Charles Holt   
Real-time Signals
S&P 500 Trader

Biography - Charles Holt, CTA

"My exposure to commodities trading began at a tender age by learning about hedging orange juice futures for the family citrus groves. I made my first trade buying oil stocks at age 20 while still in college. I held these stocks about a month and made about 15% on my equity ... I was hooked.

After I attended graduate school at California Institute of Technology, I worked for Financial Computer Services as an analyst. While there, I gained after-hours access to the mainframe computer for testing different trend following and cycle timing systems for trading commodities.

My first six months of trading market swings yielded an 85% return with only a 3% maximum drawdown. This was in the days of the mailed weekly chart books where traders hand-marked the daily bars and calculated moving averages and oscillators by hand. Electronic calculators had just made their debut at around $500.

I went on to trade numerous physical commodities before being in a six-day, lock-limit move against my position. It was this traumatic experience that ultimately brought me to daytrading in the mid '80s.

Since this time, I have focused my trading on a short-term time frame, using real-time datafeeds and trading the liquid financial futures. After several false starts, I began making profitable trades consistently, initially in the currency and interest rate markets.

When index futures started being traded, I knew I had found the ideal daytrading vehicle for me. Since the late '80s price action and volatility has changed dramatically and the trader needs to change with the markets. Here at Daytrader's Bulletin, we constantly test new ideas and occasionally add a new technique to our tool box.

Charles Holt, CTA, S&P 500 Daytrader
Publisher, Daytrader's Bulletin