 Hi, my name's Leon Rowe, currency trader and trading coach at trading180.com and welcome to this interview with a Trading180 member by the name of Justin and Justin has agreed to actually reached out and said to me that he would be willing to do an interview privately because of the level of service I guess and do a testimonial because of the results he's been getting from Trading180 and the way that we've, you know, I've turned around his trading and he sent me a really, really nice message and I thank you for that Justin as well. Much appreciate him for doing this interview. No problem, thank you. Yeah, thanks. So again, just to get started I guess, tell us and anyone who's listening what your background is with regards to how you got into trading? I first started trading, I started doing stock options back in like 2008 and I learned a couple of companies really, really well and I wanted to do more of it but life kind of happened and I set it aside for a few years and so I think fast forward to like 2015, 2016, I wanted to get back into trading stocks and I started budding up against the pattern day trading rules in the States and so I had heard about Forex and I realized like I can trade that all day long without having to deal with the same constraints, you get similar leverage and so that started appealing to me and I had, I I guess you know the worst thing that can happen to you when you start trading is that you don't know what you're doing and it works. Yep, been there. So I had the curse of having some amazing early successes and thinking that I was smart and then the market took all that back and so you know it's been a it's been a journey of working through psychology, I've tried algorithmic trading, I've tried a lot of different things and they all worked well for a few months and then they would blow up and so. Okay, why do you think they would blow up was I guess on maybe on hindsight so do you think it was the system or what you were trading the strategy or do you think it was more you? I think that a combination of I didn't respect and understand risk management that well. Okay. Combined with I was trading lots of great technical strategies with no context or understanding of what the market environment really was. It was just sitting in front of a chart and you know MACDs and RSI's and these setups and all those things and you just kind of throw that stuff together or you look at momentum indicators and this and that and it's all great but if you don't understand what makes this thing go up and what makes this thing go down fundamentally so I got into doing currency strength meters on larger time frames and then that was cool but it got a little frustrating because by the time you see the setup the move had already happened. Absolutely. And so I was like well this isn't any good so I started figuring I'm like somebody understands this and understands what fundamentals are and if I can just find something to show me like how to study this stuff and put it in the context I should be able to marry these two together and and crack the code on this thing and so I found Trading 180 on YouTube because you're one of like two people that actually talk about fundamental analysis and so I would watch your weekly YouTube videos and started learning lots of stuff from there. Okay brilliant yeah lots of unpack there so similar to many people including myself right we get into the you know the trading by different ways we all come in to make money and as you say one of the worst things you can do is trade not knowing what you're doing and actually make money but you don't realize that you don't know what you're doing right you just start making money and then all of a sudden yeah you just think you know this is easy and I thought I was a genius it was great absolutely absolutely I've been there me and it was interesting as you said and again you kind of arrived to the same conclusion as me with regards to you know you buy different technical strategies and you trade certain ways and you know and giving the market context the context being you know fundamental analysis right which was which was which was really interesting so when it came to fundamental analysis and you were saying that there was you just felt that there was something more there had to be a bit of context to to trading which I always believe as well right there's something beyond the chart yes we can see with our own eyes what candlesticks are doing but also there's a certain I can't remember what it's called but there's a certain bias I guess I wouldn't call it a bias but there's like a perspective where we can both look at the same chart yeah but see different things right yeah it's it's like a human psychological thing and you know someone could say that that's an uptrend someone could say that's moving sideways that you know someone could even make an argument for something moving downwards so context is is everything and there are things there are forces and elements the macros moving price I guess you know moving price you know beyond what we can see so fundamental analysis you said I was one of the only two people that you know that you saw that was really kind of covering fundamental analysis I'm sure there's obviously more maybe just know that maybe the people that you would maybe looked for but what was it about maybe what I was saying that that that kind of resonated with you for me it was that you never gave a trade idea you you only focused on understanding gdp interest rates central bank monetary policy and I think I watched a video where you'd followed the euro for like a whole year yeah and you showed yeah I traded the euro those are those are proper that was a that was a trade idea I had for like two years straight in the euro euro dollar so once I saw that I was like this is the context that I'm looking for and if you can predictably understand this landscape and and then go at your trading ideas from that understanding the the quality because I guess for me it became like you know it's very easy to make money when you get the context right it's very easy to lose just as much money if you don't understand the context at all and so you know when you've gotten gotten burned on a couple economic news releases where you think something is positive and then you watch your trade go against you I was always left with saying like what just happened yeah you know yeah uh and so when I started doing trading 180 it was it was probably because I joined I want to say in June July of last year probably July yeah and so I spent probably the first six or seven months unlearning six or seven years of psychology and bad habits and all that stuff like I understood what you were teaching I learned the fundamentals but I had to unlearn