Before day trading equities, Peter To played a lot of online poker and did fairly well for himself. He then dabbled in markets as an investor, but was soon attracted to OTC stocks after discovering a strange inefficiency…
In this episode we spend quite a bit of time talking about Peter’s prop trading experience, both the good and the bad. Trading nihilism and doing everything you supposedly shouldn’t do, why Peter accepts he’s not a “cold blooded assassin” and does trade with the influence of emotion. Plus, we briefly touch on Bitcoin and exchange hacks towards the end too.
Peter also writes about many of these subjects on his blog, which you can read here.
Lessons learned in this interview:
- The story of how Peter turned $20 into $20,000 playing online poker, became a cynical “Gold Bug”, then a value investor, and eventually an active day trader.
- How Peter got accepted into a prop trading firm, the good and the bad from his experience, benefits of being a prop trader, and obvious red flags to be aware of.
- Trading Nihilism: Why some traders do everything that defies conventional wisdom—with conviction, and not only survive, but make significant fortunes.
- Peter speaks about how emotion influences his trading—meaning he’s not a “cold blooded assassin”, taking breaks, taking it easy, self doubt, and bad habits.
“So many people have done it the ‘wrong way’, that I feel like you’ve got to throw the book out sometimes.”
Links and resources mentioned:
- Free Money Part II: The 8am ARCA Low-Offer – In this blog post, Peter explains the glitch/inefficiency which he was taking advantage of in OTC markets.
- The Day I Lost A Shit-ton of Money, Part I – Read Peter’s most popular blog post to date, a three part series documenting his biggest loss—trading Fannie Mae.
- Glassdoor.com – Peter mentioned review website, Glassdoor, as good a site for reading up on other peoples experiences who have worked in specific prop firms.
- Hedge Fund Market Wizards by Jack Schwager – Hear more about prop trader, Jimmy Balodimas, in the chapter ‘Stepping in Front of Freight Trains’.
- Bitfinex: Cause of Bitcoin Hack Still ‘Unkown’ – An article on CoinDesk covering the Bitfinex (Bitcoin exchange) hack, where all customers took a 36% haircut.
- PToTrading.blogspot.com.au – To learn more about Peter you can visit his blog, and I encourage you to read his posts! I hope he decides to write a book one day…
- @PeterKTo – Follow Peter on Twitter, and tweet him about this episode!
Illustration by Peter, capturing the moment of his largest losing trade.
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