Dear Traders, family members and friends

PitBull Wizard Basics is an enlightening little read loaded with beginning steps to make your new trading experience positive and, hopefully—more profitable. These lessons are lessons I wish someone had taught me when I first started trading. One of the most important things that I learned back in the mid-1990s, when I started trading seriously, was what an advantage having a mentor to ask questions of or an easy reference guide to use for everyday questions. Yes, there are hundreds of books out there that talk about trading and many are condensed versions to cut corners. This guide is different from all of those, but I recommend you reading as much as possible while you are trading. These information I am about to impart to you are lessons I learned when I was a beginner trader. I learned these on trial and error. When one makes an error as a trader—and you will—you lose your money. What I have compiled here is a guide that I hope will limit some beginner errors and keep your cash inside your trading accounts, where it belongs. My objective is to provide advocacy and good advice to novice traders, derived from the accumulation of my personal and professional trading experiences that span the past twenty-five years.

As a seasoned, battle-tested, scared, and profitable trader I’ve had the opportunity and privilege to know, interact, and learn from traders with vast degrees of experience and knowledge. I have learned so much from listening, asking questions, and sharing my knowledge in an effort to become even more profitable and now, to help mentor others who are interested in our art and to dispel myths about “day traders” or trading the markets.

My background is not finance or trading, it’s healthcare. For twenty years I was a medical consultant for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. My background is solving various medical disease problems. I like to help people and to see people smile and flourish. Obviously working for such a large corporation and dealing with the lives of their customers for so many years comes with a great capacity for responsibility and requires technical skills, analytics, and problem solving abilities. During my college years, when I was a marketing and management student, I found myself drawn to this thing we call—the market. I worked ninety hours a week during college to help pay the bills, but always found that I needed just a little extra money so I had to find away to earn extra income. Back in the 1980s there was no internet for charting and broker fees were sky high so that was out of the question for me. I wound up heading to the library to research using “Value Line”—looking at a chart that was four months old! Now we can chart in real time!

Welcome to the world of trading. Whether it’s stock, futures, or currency—it is all trading. This short read will help you with the basics, getting your footing in the markets. and prepare you for the next stage of trading. Like everything else, without a great foundation, your journey would be exhausting and painful. Enjoy!