the habits of like I need to be right there for the newsman and I got to get this opportunity and just that compulsion to get in because the market's moving and I had to learn patience and the discipline to like wait for the setup absolutely yeah so now it's it's a lot more comfortable to understand like hey you know because I take what you teach and I think I even refine my stuff down a little bit more yeah so I don't take a lot of the trades but the ones I do take I have extremely high you know analysis understanding you know justification reason and expectation that in the medium term this thing is it's going to move in this direction and so I give myself a few more pips on the stop bosses and I sleep well at night you know holding trades yeah and that's a brilliant that's a brilliant you know point and brilliant points that you that you make right um you know with regards to just things like risk management stop losses technical analysis side of things but what helps with that is understanding what's you know likely to happen in the medium to long term right and you've been with me for for a little bit how long have you been with me for so it's it's pushing nine months now pushing nine months in the beginning probably there was maybe a bit of a learning curve right absolutely I was completely confused because I'm an over achiever and so once you start introducing fundamental analysis on all these things I I went crazy right so I'm going to central banks and I'm reading all these articles and I'm looking at all this stuff and what about retail sales and what about you know CPI and you know what are all these different things and it was a lot and then the more that I kept jumping on the mentorship calls and looking at the videos and and being in it you always kind of brought us back to it's just about the impact on GDP interest rates um and inflation and so it was like okay let me stop worrying about all the other stuff yeah let me just focus on this and then you know now I go into reading each article with an intention to find how is it impact one of these three measures and I don't worry about all the rest of that stuff yeah um so it's like do I have a general hunch and the idea of what's going on does the data support the narrative or to what extent is there a divergence between what the data shows and what the narrative is and once everything kind of lines up it's go time you know that's it and um we've been in that nine months obviously you've seen a massive you know massive improvement with even just with regards to seeing how the fundamentals play out over time yeah and you know you've you've gotten better at reading the fundamentals again it was a bit of a learning curve but once you started to get to grips with it and seeing how the fundamentals play out and how you know you can pick the the best or the pairs that are likely to trend right in in certain directions etc um how was how was that being for you seeing you know the fundamentals play out and the risk sentiment play out in real time uh it's been it's been magical for me because it the one thing that I was missing was a logical framework and perspective to evaluate what's in front of me yeah right and as you do more of it you build more confidence and a better understanding of how all this plays in and so you know with time and and you as you you know I guess I went in the beginning of following everybody's ideas to then kind of doing them in parallel and now I do my own analysis and then I check what I came up with against you know what what the other guys in the group are doing and so once I started seeing that I'm looking at the same stuff everybody else is looking at and I'm seeing it the right way you know different different kind of taken perspective but we're all generally tracking in the same direction I was like okay yeah I can do this absolutely Justin and and and that's ultimately I think maybe I've said this to you and I've said this many times in the group right is that we're not this is not a signal service this is not something where I'm calling trades I'm you know teaching I'm trying to teach traders how to fish right if you catch somebody fish you know they eat for a day teach someone to fish you can eat for a lifetime right if I suddenly was to you know just say I wanted to stop trading 180 or you know god forbid something happened to me where I couldn't be around to run trading 180 anymore you could then go away and still you know trade and catch fish for yourself right right I know how to go out and and get articles and develop my own trade ideas is and document you know why and all that kind of stuff and so yeah it's it's nice to be able to feel like I could explain why I'm doing this to a professional at a big bank and they would give me a thumbs up yeah that's a that is a great statement and you're at your 100% right your 100% right about that you know we we we look at and it sounds simplistic I mean the way that we you know you think just GDP interest rates and inflation and is that all is that all it is obviously there there are complexities to it and the relationship between you know the three as well as and the impact obviously of monetary policy but ultimately things just we never confuse simple with easy right chess is a simple game to learn doesn't mean it's it's easy there's gotta be some you know I mean there's gotta be some work that goes into it any high level skill and trading is is one of the highest levels you know things that you could possibly do in life we don't really you know take we take that for granted when you think about it we're up against the masters of the universe you know people who've got you've got you know billions of managing billions etc but we're still riding on the coattails right of those guys because it's not like we're smarter than them or anything like that we just now know what they're looking for and understand you know where prices are likely to go in the medium to long term because short term generally as you know it's generally to do with liquidity you know market makers providing liquidity etc you know auctioning but we have a high degree of accuracy when it comes to understanding what should happen in the medium to long term so right so what maybe was one of like a light bold moment do you have like a light bold moment or an aha moment where you it just you know or maybe many for example because sometimes you have I had multiple right when I was being mentored by you know Mark Chapman I had so many but maybe just go into maybe one where you had like a kind of like an aha moment a light bold moment where things just really kind of became a bit clearer for you. I want to say it was on the stop hunt of teachings okay where you talked about the order flow equation