016 - Interview w Ray Barros, Veteran Trader, Managed $943M Fund

Hello and welcome to the Consistent Profits Podcast brought to you by Inside out trading and Brian McAvoy, where the focus is on consistency, because when you have the consistent part down, profits become easy. Hello, everybody. This is Brian McAvoy with a new episode of the Consistent Profits podcast brought to you by Inside Out Trading. Today, I'm very excited to be interviewing Ray Barrows. Thanks for being on the podcast today, Ray.

Hey, you're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, Ray and I, we've both been in the game for a long time and had occasional email correspondence. And I was just telling him before we started the recording that I'm really jazzed to actually finally get to talk to him, known him for, basically known him for years, but we've never actually talked. And so this is the first time we're getting to do that. And so, yeah, it's pretty exciting now. So that just so everybody knows, as far as who is Ray Barros? Well, he's a professional trader. He's been a fund manager, an author and educator. He started his trading many years ago. And his track record, he's got some pretty cool bragging rights. He did very well on his own, but he also took a managed account from. What was it that you took your.

Managed account to about 20 mil, to just under a bill over 1990 to 2010.

Yeah, that was some crazy growth. That was like almost a 40% annual return on a compounded basis, which is excellent. And he's also the author of two books he's written, the Nature of Trends and the Ray Wave. Ray's been featured regularly on regional newspapers and publications such as the Sydney Morning Herald, your Trading Edge Magazine, Business Times, and Smart Investor. And he's been focusing on his trading strategies as well as his opinions on market sentiment. So let's just go ahead and jump into it. It still blows me away because you're pretty sprightly. You've been around for a while. I was really surprised. When I was looking into your history, you said your very first trade was way back in 1966. Is that right?

That is right.

Oh, wow. So now I started before the Internet, but not, you know, actually in 66. I was just out of diapers. So what was trading like, you know, for an individual back then, you know, before the Internet and all conveniences that we have?

Yeah, I don't know that it was that different. We obviously had a trade end of day. We didn't have intraday data and so on. If you wanted to trade intraday, we didn't have the Charts. I remember we had a firm called Jackson's Brokers when I first started trading. And you'd go into the room and you have the Gruiter's green screen showing the prices. And my wife would sit next to me and she'd tell me the high and low price every, every 15 minutes or so and I'd write it down and then I'd chart it. And so we're drafting half hourly charts by hand. That's what trading in terms of technology was concerned. But as far as decision making is concerned was probably no different than it is today.

Oh yeah, yeah. Some things don't change. And there was actually one question wanting to ask you now. As far as, you know, the. Well since then there have been a lot of evolutions to the trading space. You know, technology wise, player wise. Some of the markets are, you know, that exist now, didn't exist back then. But of all the evolutions in the trading space, what do you, and the changes, what do you see as some of the constants, the things that haven't changed?

I think human nature. I think one of the things that when we first started trading, the stats or the saying was over 90% of traders lose money. And I was just reading an article by Trade Society that puts that above 95%. That has not changed. The thought that we don't need any training, we can get into buy. Look, I can buy here, sell there, I'll make a fortune overnight. That has not changed. The things that have changed are things that are really exciting. I got that email from you which is the reason I got in touch about the psychology of trading. I am seeing so much new information coming out that's not getting out there to the public. And that I think is what someone like you would be fantastic, you know, to get it out there.

Okay, well on that note, and I'm glad you went and brought it up, that was one of the other things I wanted to ask you about. I mean trading psychology, the psychology of trading, that's been a topic that's been around for decades. So you said that you're seeing some new things. What kind of new things are you seeing?

Well, we're seeing a combination of things. Basically we have this idea that, starting with Jamie Clark's idea that at any given moment we're driven by the thoughts forming in at thought, by the thoughts that we have. Conscious, unconscious thoughts we have, they've caused us to take action. And the question is, where do these thoughts come from? Then we come back to the, the childhood traumas or whatever you want to call them. And recently there's a guy called Russell Kennedy which separated that into two parts, which I thought was fantastic. The first part is the thought, the stimulus, if you will, that causes the alarm in the brain, but the pain that we experience, the stimulus that causes us to act, call it the three Fs, or for want of a better word, that causes us to act against our plan, comes from the body. And if we wanted to at that particular moment, if we want to stop the impetuous action, we have to focus on the body. It's our breathing, etc. Etc. Rather than the thought. The thought is later, when we need to reframe it and so on. We take that when we're at peace, but at the precise moment that we're tempted by our body, by our mind, by the. By the alarm, by the stimulus in the mind to act, we need to take care of the body. And I thought that was fantastic. Then he goes into it in quite a lot of detail. So that I found very, very interesting. Very interesting.

