| "All my accomplishments are dedicated to my family! " |
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Here is how Floyd got started...
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Before making the transition into his
own business, Floyd was a part of big corporate America. He held a
number of engineering positions in the semiconductor industry for
ten years upon his graduation from college. He spent three years
with Intel Corporation in New Mexico in the eighties, and then
spent the next seven years working for Motorola. Although he
thoroughly enjoyed his time with such prestigious fortune 500
companies as Intel and Motorola, he wanted to achieve a greater
level of success in his life. Most importantly, he wanted to be
free to pursue his own interests. He has never been one that just
wanted to sit around. He always kept very busy, and he enjoys being
busy! However, he wanted to be busy doing what he wanted to do,
and not what he had to do to please his boss. He always knew that
he wanted to start his own business, but never knew what that would be.
He knew it had to involve technology because that was one of his
passions. It wasn't until he discovered his passion for trading and
for the markets that he knew beyond a doubt what he wanted to pursue.
Nothing really excited him more than the markets and the study of
the markets. Here was his opportunity to combine technology and his
ambition to run his own business. Part of his passion has been to
figure out how things work. As a child, he didn't play with his toys;
he spent his time disassembling them to see how they worked. This
eventually led to a degree in electronic engineering. Finally, this
curiosity led to the discovery of the markets, one of the biggest
mysteries he has ever encountered. He decided trading and professionally
assisting others with trading & tracking futures would be his business
and way of life.
He spent a great deal of his spare time and money researching the investment world while working as an engineer. His dream was always to be self-sufficient. He never wanted to rely on anyone for his financial well being. His greatest desire was to be financially independent. Unfortunately, he discovered this was not a possibility by simply working for someone else. Even though he had a very good salary, saved over 20% of his yearly pay, he could not get where he wanted to be for at least another 15 - 20 years. He needed a business. He knew there was an enormous amount of money in the investment world. He had already started trading stocks and had experienced some success at it. He knew others were making money as well. Stocks were slow however. He did not want to wait ten years for a stock to go up or recover, and he did not have the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed for adequate leverage. He found out it was a slow process. Next, he investigated stock options. He found stock options certainly had the ability to multiply his money several times in a very short period, but here again; he made some money and lost money. There was no consistency to it. He had no system and relied on information from the media, newspapers, friends, and gut instinct. All of these sources proved to be inconsistent and unreliable. He needed an approach and a system. Finally, he decided to try commodities. He really knew nothing about commodities when he made his first trade. He read enough about commodities to understand how they worked, but he did not yet know how to trade them. He started out like everyone else, reading the Wall Street journal religiously and buying Barron’s every weekend. He spent hours looking at charts and reading books. Soon, he found that he ended up with the same scenario. He made some money and lost some money. It was then that he made one of the worst mistakes of his trading career. He decided to let a so-called expert show him how to trade. A broker. The broker did worse than he did. He lost his profits, and nearly lost all of his investment money with the broker in charge. Discouraged, he considered doing what most people do, give up. Somehow though, he found himself unable to quit. He believed he could make money at it, but he was finding that like everything else in life, he had to be patient and wait for the right opportunities. He learned that he could not trade just because he needed the money. The markets weren't going to yield opportunities every time he needed money. Therefore, he had to make sure he had other ways to ensure adequate money for his day-to-day living expenses, while he researched the markets, and waited for the real opportunities. When the opportunity presented itself, he learned to pounce and he quickly made money at it. However, here too, he learned something. He learned that even the best looking opportunities do not always yield a profitable result. Thus, he learned that he had to combine risk containment with his patience. Over and over again he found that if he waited and was cautious, he was able to make money. If he wasn't patient, or if he was reckless, he almost always lost money. There was a pattern developing here. There were opportunities to make money, but they did not happen every day, and they were not easy to identify. Thus, he had to build a complete system for tracking and identifying these opportunities. By this time he had already spent a small fortune on different software packages, systems, programs and data providers. None of them provided him with consistent results or the clarity he was seeking. He figured if he was going to do this right, he had to get all the data and build his own system completely from scratch, based on what he found to work. He began the long process of filling up his computer hard drives with all the commodity price data he could get. He got historical daily data, and Intra-day tick data spanning decades of time. Using his knowledge in statistics and engineering background combined with his programming skills, he designed his own trading system based on repeating patterns and conditions characteristic to individual commodities. What he found from computer back testing was amazing. There is an underlying order in the commodity markets not found in the historic price movements of individual stocks. In his research he discovered specific patterns in commodity prices unique to each market. He found that these patterns are highly correlated to the positions held by the participants in the commodity markets. Using the Commitment of Traders data supplied by the U.S. government, he was able to separate the open interest for each commodity into three distinct groups. While everyone else has been looking at prices or price structures for core indicators (there are tens of thousands of indicators derived from old prices), he developed his own proprietary trading & tracking system using the data from the three unique groups of traders tracked by the U.S. government. This finally led to an entire proprietary trading system, complete with unique indicators, derived from the Commitment of Traders data, and further supplemented with traditional but proprietary, price indicators. There is no other system like this in the world. Floyd developed everything from the indicators to the charts themselves. Finally, with this software and trading system, and the knowledge he obtained from all his hard work, he decided a career change was in order. He was able to quit his corporate job for good. He now spends his time doing what he loves, trading, tracking and studying the markets! Floyd found out early in his trading career that the commercially available charting software and price tracking systems were not versatile nor complex enough to do the kind of statistical studies on fundamental data and comparison