can now change the market sentiment in the short term and you could provide short term opportunities. But I mean, you have you either have to be sat there waiting for these events or sat in front of the screens waiting for Trump to say things.

Or you can trade it more from a a technical perspective where you you it's not necessarily the levels are going to be hit. What I set my kind of um alerts for is how quickly levels are hit'cause that indicates the volatility. And I'm a very visual trader and I you know, I trade visual things, visual patterns, as I said before.

And when I'm trading, you know, I I know intrinsically how much size I'm going to use based upon the trade type. And I've got a good idea because I've done thousands and thousands of scalps. What I can make of particular types of movement. And it's always monetary. So it's like, well, it's a quick scalp, couple of minutes. I might make ten thousand pounds.

ten thousand dollars, whatever, that's fine. You know, I have an idea of what I can do. Then the markets move so quickly and this comes back to the kind of the pro side of the the days on the floor.

that you know, you used to speed, that's what you pay for, direct market access. You can lead on the bid and offer. You could be in and out. You can't necessarily be as quick as you can on a retail side, but there is an element of that. And that's why scaling to positions quickly And I have almost like I would I think I'd call it in the book a muscle memory.

Um I'm just so used to seeing something and clicking and being able to change my size on the keyboard quickly to be able to get in. And that's my edge, that's my element, you know, of being able to take short term pain and to think extremely quickly. is that I know the outcome's going to be an amount of money I know I don't want to lose and I'm out.'Cause I have one simple close all, I'm in or I'm out, for profit or loss.

And then when a profit comes on side, I, you know, do things that again that when you talk to other traders or the experts will say never look at your PL. Well, we have to look at your P L. It's your P L. The big thing retail traders don't understand is when you're trading retail. You're not trading directly in the market. You know, you're trading simulated markets. So what I see in my PL can be there one second and gone the next.

So when I'm scalping, I might see big numbers and I have to be quick to press that button because that can flip back to a to a break-even or a negative position, you know, in a matter of seconds. So what you're seeing on a retail perspective is not what you'd see if you're trading on uh a TT screen, uh direct market access, for instance. So there's lots of nuances that I've picked up.

through trading over the years that uh you know do distinctly separate the way you can professionally trade and the way you can trade on a retail platform.

And, you know, what we're coming to now, you know, the climate change, net zero things have gone on for a long time. There's been a lot of narrative built up that, you know, there's there's a problem and there's a fix. Okay, and you you're given information and then you're meant to agree with the narrative because the fix.

you know, has to be better than the problem. And what I've seen, you know, that's news. We all have to live with that. You know, what can we do? Not not not listen to the news anymore, you know, basically, you know, just just just shut ourselves off. We can't do that. But what I've seen, you know, uh especially in the kind of

news from the business side or financial side is there's a narrative building up again. You know, we've got this narrative right now where, you know, the economy's great. You know, it's stock markets making all-time highs. That's great. Well, number one, the stock market's not the economy. So there's lots of things building up that I see to kind of bring people in to say, yeah, okay, everything's working. It's got the stock market's good, but then we're ignoring the job.

the job revisions, you know, the facts, you know, the non fan payrolls that are made up of basically part time jobs. We're not seeing the massive amounts of layoff that's happening in tech. You know, we're not seeing the kind of consolidation of businesses. So when you talk about, you know, the kind of

fundamental side. You know, for for a pro trader, and again, I'm talking for the institutions and that kind of stuff, they can build their positions of views over a long time. And the narrative seems to support them. until the time comes for them to pull and then the institutions make a lot of money and the pros and maybe the retail will lose, you know, quite a lot of money. You know, you don't want to go into this stuff too much because it starts to kind of you get this

Tim Foyle hat mentality where everything's against you and you know that there's a big conspiracy. All I know is money makes money. And all I know is I know some rich people, much, much richer than, you know, kind of The Elon Musk type type type characters, you know, billions and billions and billions. And they know what the rich people and you see it with the media and you see it with you know business. Everything's getting consolidated and rich people talk to rich people.