Yeah, yeah. As far as the interplay between thoughts and emotions, it's cool that you bring that up. Not too long ago I ran across it was called the Alternator method. And it's simply a method for diffusing like, negative energy. Like if something's on your mind and you just can't shake it, but it's got you kind of unsettled. And what this method does, it's really cool. They call it the Alternator method and it's from the Silogian Institute. Cool sounding name. But the whole process, the way it works is actually really cool because of course, you know, they have a little bit of a grounding routine at the beginning of it and then it goes into an alternating series of questions. And it basically says, you know, okay, so when you think about your problem, what emotion comes up? Okay, when you feel that emotion, what thoughts arise, and when those thoughts arise, what feelings. And the thing is, you go back and forth between the two, but very intentionally. And the cool thing about it is when you get three, when you get three in a row that are positive, that's like the. That's the indicator that you've basically diffused the negative energy from the original thought. And when I first heard this, I was like, okay, but I've tried it a few times and it actually really works. And so, yeah, you talking about that with trading is very cool. But yes, part of the challenge is actually being able to do it in the heat at the moment, though, that's where the challenge comes in.

Yeah, yeah. And that's where Kennedy's idea, I thought that focus on. Because it's easy, you just take a deep breath and relax basically. And that to me is amazing because I've seen it do it to myself and my students. It reduces the tension dramatically because you've taken your focus away from the screen and onto your body and that that makes a huge amount of difference rather than the thoughts you're trying to. If you're trying to stop the thoughts, I think that's very hard. But stopping the body from reacting, that's easy.

Yeah, yeah. And breath work, actually I remember reading not too long ago that the Marines and like SEAL teams and stuff like that for their part of their training for dealing with high stress situations like in, you know, combat and everything is focusing on controlling their breath, one of their primary tools for managing that intensely stressful situation. So yeah, that's very cool. So as far as techniques that are helpful, what are some things that used to work that you're aware of that no longer do?

Well, there was an interesting observation a friend of mine made in. He said that what's happening in systematic trading. I'm a discretionary rule based trader. But you know, obviously the thing that's always not confused, interested me was why is it that sometimes you get mechanical systems that seem to do very well in an environment and then exactly same environment further down the track don't work as well. And this Matthew Verdu came out with this idea that it depends upon where you are in the business cycle. So if you've got commodities leading, interest rates leading, stocks leading, and I can't remember what the other one was or four or four items to it that will have an impact upon your mechanical system. Then he actually gave the back testing to show that. I thought, oh, that's interesting, that's something that would interest me. So things that no longer work, I don't know that there's anything that no longer works. I mean if you. Unless of course, you know, I'm going to buy when the sky is Blue that, that sort of thing, it's not based on any form of reality that won't work. But generally things like Wyckoff and Dow theory, they all work. They've got an underlying truth that's there. So I don't know that there's anything in that regard stopped working. It's human. People don't make money trading because of human nature. And that hasn't changed. And that to a certain extent that doesn't work. I mean if we bring the mind that manages our activities outside trading into trading where we try and control outcomes and we kind of control the elements, it just that that doesn't work. It's never worked.

True, true. Huh. So who was it you said? The leading?

Yeah Matt, it's Matthew Verdu V R D O U W He runs a piece of software called Optuma O P T U M A It's a charting software and if you go to optima.com, the website, you will see his thing about, I think he says something about business cycles or something like that, something about cycles and it's a, it's, it's a, it's a, he's, he's done a video, it's about 60 minute video. Well worth watching really. Especially if you're a mechanical trader.