yes right and the the different types of traders there are and how they how they look at stuff and place their stops and how that becomes slaughter for liquidity to help move you know markets in different ways and so as I was going through that it hurt and I was happy because I have been all of those things you know before now and I was like oh man you know and so it's just realizing like this this is me crossing over to the other side where a better perspective and some patience will allow me to not get caught in these uncomfortable things yeah I I have experienced CPR as that trader many times. Me too and it's funny right because you kind of have to go through that to really understand the other side you know I've mentored traders who I've said you know you have to have kind of like a year to two years experience before you join me and they've kind of crept in you know as brand new traders and trying to teach a concept like capture pain relief to those traders who haven't really been the breakout trader or the retracement trader in certain circumstances and understood you know the FOMO and loss aversion bias is very difficult for them to understand because you it's almost like you have to go through it to then it for it to really sink in right yeah I uh in January of 2020 yeah I was long I think on the Australian dollar okay and at the end of January COVID happened and I had no idea about risk events and how that could shift markets massively I didn't I didn't know any of those things and I blew probably 60% of my account in three days yeah like 22 you know so when you talk like loss aversion bias and all the rest of it like I was I was in it and so you know that I you know those types of things like oh this is being discussed you know and I start planning like okay you know these trades might might have something go on with them so let's let's move stop losses and let's you know take that in just I think learning how to not lose money has been more valuable and probably one of the biggest things that I I get most excited about with understanding fundamentals is I know when to stay away and I know when to get out a lot better than I ever did before yeah and and we all lose traits right losing is and and I guess maybe even the word losing has negative I guess connotations around it right you know losing you're a loser and it's not that it's just it's just a cost of doing business right but you know in in in its simple forms when when we win we win big right and when we lose we lose small and as long as you know you're on every trade on every trade you try to maximize your risk reward you'll be fine in the long run and what's fundamentals and the sentiment doesn't understand in that is it helps us with that dynamic right right you know it really does so understanding fundamentals and I guess some of the strategies and all the strategies that we trade from daily supply and demand zones to stop plants to CPR and you know you're fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to you know to to understand I guess and learn Mark Chapman who's my mentor as well and good friend his market maker business model I don't like even calling it a strategy because as you know it's not a strategy to say it's a strategy is like it's just it's actually disrespectful I think you know I mean it's the business model right of what what actually happens so understanding what I've provided at on top of that that the highest of high level you know market maker business model would you say that there is anything really else to learn about the markets no I think you know the fundamental analysis allows me to understand directionally where we're going in the medium to long term and the market maker business model fills in everything that's happening tactically like right now yeah and so being able to evaluate from the large picture all the way down to what's the plan for next week at this point it's just gaining more knowledge refining the skill set to be able to do a good evaluation manager risk and it's just now it's just executing a solid process for how you look at markets yeah and and this comes into I guess mastery right from this is where because at some point you have to I guess stop trying to and this doesn't go to necessarily you but anybody who's who's listening because as traders and you've been here as well I guess is we end up chasing our tails when it comes to strategies yeah right we always try and go for the shiny new toy the thing that's promising to make us you know a million pound in you know the next two weeks etc and as soon as we kind of accept you know we have a couple of maybe losses we kind of move on to something or we try to refine this and refine that and add this to this strategy and take it away and try to make it better and better but and that's a natural and normal thing but at some point there comes mastery right and mastery is really understanding and following a process and then getting feedback on that right and then repeating that so you get the process you do the process you get the outcome was it a desired outcome yes or no if it wasn't it whether it was or it wasn't did I follow the process yes okay brilliant I'll just keep doing that if I didn't follow the process that came outside of that process then you get the feedback from for example me or you get it from mark and then you just refine and then you master and then you refine and then you master and that's how mastery comes and it's it's been interesting because I I also realized that I had to learn how to become a good student again yeah and accepting critical feedback on your ideas is also a skill right to to say hey you know it might be harsh but they're trying to make me better yeah and you know it's good that I'm hearing that I'm wrong and being shared with like here's here's the correct way to look at this before you go out and you know lose a bunch of money and learn it the hard way yeah absolutely yes that is a fantastic point a really really good point you we have to learn to be students we have to because it took me I think about maybe about a year and a half two years before I really said to myself I should prove about a year before I said to myself all right I'm really going to listen to mark right do you know I mean because I was still mixing the max matching strategies I was still trying to refine what mark was saying to me when I was learning by adding all these different indicators and it was just again it's a natural inclination and as you say you have to actually part of being I guess I guess overcoming certain psychological barriers and things like that and trading barriers is actually as you say learning to become a good student taking that feedback that criticism and not taking it personally just knowing