In our efforts to expand into cyberspace, we recently held a “virtual” trade show, the I-Trade show. This online expo debut was April 17 to 18 and like any show had both speakers and exhibitors. But the beauty of the I-Trade show was all you needed to get there was a computer. The two-day live event was a great success, and now the show is on-demand (yes, just like HBO, but unlike HBO, it’s free!). All presentations are viewable at a click of a mouse through July 31. There’s also an exhibit floor to pick up the latest news on products and services for traders.
Our two keynotes were from different worlds, but both provided great insights to trading. Dan Gramza, who is a trader and a life-long educator, showed how what happens in another time zone can definitely affect the market you’re trading. Dan, who travels the world educating traders, and trades from wherever he is, lives and breathes this topic. For example, although he was in Chicago when we taped the presentation, he was in Australia for the live Q&A session, and was headed to Italy and South Africa next. His examples of looking at how markets react to global action are perfectly illustrated in “How the world turns affects your trading (and how to take advantage of it).” All the presentations can be accessed at www.futuresmag.com through the I-Trade show link.
Mark Fisher, who heads up MBF Clearing Corp. in New York, gave an equally powerful presentation, but was live, providing insights to his recent trades. Mark trades everything that moves, both stocks and futures, and provided the real-time rules and risk management he uses for himself and the 150-plus traders he trains and manages. His presentation, “Applying method to madness: Using smarts to trade volatile commodity markets successfully,” went through several trades he had made or set ups he was looking at. He also answered questions from attendees throughout his presentation.
We also had four panel presentations: the Successful options strategies panel brought in educational master Alex Jacobson, of the International Securities Exchange, Charlie Santaularia, of commodity trading advisor Parrot Trading, and James Cordier, of Liberty Trading, who specializes in options selling on the commodities side. All had practical experience and insight on how to trade these tools in current markets.
Best markets for traders large and small covered the stock index, forex and commodities markets with three traders: John Carter of TradetheMarkets.com, Larry Levin, a Chicago Mercantile Exchange trader and head of Secrets of Traders and Jes Black, head of Black Flag Capital Partners, each a well seasoned practitioner showing strategies he uses in these volatile and profitable markets.
New trading opportunities in electronically traded markets brought together exchange, trader and broker viewpoints on how to take advantage of electronic trading. Bob Ray of the Chicago Board of Trade, Mary McDonnell of prop house Geneva Trading and Joe Guinan of Advantage Futures all brought decades of experience in both trading and in taking floor contracts electronic.
Our final panel, Building trading systems: Laws and flaws, provided three expert trading system builders: Bob Pardo of Pardo Capital, Nelson Freeburg of Formula Research and Murray Ruggiero of Ruggiero Associates. If you want to know what to do when building a trading system, this is a key panel. All provided in-depth knowledge from decades of experience on laws to live by and flaws to avoid.
I’ve been fortunate to have known almost all these trading practitioners for years, and in putting together the program, understood how their real-time experience and knowledge could help our audience. I highly recommend that you soak up that expertise to improve your trading. After all, it’s easy, it’s online and it’s free.