What I'm saying is, you know, there's especially again for the retail trader, you can't focus too much on what you don't and never may understand. Yeah, lots of things are going to be said, lots of things are going to happen, but is that going to make you money? Not necessarily.

So what I'm a big, you know, kind of believer in listen, I wrote the book. I didn't I have to rewrite the book. You know, I I'm I I'm fine, you know, I can sit my days trading, that's fine. But I had something to say. Um you know, I want to kind of you know put it on the record that

You know, that there's lots of things happening in the world and there's lots of things happening throughout trading and I've seen it trade, you know, change in front of my very eyes. You know, I've I've seen the media and it it its attitudes, how it presents data change. So I just want people to be prepared that, you know, everything you see, no, it doesn't have to necessarily be taking a pinch of salt, but it's not necessarily there to make you money.

So the best thing you can do as a as a trader or a retail trader is kind of fade out a little bit of this news. You know, look at the screens. What are the markets telling you? How are they moving? Don't get too pigeonholed into listening that some hedge fund manager is going to tell you what the next big stock's going to be.

because they're all out there to make money. You know, this is a it's a tough, hard game. And it's like I said, you know, back on the floor. No trader's gonna tell you exactly what they do because that's their edge. So be very kind of wary about what you're being told and expecting it to give you instrument results because they don't. You know, the biggest things that are gonna kind of move the markets are the unexpected things.

But there are so few unexpected things because of that underlying narrative. You know? And the big thing that will come, you probably miss it because it will be so big and so quick, you haven't had time to prepare. so i mean

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You know, I I I've seen the the c it kinda shift. And what I've kind of done from my perspective is that yeah, I'm okay, I could class myself as an economist, I've been a a trader for long enough. But you know, I don't take too much notice um of you know what the actual data is uh or what it said, I'm I'm much more concerned about how the market reacts.

So again, you know, like the non farm payroll is a great example. It could be a strong m you know, market nonfab it could be a strong market payroll number, but then the market like the S P or whatever the Nasdaq, et cetera, sells off. Because the, you know, it's the narrative is then the economy is very strong. So we don't have to, you know, put interest rates down, which you know, net nets are negative for stocks. So

You can end up, you know, like the technical analysis, have so much on your charts and so many kind of indicators that you get like kind of trading blindness. And the same thing can happen with the fundamental side is you hear so much that it starts becoming useful useful to you and it just becomes a distraction.

So really, you know, again, for for my advice or my kind of, you know, view on this or and I've done it myself, is I'm much less interested in what the actual data is in the narrative or the long term view. are much more interested what it does to the market. And if you don't know what it's going to do to the market, don't trade it. You can let the market trade for the next five minutes and still have an opportunity for a pullback or continuation and still make your pick.

The end of the day, trading is about being right at the right time, not picking the high and the low, not riding, you know, the the the the trend or the trade as long as you can. That's for people that use small size and have to have time. If you can use any kind of reasonable amount of time. 20 30 pips is enough to make you some good money from a trade. And there's less risk involved as I see it.

When you're trading for minutes, seconds, or you know, very short periods of time, you're gonna have some emotions. And, you know, what I try and do is I harness those emotions and it's it's a combination of fear, it's a combination of greed, you know, it's a combination of um I know whatever I do in that short period of time is going to be uncomfortable.

But you're trained to do it. You know, when you see and you put big size into the markets, you know, you're paying a spread, and certainly when you're fading the market and you're putting bigger size and you're seeing the bigger numbers add up for your minus PLs, you know, you have to be some way You know, right there in the moment, completely focused, nothing else can see you.