Yeah, I'll have to check that out because that's, that's interesting. And business cycles, product cycles I find fascinating. Fascinating as well. When I went to school I was, got my degree in mechanical engineering and we had this one instructor, excellent guy and he was like the favorite, pretty much all the, all the students in mechanical engineering because he was like one of the only professors that had been out working in the real world. All the rest of the professors had just, you know, they graduated college and then started teaching but he had gone out and worked in the real world and went to, went to work for a printing press manufacturer, worked his all the way up to, worked his way up to the VP of engineering and then retired and wanted to come teach and share his real world knowledge with the students and it was fantastic. But this one day, and in one day he covered it, but he talked about the product life cycle and it was actually really fascinating and it actually came in handy one day when I had gotten out in the real world and the industry I was in was plastic bottles, like 2 liter bottles and stuff like that. And it was really cool because in the late 80s a lot of people kind of think that, you know, plastic 2 liter bottles and stuff like that, it's been around forever. It's like. No, that actually became popular in the mid-80s. And so when I, when I got out of school in 88 and went to work for this company, it was really cool because I actually was joining that industry right in the middle of kind of the product life cycle or at least the first stage of it. And so I got to witness it. But we were sitting in this one meeting and the regional manager, he's talking about, you know, the stuff that's going on. And it didn't make sense because, you know, last couple of years, things have been great. Now seeing some struggles and this and that. And the light went off and I actually had my binder in my office. We had a lunch break and I went and I grabbed my binder and I'm flipping through and it's like, no kidding. And I grabbed my boss like, this is. This explains what's going on right here. And he's like, no kidding, that is so cool. And for the next six months, we just watched things play out according to that curve. And it was just really, it was really wild how there's a, you know, an evolution or a developmental curve to so many things. I don't know about you, but I found it absolutely fascinating watching just the evolution of technology in the trading space over the last 10, 15 years, watching everything evolve and like how traders are different, the space is different, and to a certain degree the markets are different just because technology has allowed so many more players.

Yep.

Affected certain things. So yeah, I got to check out the business cycle because that. That's.

Yeah, it's called. I had a quick look while you're chatting. It's called Unlocking Market Phases.

Oh, excellent.

So if you just Google Unlocking Market Phases. Matthew Verdu V E R D O U W I'm sure it'll come up. It's on YouTube.

Well now, as far as, you know, new approaches and you've been around long enough to probably be exposed to most of. The, most of the strategies, whether you've used them or not, you've probably heard of them. What are some new ones that you've. That have come around in the last, say, five or 10 years that really actually are kind of new, but some are effective and a lot of people aren't aware of. Have you run across any that you can mention that have caught your attention?

I'm sorry, Brian, I'm a little bit hard of hearing. I missed bits of that question.

Are there any things that are new or approaches to trading that are very helpful but a lot of people aren't aware of?

I'm not sure the reason I say that. People's personality is so different. Each one's got his own predilection towards certain things. The only thing I would say that has improved dramatically is your back testing for systems. I mean, when we, when we started trading, back testing was done by hand almost. And then we went to spreadsheets and now you've got what maybe AI might come in and give us A hand with that. So I think that has changed a lot and that has made it more accurate, if I can put it that way, because it's got access to, it's got better access to data and the analysis is better if you know to ask the right questions. The technology is there to give you the answers, whereas in our day we had to do it by hand. So, you know, it's nothing compared to what you can do today. So I think that to me, as far as improvement is concerned, is the best thing I've seen over the, over the years. And AI, I think is I don't think AI will take over the human trading because we're, we're in a probability situation. AI might destroy chess, for example, because you know, it's fixed. You can only have certain moves after someone does something. But in trading, anything can happen. But AI may will be able to take a lot of the grunt work out. So if I have a specific setup that I want, I want the market to be trending. I want, I don't want it to go more than 50, you know, 20% up, blah, blah, blah. I'm looking for a pullback of X. Find me that. I think AI will be very useful.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you're talking about human nature and how that doesn't change. One of my favorite things years ago was I was talking with this one guy and he was talking about the uncertainty of the markets and everything. And what we wound up talking about was how, yeah, all in all, there is an uncertainty to the markets and the events that trigger things. But once something triggers a response in the markets, human, human nature makes it wonderfully predictable. And that's where we can gain an edge as a trader because we'll see something initiate and so long as something doesn't interrupt it, it should play out. So that's where we have these windows of predictability. And what I find fascinating, especially as AI is coming into play, but even as over the last several years as algorithmic trading has become so much more commonplace, is when I talk about it now, I don't just say human nature. It's like the markets are people and computers. But the cool thing is computers are program.