correlation's that he needed to do in order to gain a unique perspective into the market. Using the same software, methods and indicators everyone else was using, basically provided him with the same results as everyone else. After reviewing everything on the market, he decided to create his own software package for tracking everything from prices, roll dates and trends, to sophisticated correlation studies, inter-market relationships, mean regression analysis and much more! Traders often look at the market as a thing, "the market". The market is really the result of all the participants, and the actions of each. Much of this is not common knowledge however, and is certainly NOT part of all common trading systems. To achieve success on a consistent basis in this field, one must step outside the realm of common knowledge (what everyone already knows and may already be doing in the market) and tackle the market like a problem needing solved, using the tools necessary to explore and solve the problem at hand. Solving the challenging problem the market provides is not an easy task and never will be because the heart of the matter is wrapped around the complexities of human emotion. The driving force of the market is in fact, irrational behavior. The markets do not behave rationally, because people under pressure do not behave rationally. However, there are certain traits, habits and behaviors that all people possess, and under certain conditions, all people will react the same way! This is part of our overall analysis of the markets, and something we discuss regularly in our reports. In addition, there are certain patterns in the market that will signal when crowd behavior is extreme or overwhelmingly one-sided. This is something we track and measure. Make no mistake about it, tackling the challenges the markets provide is a very complicated and complex endeavor. Those that try to make it sound simple probably do not seriously attempt to solve these complexities. Our trading systems deal with these issues and include well defined position management rules and principles along with risk containment procedures, so that we are able to avoid the pitfalls of our own weaknesses as much as is 'humanly' possible! Traditional indicators, mainstream software packages are common knowledge in this business. Everyone starts out using these tools. However, only a few eventually become successful on a consistent basis. I have found that everyone I've ever met that is consistently successful in this business, all have one thing in common. That is, they do not conform or follow the traditional way of thinking. Many people initially fall for the idea that this business can be learned very easily using traditional commonplace books, tapes, seminars, and software. That is not the case. This is not a normal business that simply requires following a book of instructions to succeed. Commodity trading is a zero sum business. That means each time we make money on a trade, somewhere someone has lost money taking the other side of that position. We know that based on the facts, roughly 80% of small speculators lose money trading futures. All small speculators typically use the same software packages, same indicators, and they all make the same mistakes, over and over again. Thus, the average trading life of a smaller speculator is about a year. New ones are coming in, as old ones give up and quit. If you want to step outside of the mean, you have to be willing and able to look at the market differently, in a unique fashion, outside the mainstream way of thinking. Nothing about what Floyd has done has ever been easy. First of all, it is not easy breaking free from the corporate world to venture out on your own. You must be prepared, financially prepared and psychologically prepared. He also recommends having several potential sources for generating cash flow. There is no law that says you can have only one business. He has found that there are many ways to make money, of which trading is only one of them. Furthermore, you can trade stocks, commodities, bonds, options, all of which he trades himself. In addition, you can invest in real estate as well as other investments. He decided early on that it would be wise not to place all of his eggs into one basket. Trading will always have its ups and downs. That's just how the markets are. You need to be financially prepared for that. Few mention this, but its true. If you plan to rely 100% on trading, which Floyd does not, then you better have enough money saved up to pay for all your expenses in the case you have a down year. Floyd became a CTA to help others learn what he has learned about the markets through his research and hard work. Assisting others inherently keeps him more focused on the markets and his system, while generating additional cash flow in exchange for his contribution. While not for everyone, Floyd likes working with people, and he has found that trading can be lonely, especially if you come from corporate America. This job fit perfectly with what he loves to do. As you can imagine, when Floyd left the corporate world to go out on his own, there were many unknowns. He left with one goal in mind, to pursue his dreams and to live his life his way. He didn't want to work for anyone else. Once on his own, he had the time to pursue his stock investments, futures trading, real estate investing, as well as the time to build his proprietary trading systems and software. Floyd was never willing to give up on his dream. You shouldn't either. Whatever your dream, only you can make it happen. Be smart about it however. Never put all your eggs in one basket. During his years as an "employee", he got to know many people who were unhappy in their careers or jobs, but did not know how to break free, or were to afraid to do it. You need to have a plan if you are going to strike out on your own. Futures’ trading was Floyd’s plan. His system gave him the confidence to leave the corporate world behind. Later he was able to contribute his trading experience and software to help others learn as well. Even with a plan, it takes guts to leave the security of corporate America to try something completely on your own. Futures traders are entrepreneurs in Floyd’s opinion, and both major risk takers. Floyd certainly falls into that category, as leaving a comfortable 6-digit yearly income for the unknown was risky. He believes you must be willing to take calculated risks in life in order to achieve and to obtain your dreams. You also must dream and believe in yourself.
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| Important! |
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NO
TRADING SYSTEM CAN GUARANTEE PROFITS No guarantees can be made for success. Past performance is not a guarantee of future profits. Futures trading is NOT our only means of income. We also invest in stocks, real estate as well as generate income from other businesses. We have both winning trades and losing trades. We trade professionally, but not daily. We wait for what we believe to be ideal trading opportunities.  |
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Try it for free! 
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"I can't imagine trading commodities without this data!
This is the missing link" J.T., private trader "I don't know how you can make it (IMPA system) any better... This is the BEST system I have ever seen. " R.K. Part-time futures trader "Dear Floyd, Well I have read the manual and studied lots & lots of charts... all I can say is wow - I finally found it - !!! THE SYSTEM (the only system) ... Finally FA & TA in one package! Thanks, Subscribing for life now please...from way down under"
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