But also be able to take a step outside of your body almost and say, well, you've been here before, you've seen these numbers before. It's nothing new. You've done this hundreds, maybe thousands of times, you know, you just have to ride with it. You have to do it. So the animal side of it just comes with with speed and I can sit there and I can click my mouse, you know, with fifty, sixty, hundred lots.

multiple times in quick successions and I don't hesitate. I don't think about it. I don't fear the outcome. I know the outcome. I'm either going to lose money or I'm going to make money. But that's what makes me an animal. Otherwise

I guess the animal, i I don't know I don't know really well why I describe it as an animal. Maybe it's because I feel like I'm not normal to the perception of what a trader is or what the perception of people think traders is. You know, back on the floor, you know, traders were aggressive. You know, they were blokes, you know, they were they were manly, you know, they

you know, very much all about the bravado and you have to somehow put that into your personality when you're on the screens because, you know, that doesn't matter. Nobody else can see you. Nobody else can see what you're doing. Nobody else, you know, is around to pat you on the back or tell you, you know, that was stupid.

So you just sat there on your own in your office like I always am. So you've got to be almost become something else, become something a bit different than human, you know, I I have to be able to do things without fear uh and you know, without hesitation and understand that, you know, this is something I've done for a long time. And you know, keep continually doing what I know is right, even though it's uncomfortable for the short time.

to get for you know, especially the retail traders and even for some pro traders, you know, that I've managed over the years. But you know, that difference between getting from thousands to tens of thousands, you know, even I struggle to get into the hundreds of thousands for a trade. You know, it's just only so much There's only so much of a level you can reach and after a period of time want to reach.

You know, if I was going to be, you know, the million dollar a trade trader, I'd have done it years back. So there's a level everyone gets to where even you're uncomfortable with the time or the size you have to put in or the person maybe you have to become. The ru so really for me, you know, for the average person, the biggest lie is that if you're just consistent and you follow all the rules, eventually you'll get there. Well, you might eventually get there, but that might take you

ten, fifteen, twenty years. You know, what retail trader or traders got that time to spend and invest in this? So at some point you have to get outside your comfort zone and start moving up, or otherwise you just run out of interest or you run out of time or you run out of money.

You know, not a lot of difference, you know, between one lot and a two lot. And then when you've got maybe a few wins under your belt, maybe try for a three lot. Then invariably that first trade is a loser and you go back to square one. So it's all I mean, the thing is, really with that kind of stuff.

It's that's a difficult question to answer because everyone's different. So people have personalities, markets have personalities because of the personalities that trade them. You know, what you have to get into is that so it's very hard to trade to change a person's personality. So a personality will have a trading style, you know, be it introvert, be it extrovert, be it risk averse, you know, being very, you know, kind of appetite, you know, for for risk.

And and what you have to try and do i is kind of play within people's tolerance for what they think's a ch you know uh achievable. And I've always done it the same way with money. You know, you set a target you want to make for a month and then you you work it backwards. Well what can you then make in a week? What can you make in a day? How many trades you want to do in a day? And then you start to build up

you know, the scale up of the size to reflect the smaller trades, you know, that the the the individual trades that make up your days, your days that make up your weeks, your weeks that make up your month. Then you can see that you're achieving it. There's no easy way to scale, and there's no easy way to get over that mental hurdle of being able to do it. And the gap between one, two, ten lots.

It's pretty the same. You know, it it it can be difficult. Once you get over, you know, kind of a hundred lot and building positions up to thousands of lot. That's something that takes time and something that I think that's just in you. You have to have believed in yourself or seen something like I have and you have to want to do it. So my aim really, you know, it was I wanted the money for sure.

But I needed to see if I could handle the size. I needed to know if I could do it. And that's what pushed me through. I just kept clicking bigger numbers because I knew I had to do it. And I knew if I could do it. There was a you know a future ahead. If I couldn't do it, I didn't see the point in trading. So I forced myself to do it.