Exactly.

So they by definition have a predictability to them because it's programmed into them. And so that really as traders in a lot of ways can only make things better for us at least. I mean, that's one perspective on it and I think it's really cool. As far as AI, I think like you're talking about in some regards it's actually, it's going to be very helpful in both using it as a tool, but also even as a player in the markets. I think it's actually going to make things better in a lot of regards. So, huh. So you've worked with a lot of traders over the years. What would you say if a trader asks you? It's like, how will I know that I've made it as a trader? How do you answer that question?

I usually say I can't tell you because you're the one that's going to have to know. I think one of the issues that we need to understand is we need to be very clear about what our goals are. What when we start trading, we need to know what it is we're trying to attain. And if we know what we're trying to attain, then we just have to work backwards saying, okay, these are the milestones. This is what I try and do with the students before we start trading. So if we get a student, for example, I got an inquiry recently, tell me how much money I'm going to earn if I follow your system. And I wrote back and said, we're not even on the same wavelength. Don't worry about it. I mean nicely. But basically trading is about a process. We have a goal. It's not about money. I don't see it as about money because money, we can't sleep with it, we can't exchange. It's a tool of exchange. And at the end of the day, it comes back to the six core human values that Tony Robbins mentioned. And I think it comes back to significance, connection and certainty. We want to avoid pain, we want to go towards pleasure. That's why we stay in our comfort zone. So I think that's what happens when people say, we want to trade. I want to make X dollars, I want to buy Lamborghini, whatever it might be, that's not really what they're after. They're after, if I buy a Lamborghini, my wife will love me more. If I buy Lamborghini, I'll be noticed. That comes back to that. If we can identify that and then work backwards, then that person has found his route to success, what the milestones for him are. And that's, I think, what's important when you start to trade, to know exactly what it is you want clearly. And as I said, it relates back to the human core human value. And then work your milestones, then it's not a problem.

Yeah. What an excellent answer. I've asked that question to a few People and generally the answer that I get will be in terms of how long they've been profitable. Like, you know, have you been profitable for 18 months in a row? And I think I'd say I like your answer because it actually really does speak to it, the truth of it, just as far as, yeah, what is your definition of success? And that's the best ways to do it. Instead of some just kind of arbitrary thing that, yeah, it may or may not leave you feeling successful.

Yeah, exactly. You've seen people make and you've seen them, they make it and they lose it. I'm going to turn, recently had a student, I'm going to take $20,000, I'm going to turn it to 35,000 in three months. And he actually did it? No, no, he actually did it. But when he got there, he said, I'm not happy. He basically said, I'm not, I'm going to turn this to another 30,000. If I could do it before, I'll do it again. And you know what happened after that? But he got to where he wanted to go and wasn't happy. He wasn't, he didn't feel successful. And that's, I think if you use money as a guide and you're perfectly right, that's an arbitrary number, it won't necessarily make you feel the way you think you're going to feel.

Yeah, very cool, huh? Okay, so what would you say is some common advice given on trading that really is just completely wrong?

