My first investment wasn’t in the stock market. It was in myself. In the world of finance, they call it “human capital”—the value you bring to a company through your skills, knowledge, and experience. Long before I knew the official term, I understood a simpler truth: being a valuable employee was how you made money, and money seemed to be the key to a happy life.
Sometimes the most profound insights come from the most unexpected places. A few years ago, I was in an Uber in Orange County when my driver, Charlie Clark, mentioned he had been Gwen Stefani’s high school voice coach. As a music expert, a couple of things he said really resonated with me. “An artist will create in a way that conveys how they feel about something as well as how they think about it,” he explained. He added, “Words and notes are not music, the stuff on the page is abstract, you have to turn them into life.”
Some Mondays start with a jolt. I woke up to find my position in the Japanese yen had gone absolutely wild overnight. It blew past my initial profit target, so I didn’t hesitate—I closed the trade immediately, taking both lots off the table at 117.20. I could have tried to manage it for more, but my profit target was originally 116.80. Anything above that felt like a gift, and my trading plan is so ingrained now that following the rules is second nature. This kind of is a great way to start the week, but it's crucial not to let an early win go to your head. It was time to refocus.
It feels a little strange to be nearing the end of this month-long project. For the last 25 days, I’ve been thinking out loud, and sharing this process with you has been incredibly insightful. It’s forced me to deconstruct my own trading habits—actions that had become so second nature they were almost subconscious. I was trained to see specific chart setups and simply react.
I’m a visual trader, which means my decisions are based on what I see on the charts—not on news headlines or gut feelings. My approach to is built on this principle. After weeks of analyzing charts, I hope this is becoming clear.
There's nothing quite like stepping off a plane into that warm, 80-degree Florida sunshine. After 23 years of fighting it, I think I’ve finally become a true Floridian. I landed back in Ft. Lauderdale around 4:00 P.M., but between the recent expo, a series of back-to-back meetings, and the flight home, I effectively lost an entire day of trading. This is the kind of trade-off that’s all too common when you're .
Looking out my hotel window at Times Square, I can see the city is taking a breather this morning. It’s Monday, February 20th, and the usual stream of yellow cabs is just a trickle. The streets below are quiet. With U.S. markets closed for the holiday, the usual financial buzz is on pause, even as the rest of the world keeps trading.
On Fridays, my trading day almost always wraps up by noon. Today, I'm clocking out even earlier for a chiropractic appointment. If I'm in a position when it's time to head out around 10:45 A.M., I'll just let my automatic orders manage it. After that, I’m heading up to Orlando for an internet marketing seminar—a three-hour road trip from my place in South Florida, which I actually enjoy. I just put on an audiobook and go.
This morning started like most: scanning the markets for familiar patterns. I was looking for specific setups, or “Waves,” that signal a potential move after a recent breakout. I quickly flagged three currency pairs that looked promising: the AUD/USD, USD/JPY, and EUR/JPY. For any swing trades, I needed to see a clear trend already in place before I’d even consider looking for an entry.