Do you want someone doing it for the first time that can probably do it, or a doctor that's been proven to do it? You know, it's it's like everything. I don't have any magic answers. I don't have any universal way of how anyone gets to Be me. And I don't ever tell people to be like me. I don't want anyone to trade necessarily like me. They need to find their own path, their own way, and what resonates with them. Make their system, whatever that might consist of.

you know, their own because owning something and have ownership of it is the only way that you can be truly free in trading. It's your decisions. You live and die by your sword. You know, keep trying to follow somebody else's system. We all take elements from things. That's just human nature. But your system has to be your system.

You have to be able to rely that when your system or your thinking or your mythology and trading, you know, is triggered, you then do something based upon what you have seen. Mm-hmm.

um the the the better my results are. I'm much more kind of click and do. You know, I'm not saying that I have the markets figured out or anything. I don't. I've got my head to anyone's extent figured out. So I know when something happens or I'm doing a certain type of trade, I can do something.

So when it comes to the day trade, you know, as I say, that that involves up to eight hours of trading or of of watching, should I say, mainly. Because once you've got your your onside position, now yeah, sure, I could put a stop in the take profit and leave it. That's just not what I do.

So obviously when I'm trading the day trades, I'm expecting movement, I'm expecting something to happen. Now it might be initial movement, consolidation, as I said, and then more movement, or it might be quick movement, a little bit of consolidation and more.

You just don't know. And the thing is when you're holding positions, I don't put stops saying because I'm always watching the markets because something can change, you know, something can happen. So I'm constantly, you know, monitoring that position. And maybe that comes back down to the risk management days. But my hardest part of the day trade is cons you know, cause

continually watching that PL fluctuate and that constant kind of you know doubt that comes into your head. Should I take it now? Or, you know, should you know is it going to go to this level? And yes, it might be easier to put a stop in with a take profit, but that's not how I trade. And I don't want to trade that way. And that's just it is. So yes. Um

It is very difficult for me to do those those day trades. And yes, I have made big money from them. And I guess in risk terms, they require a little bit less risk. But I'm much more of a of a scalper and short term trade. You know, I want to be in the market quickly. I want to take my profit out. And that really comes down to what I've seen on the floor, what I did on the floor. You know, my heart of hearts, I am a scalper. But as the markets, you know, evolve and change.

You know, you can't just be one thing, I don't think, anymore. You can't just be one style of trader in one market. You know, you can't, you know, you can oh you can. That's fine. But I've found that over time in the last ten years by having three types of trade that incorporate time.

I can trade one of my eight products and I will get a good opportunity for a day trade every month, plenty of average trades and plenty of opportunities to scalp. And that combined means that, you know, statistically, you know, that I will will make the money that I need to over the year.

But you know, you're gonna see profit taking, you know, you're gonna see the market pull back. When you're only looking for small amounts of movement like I am, you know, you identify these these these moves that seemingly will come out of nowhere. And you know, you can short them with big size and you know, you just take a small percentage of that move. And and that's what I like to do. I mean, the thing is I do have a favorite trade type.

And you know, that relies on speed, it relies on my animalness, my aggression. And that's what I look out for the most, because although it ...a short period of uncomfortableness or... you know, getting in your that mindset of trading, I can do that, you know, maybe a a couple of times a week and I can I can make what I need to make from the week from 10 minutes work. But you've got to be patient, you know, you've got to wait for these things. You've got to wait for the right kind of move.

And whatever, you know, my statistics of what I've done over the years, that just seems to be the most Statistically you know, kind of relevant trade that I have in edge. But I mean it's just a constant, isn't it? It's a it's a constant of looking at the market, it's a constant of knowing when the volatility is gonna come, you know, based around calendar events, based around technical levels, based around, you know, certain types of movement.