Okay, well, for example, the one thing that I would say is if you, you're either a mechanical or you're a discretionary rule based trader, I think that's, that's what I grew up with when, as I was growing up in, as you said now algorithmic trading has become far more, far greater, greater share of the market than we used to be. And when I was started to trade, that's what I said. My, my first instructor said to me, mechanical or discretionary or if you get on the floor, then it's totally, you know, totally discretionary. Discretionary rule based on mechanical. I think for the retail trader, I think that doesn't work because your mechanical systems have to be based on some form of assumption about the market condition. So you have a system for trend following, a system for regression to mean and so on. Right. So each type of market structure has a system that works for it. And if you think one system, one, one system, one plan will make money in all markets, that's, that's not right. I mean if you look at the, if you look at the institutions they have, they first select the kind of market conditions and then they take the system that they're going to use in those market conditions. The problem with the retail trader is if, if you get a professional trader, he says, I'm going to only follow a trend following system. I know that in a sideways market I'm going to lose six, seven losing trades in a row, whatever it might be. I'm wearing that, I'm prepared to wear that, I'm prepared to take those losses. Not so the retail trader, right the moment he has two or three losses, he's fighting another new system. The other side of it. The discretionary rule based trader says, I'm going to make this best. I'm a Wyckoff trader, or I'm a market profile trader, I'm a Dow trader, whatever it might be. I'm going to create a set of rules that are so complicated that I'll never lose money. You end up not having a set of rules. So I think that's the issue for the retail trader when he's told mechanical or discretionary rule based. I think it's much easier for them if you have a simple system to identify the trend because I think that's the core fundamental starting point of any trade. What's the trend of the timeframe you're trading? Have a discretionary rule base because I think the, the human mind can tackle that pretty easily if you give them a set of parameters that's not, that is not rules, that rules. By rules I mean you either take it or you don't. With discretionary rule basis saying I can, I can identify the trend using a judgment. It's a judgment call. Once you've identified the trend, continuation or change, you have a strategy and then the mechanical comes in. So you say, okay, the trend is up. I'm going to be buying dips. These are my three systems of buying dips. I have to execute one of them. If they don't have fall into one of those three systems, I don't have a trade. And I found in my teaching that has made a huge difference to the trader. The ability to separate the discretionary, the trend aspect from the execution phase has made a big difference to their ability to execute consistently. And those that haven't, and not everybody follows it. Those that haven't have gone on to try other systems. And the ones that I have kept in touch, we usually become friends with my group. They, they're still looking, they're still trying to find something that will work for them. But most of those who have kept it separate have actually achieved the. Some of the goals that they've wanted. So I'm very pleased with that aspect of it.

Huh? Yeah, you brought up a couple of really good notions in there as far as, like, keeping things separate and having separate systems. One of the biggest things that I see traders do to themselves, and I mean, early on I did the same thing, is when you're sitting there watching the chart, you know, you might have a strategy that you want to use, but you're seeing all these different moves or patterns or whatever. And so now it's like you're trying to catch everything you see. And. And so, like, you know, when I'm working, when I work with people, I'll say, you know, one of the first things we got to do is send me your system because we're going to. We got to clean it up probably, and I'll have people send me these systems. And it's like, yeah, they're like you said, they've got so much stuff in it. It's just this huge mishmash of stuff. Yeah, no wonder it's hard to trade because you got way too much going on here. And just having things mentally manageable is one of the first key things. So now. Well, as far as far as being able to profit consistently, I mean, since this is the Consistent Profits podcast, I gotta ask, so aside from what do you consider the other keys to, you know, being able to, you know, make consistent profits?

Well, you know, I think it's been. That's been around for a while. You need a set of rules that give, tell you when the probabilities on your side, what I call method. That's your plan. You need money management, which optimizes profitability, minimizes the risk of ruin. And for me, money answers four questions. Percentage of capital to risk per trade, the position size, portfolio risk. How many open positions can you keep at the same time? And the last one I haven't seen around too much. What I call asymmetric, reduced asymmetric risk. Because if you risk 2% of your capital per trade and you then have a series of wins when the winds start to come down, you would have lost the biggest amount to 2% at, say, $10,000 is very different from 2% at $50,000. And you've grown the capital, it's starting to come down, you're risking 2%. So you risk most when you've made most, if I can put it that way. Think about it, and the Reverse is also true. Markets coming down, you risking 2%, you risk 2% at 50,000, you've now down to 25,000. Your 2% at 25,000 is a lot less than it was at 50,000. So I call that asymmetric risk. And you need to reduce that, you need to minimize that effect. And I'll pass it on to your subscribers. The easiest way I've found to do that is to reduce the, to add the loss at twice the speed. So if you going to add your capital, let's say every time I make 20%, I'm going to add it to my capital. Until I do that, I don't add the moment I lose 10%, I subtract it from my capital. Do you follow? So if I've made 10,000, I've gone to 12,000, I'm going to then add, I make every 20% I'm going to add to my capital, I lose 10% from the top, I'm going to reduce my capital. That reduces the impact of asymmetric risk. And that I think is a very important aspect when it comes to trading, especially for retail traders because you know how they are. Once they start to lose money, they start to panic. So those are the four questions for money. And then of course you've got mind the psychology, consistent execution of the rules. And the other thing about psychology is constant and never ending improvement. One of the things I think that's not emphasized enough among traders is the belief that once you've got approach that works, it doesn't have to change. But that's not necessarily true, especially if you're a systematic trader. As you know, for example in we've had volatility in the markets recently has been very different to the volatility of the markets. Say two years ago we had a lot more volatile markets that just gone sideways for the last 12 months or so. So that's the sort of thing that you have to commit yourself to continue to learn about the markets and yourself and money management, those three areas. So that's, that's what I would say.

