Hey,
Today we’re diving deep with Paul Asmar, a man who’s had a legendary trading career!
Starting out obtaining an assistant position thanks to his sister in law, he worked his way up over 8 years to become a “floor specialist” in 1983.
As a specialist it was his job to deal with major institutions like Goldman Sachs and provide them liquidity to faciliate their trades.
This was back in the day when public liquidity was very very low – unlike how it is now.
If you wanted to trade any of the handful of stocks Paul managed, your broker would have to ask him for a price. 😮
He was like a train conductor, with the institutions being the trains.
What’s most fascinating is that Paul made the switch from being a market maker arbing 1/4 dollar spreads on stocks (big money)…
To now running his own all-day trade room and scalping using the market profile.
Watch the New Episode of the Speculators Podcast With Paul Asmar Now
In our talk on the Speculators Podcast we had quite the meaty discussion… there was almost too much to highlight:
- The “tip-off” that made him quit as a specialist in 2007
- Relaxing in Italy during the 2008 crash
- Coming back into retail trading in 2010 and losing money
- Getting trading education in 2011
- Who taught him how to use market profile (his mentor used it since 1997)
- How he got proficient in only one year
- 2012-2023 trading with market profile successfully
- Starting his trade room
- How many times Paul trades per day
- Origin of Camelback Trading 😂
- Morning Routine
- Transitioning from ETFs like SPY to Futures like the ES
- Importance of pre market prep
- Why short term trades are best on indicies
- Beliefs about intraday trading as an artform (painting the canvas)
- How markets are more manipulated by governments than they’ve ever been
- Why now is a great time to learn to trade
- Algos are impossible to beat on speed but the best trade entries are slow!
- Taking responsibility for your results
- Thoughts on social media’s effects on young traders
- What Paul thinks most new traders really want and why they get scammed easily by fake gurus
- How to balance between mechanical execution and discretion on entries
- Increasing the statistical probabilities of profitable entries
- Market profile vs volume profile differences
- How to scale into a position when the market shows signs of exhaustion
- The three things you need for any trade entry
- Number of products to master
- Reload your “mental reserve” by following this process
- Thinking of your trading as a business
- How long to wait before reentering if stopped out
- What really builds confidence in a trader
I really enjoyed this podcast… Paul dropped a lot gems in there.
Enjoy the show, and Happy Trading,
Korbs.