So all all I'm trying to do is is come to the market when I know something has happened. and then trade accordingly or come to the market before it happens and then trade accordingly. So I'm either fading what I see, as I say, or trading, you know, the follow-through of what's going to happen, then trying to apply a time framework around that, which encompasses my risk and my size. So I d as I say, I don't think

Retail traders should spend ten hours in front of the screen every day because you're gonna see an opportunity to trade and you're gonna get bored. You know, you're gonna do a test trade or you're gonna do a boredom trade. You know, when I sit in front of the screen. I'm trading and I keep my clip, you know, uh purposefully high, but there is no kind of boredom trade. You know, you put that trade on, you sat in front, you know, you sat up in your seat, you're engaged.

you know, you're not playing around with size, it's not a game, you know, that size is in the market. And I know once I put size in, I'm always going to average. There's gonna be more. So, you know, the you know, when you this is the thing, you know, is if you're there to make money and Be in front of the screen and trade, there has to be a reason. If you sat there in front of your screens, you know, for hours after hours, you will always find a reason.

So what I've been able to do over the many years of what I've been doing i is is, you know, I still have screens on, I still have my my, you know, accounts ready to trade, but I'm not sat there waiting for something. I think there's enough connectivity, enough information around that to be sad at You know, times where the market is gonna move.

And we're going to see much more of this with with Trump. That's what we saw um you know for the last four years when he was president. He would come out and say things and the market would react in some ways and it would quickly, you know, spike in one direction, then it would consolidate, it would come back. You know, because he says a lot of things, it doesn't mean necessarily they're going to turn into something.

Uh that might be an advantage, you know, if you do have a squawk service or you do have a Twitter feed up and you can watch things and watch the markets react. But then again, I find that is more the entertainment type trading. These are guys, you know, that want, you know, or made a hundred pips on that.

Okay, so you made a few hundred dollars, so what? I want to be trading when I see something or hear something or I'm ready for something that I can commit to and use the size that I want to do. And again, you know, that's all the book's really about is my journey.

you know, to size and yeah, it didn't happen overnight. You know, I went through my own trading journey just like everyone else. And yes, I'm not saying I'm the best trader. I've, you know, got hit plenty of times in trading and had losses. And a lot of the times my biggest losses have been around data.

Um, you know, my ego's kicked in and I've, you know, thought this is what a market should do. And I've held the trade for longer than I should. It's like, well, it has to turn now. The market has to do it. I'm Steve Ruffley. I'm right. I understand this stuff. Then you get more pain and then it's like, uh.

So yeah, I mean this is the thing, you know, I've learned by making money and certainly lost learnt by losing money. Um, but you know, again, all I've done is is condense this into a relatively simple framework of time and entry styles. And, you know, being old understand of how much money and how much size I can put in each one of those trades at each time. So That's that's really how I got to where I am by that whole journey of of the things I've seen, the things I've done. And uh and yeah.

uh, you know, to kind of viewer eyes see the extremes of the market. Uh so they can be very useful in the upside and the downside. Uh so generally, you know, that's what I'm looking for. But also, you know, it it's a very visual thing. Um, when you see um candles as they form and as they move.

Yeah you again you start in a I don't want to send to Rainman here, but you start to see patterns in how they move. And that's, you know, again, when you're talking the professional side, you know, you'll have professional software like CQG, you'll have market debt, you know, have a lot of information that retail traders want.

So my kind of extremes of the market, you know, are based upon looking on, you know, candlesticks and, you know, on a on a retail platform. So there will be delays sometimes and there will be kind of Jig. So I have a set framework for every single product that I trade. Um, my charts that I wrote or well had them written for me. It's my IP about nine, ten years ago. So my levels were already predetermined.

So every single chart I have, I have predetermined levels. So I know for me But I think based upon my experience on mathematics and all the kind of, you know, the technical analysis that I've kind of gathered that works for me, I know if a if a if a market hits certain extremes, based upon my levels, that's what I'm classing as an extreme.