Yeah, very, very cool. And I like your notion on the asymmetric risk management. That's a really cool thought process you got there. And yeah, at some point I'd like to discuss that further with you because that makes a lot of sense and it's really easy to overlook. Now as far as continuous improvement, it's actually cool that you brought that up. And as far as you know, messing with the system or whatever, because the guy I was talking to he was saying, you know, you know, you know, at what point do I stop messing with my system because we're in the optimization stage right now. I said, well, you'll get it to a certain point and then beyond that you're going to hit some diminishing returns because you trial kinds of stuff and it's just, you know, a lot of it, it's not really going to get you proportionate gains to the investment of time and resources. And so as far as wanting to stay in continuous improvement mode, that's fine. What you need to do though is instead of just looking to modify the strategy, look where else you can maybe, you know, make improvements to your operation.

Absolutely.

That's where, like what you just mentioned there. Yeah, okay. What can I do with my money management? What can I do on the psychology side of things? Maybe what can I do as far as, you know, approaching different market conditions? And so, you know, we started exploring and it's cool that you're mentioning the ones you did because, yeah, there are a lot of opportunities for improvement and growth and development as a trader. And so the traders that look only at messing with their strategy and they ignore everything else, they're missing a lot of good opportunities for improvement in their operation and their future as a trader. So, yeah, cool that you brought that up. And it's really cool you actually make that a point as far as continuous improvement because, yeah, very necessary. It's really easy to kind of get stagnant and then just kind of let things slide and coast for a while. So very cool. Very cool indeed. Well, we've run kind of the full time that I usually plan for this. You got any last words of wisdom for everybody?

Yeah, the only thing I would say is trading is a profession. You spend as much time learning in order to succeed, you need knowledge and execution. So think of a heart surgeon, got to go to university, spend the years and he goes into practice. You're going to come into trading thinking, I'm going to make it overnight. I don't have to spend any money in education, I don't need any capital. Walk away, please walk away. Trading is the hardest profession in the world. On the one hand. On the other side, to me, it's the most rewarding. I'm my total boss. I work the hours I want to work, I use the tools I want to use. I don't have anybody telling me what to do. And the most, the most important part for me is that it's my life that's in my hands. I'm not a doctor who's got the life of another person if I screw up. So that would be my parting advice. Be prepared to work. Be prepared to spend time, effort and money and you will be rewarded.

Good advice. Good advice. Now, well, before we, before we totally close things out, I do want to remind everybody you have a couple of books that you've written. The Nature of Trends and the Ray Wave. Those are both available on Amazon, correct?

Yeah, I don't know about the Ray Wave. I know the Nature of Trend is now an ebook there. They were written some time ago and they were a little bit complicated. It was written, I think Nature of Trends was written 30 years ago and Rayway was not too far behind. People want to get more update. I've got a website, tradingsuccesseducate.com and we produce a weekly news video. Video which basically talks about what the markets are likely to do, what trades I'm seeing. But the one that's more important, I think is the weekly newsletter where I see anything that I see of interest, I put in there. And that would be more keeping up with my train of thought, if I can put it that way, rather than buy the books.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Now, when, as far as the. Your site, I want to make sure that we get this right, because I thought Your site was Tradingsuccess.com.

It is. That's the old one. Let me just make sure that I can access my new one.

Yeah, you said it was Trading Success Educate. Yeah, there we go. Hey, there's you.

Yeah, yeah, there it is. Yep, that's the new one. Training Success Educate. That's the new site.

Okay. And you said it's a weekly publication.

I have, yeah, I've got the weekly. If you just drop me a line, I've got an ebook out that's called a four phase framework. I've tried to keep the prices down as much as possible. The four phase frameworks the same as what I used to do, but I've split into four phases. Basically the Wyckoff approach. Accumulation markdown. Sorry, markup, then distribution markdown. And I found the students find it easier to remember to understand what I've said. So that, that has gotten some good reviews. And if you drop when you buy the book or you. You go in the site, you will get an email invitation to join the. The newsletters.