It might not be the extreme to you, might not be the extreme to um, you know, the market as such, but the levels I've used and I high I have confidence in them. So this is the difference, you know, when you're looking for somebody else to tell you, you know, oh, that's a big daily level according to

you know, analyst. So what? I'm not interested. I'm interested in my levels, in things that I've traded, you know, thousands of times. And that gives me the confidence to trade to and from these levels. So everything's based upon my framework of what I've had written for me. And yeah.

Most of the time, you know, it's fairly accurate and sometimes it it's wrong. But that's when the kind of you know, picking the kind of right trade type comes into into play. I mean there's lots of things when you trade at speed like I do in size. You know, you have to make split seconds decisions.

And you know, th that's that's part of the game. That that's something you can't really teach. That's a combination of experience, as I say, the animalness, the aggressionness. You know, if you wanna be someone like me that does what I do, then it isn't

You know, if you don't do something outside of the box, then you're just going to end up like everybody else. And the stats on retail traders is probably 70 to 80% of retail traders lose money when trading. So if you want to be something else, maybe you have to be doing something else. Never saying go to my extreme or do what I can I try and do and what I do, but you have to do something maybe at least slightly different, you know, because otherwise you're gonna end up with the same result.

And yeah, I don't know there's anything trading wise that's gonna be particularly interesting. I mean, people always ask me to kind of, you know, start up webinars again and, you know, kind of live trade rooms. You know, there's enough interest in that stuff, you know, we'll do. It it but the thing is Everyone's trying to copy what someone else is trying to do. That's what I say. And everyone's trying to kind of, you know, watch what someone else is do.

But the fact of the matter is, you know, from all my years of being in the markets and the different types of traders and environments I've been in, it will come down to this, that those who can do it have it in them or can create that in them. If you can't. You're just going to be finding more and more reasons to prove that you can't do it. Mm-hmm. So yeah, maybe maybe I'll try and uh

try and do uh an expansion on that, maybe an add on to the book or something. I don't know. But yeah, I mean, just for me really. Uh

It's been interesting to do a a podcast again. I've been working on the book. I've been quite quiet from a a kind of ego perspective of of of kind of getting myself out there and talking to people. But yeah, it's been nice. You know, it's been nice to kind of uh to chat to you guys and I've followed you for a long time so it's uh it's quite nice to be on here to be honest.

psychologically so hard and I do did push myself like what you said. I did incrementally sizing up a little bit and it's just putting in the reps and just trying to do it. But it is so, so hard. Cause I just it's just that my um I don't know, I just don't have that aggressiveness in trading, but I'm trying to push myself to be something I'm not.

So I've had, you know, quite successful people, you know, surgeons and that kind of stuff. And when they speak to me, they put they they they make them call me a different name. So they're not the surgeon person anymore. They're a different alter ego. I'm not saying go to that extreme.

But as I say, you know, when I do my kind of animal thing, and it's funny because I did I didn't even know I'd written that that way. Um when you brought it up, it it is. I'm only battling with myself and I go into a state and you know, uh you know, I'm hyper

focused, I'm aggressive, I'm a little bit frightened. There's some fear and greed in there, but I'm not letting the fear and greed get to me. I'm using it to my advantage. I've said I've been here before, I've done this size before. You know it's trying to test you. You know it's trying to push you. And it would Oh yo, your averages are there. You've done it for long enough, it will come back to you. So it's just constantly pushing yourself and pushing yourself and knowing that.

If it's in you, you can draw it out from yourself. It is in I I do believe that level of it is in everybody. It's just how hard you want to push inside and how you want to ask the difficult questions of yourself.

So some other orders or some of the trades come in, my profit that was 10 grand in profit, could be switched to one grand in profit in an instant. So I'm I'm looking, I'm looking, I've got a big close all button and I'm looking, I'm watching for patterns in the PNL, how it jumps. And when you know when it comes right, you see a big jump, especially with my size, kicks in for my average scout.

And then bang, I'm taking it. Because that that second's hesitation, something could be there one second and then it's gone. So when you're short term trading or trading retail, you have to look at your PL. It's it's it's imperative.