Okay. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Yeah, the four phase framework. Excellent. Yeah. $27. That's lunch, so sure. Very cool. Well, now I can see Now I have to go get it because I didn't even, I didn't even know I was looking at your old site and didn't even know about this. Very cool ore this, this has been excellent and I'm glad that you're still at it after, even after hitting retirement age. You could have, you know, it's left us all, you know, to fend for ourselves a long time ago. But you' here helping people. So that's very cool.

I've got to thank you guys. It gives me something to do. I couldn't think of what my day would be like if I didn't have this.

Well, again, I'm just thrilled to actually be, you know, having this interview with you. Like I said, we've exchanged emails over the years. I've known you for a long time. People that, people that we've had a shared acquaintance have always spoken very highly of the universe thing and so yeah, I'm just thrilled to have you on here. So can I introduce you to my listeners and yeah, if, I mean if you know Ray, what Ray says resonates with you, definitely swing by his site. I'll make sure to have his link and you know, so there ways to reach him. Now while we're at it, as far as your other contact information, you got a YouTube channel, correct?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay. So yeah, on YouTube or swing by a site, either one. Good places to get hold of Ray. And again Ray, thank you for being here tonight, man.

Well, thank you. I've really enjoyed it. Brian, thank you very much indeed. Take it easy bud.

And everybody make sure that you do. You know, if you enjoyed this tonight, go ahead and subscribe to the Consistent Profits podcast and we'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.

Bye bye.

Thank you for joining us today on the Consistent Profits podcast. Brian brought to you by Inside Out Trading. Make sure to swing by Inside Out Trading and pick up your copy of the proven formula for consistent monthly profits. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to subscribe on your favorite channel and we'll see you on the next episode.

Cheers on Sideways for the last 12 months or so. So that, that's the sort of thing that you, you have to commit yourself to continue to learn about the markets and yourself and money management, those three areas. So that, that, that's, that's what I would say.

Yeah, yeah, very, very cool. And I like your notion on the asymmetric risk management. That's a really cool thought process you got there. And yeah, at some point I'd like to discuss that Further with you because that makes a lot of sense and it's really easy to overlook. Now, as far as the continuous improvement, it's actually cool that you brought that up. And as far as messing with the system or whatever, because the guy was talking to, he was saying, at what point do I stop messing with my system because we're in the optimization stage right now. I said, well, you'll get it to a certain point and then beyond that you're going to hit some diminishing returns because you try all kinds of stuff and it's just a lot of it. It's not really going to get your proportionate gains to the investment of time and resources. And so as far as wanting to stay in continuous improvement mode, that's fine. What you need to do though, is instead of just looking to modify the strategy, look where else you can maybe, you know, make improvements to your operation.

Absolutely.

That's where. Like what you just mentioned there. Yeah, okay. What can I do with my money management? What can I do on the psychology side of things? Maybe what can I do as far as, you know, approaching different market conditions? And so, you know, we started exploring and it's cool that you're mentioning the ones you did because, yeah, there are a lot of opportunities for improvement and growth and development as a trader. And so the traders did look only at messing with their strategy and they ignore everything else. They're missing a lot of good opportunities for improvement in their operation and their future as a trader. So, yeah, cool that you brought that up. And it's really cool you actually make that a point as far as continuous improvement, because, yeah, very necessary. It's really easy to kind of get stagnant and then just kind of let things slide and coast for a while. So very cool. Very cool indeed. Well, we've run kind of the full time that I usually plan for this. You got any last words of wisdom for everybody?

Yeah. The only thing I would say is trading is a profession. You spend as much time learning. In order to succeed, you need knowledge and execution. So think of a heart surgeon, got to go to university, spend the years and he goes into practice. You're going to come into trading thinking, I'm going to make it overnight. I don't have to spend any money in education, I don't need any capital. Walk away, please, walk away. Trading is the hardest profession in the world on the one hand. On the other side, to me, it's the most rewarding. I'm my total boss. I work the hours I want to work I use the tools I want to use. I don't have anybody telling me what to do.