that the person who's you know if you do have a genuine mentor who wants the best for you you know is to actually just trust in that process trust in what they're saying following the process and seeing how it works because it's either it's either the strategy doesn't work or you're not training your property right and we need to find out who it is is it the strategy or is it you I have a note in my office that says you know your your mentors have already made those mistakes so don't recreate the wheel oh brilliant right they've they've whatever I'm thinking of they've probably already tried it and determined exactly don't get cute just you know trust that like you know if it if it had value they would leave an opening for that to be a part of the strategy they teach but absolutely absolutely that's another brilliant point Justin I tried to explain that to new traders and who come into the group all the time because we get that you know you see that in the group sometimes where traders will say well what about this and what about that and it's like well I've been there you know I mean I've been there you know just focus on this I tried to get everyone to kind of focus you know the ones that aren't too focused or the ones that are genuinely new and trying to learn right I say just focus on this don't worry about that just eliminate noise whatever you think you may know about fundamentals trust me I've done it I've looked at it this is good ease yep but it's a it's a it's a great great point that you make so let's get into some trading matter of fact and you know I think I you know before the podcast we were talking about you know maybe your last couple of trades maybe that you've taken that you'd want to share and really kind of just break down you know maybe the trade idea first and then maybe like the technicals so the trade idea being why you decided to get long or short on on that currency pair and then we can go into a bit about you know the technical strategy maybe the level the entry the risk reward etc so you we were talking about the the the dully the kind of get it out now the dollar yen right yes and was was was a trade that you took um and you said it was on the it was on the 20th of February I think February yeah February the 22nd I think it was you said something somewhere yeah yeah so um so so fundamentally what what why did you choose the dollar the dollar yen what was it about the dollar yen so fundamentally the bank of japan has no interest at all in raising interest rates anytime in the near future I knew that there was at that time there was a lot of escalating discussion around Russian Ukraine and so the inevitability of a risk event would would prevail or come about and if it did that would also work in favor of the trade the market's expectations for the U.S. with inflation I think at that time was seven percent yeah and GDP was much higher than the two percent target and so the the expectation was that we would be working towards inflation sorry you said you said you mean inflation was higher than the two percent target uh GDP was higher and inflation was at seven oh yeah yeah that's it yeah cool yeah and so um we were expecting a 25 basis point hike with the talk of possibly even higher and so that divergence fundamentally was sufficient for me to to say that I wanted to get in long and so I had started marking off um demand zones and right around the end of February it had pulled back into that demand zone and the the technical entries that you kind of teach us in the strategy all kind of came together and so I took a long position and held on to it and it has worked out really really well brilliant what what was the risk award on on this trade that you took though I got out at around five to one risk reward brilliant um psychology is one of those things I'm still working on is is becoming comfortable holding trades for much longer periods of time so uh you know I'm I'm still getting there um and that's that's one of the things I'm improving this year yeah I mean that's that's a work in progress right and um again I always kind of I guess recommend I guess uh that traders maybe just leave a small position open right just in case just in case it does run like this right and um with the with the dollar yen and I know you you probably watch my uh my weekly videos where we talk about we go over bank the bank analysis right we look at you know certain forecasts from ING from MUFG and from um ANZ bank for example right and a lot of the banks that we were looking at in the analysis was predicting I think like a 117, 118 right they were looking at prices around here when you know when when prices when you were getting in around here right but just I guess holding trades is something that fundamentals can help you with and the fact that you held for a five to one is an achievement in itself because there's lots of traders that would have taken profit way before that you know they would have snatched the profits so because you know depending on if they've lost you know maybe a couple of previous trades or you know what I mean it's just a maybe a fear of the you know prices going against you where you know you could have taken a three to one and all of a sudden it pulls back and now you're back at a one to one are you you know you're you're thinking to yourself well I've lost I've lost some money do you know what I mean or not on the unrealized profit but right but but great trading regardless right great trading regardless you've got the direction correct that is what you know we we ultimately is what matters and the fact that you put together a coherent plan right a coherent plan and understanding what is likely to happen as we know is probably probabilities no one can predict the future but if your plan does work out potentially if you would have held on this could have been you know a maybe a 10 to one a 15 to one a 20 to one fact rate and you will get them Justin I'm looking forward to that you will you will you definitely will um so you also were talking about the is it the CAD CAD yen uh yeah I I think I'm actually looking for an entry on that one okay um now yeah me too me too it's it's just it just keeps going higher and higher right um but as far as the actual trade I think you were talking about it was somewhere around here because January you took that trade in the January the January yep came back into that demand zone to talk us through you know the um I mean we all really kind of know about you know the Japanese yen I guess um and and the Bank of Japan and how pretty much lagging behind they are when it comes to things like you know interest rates um and even the inflation um and and GDP right but talk about you know Canada and why you decided to buy the Canadian dollar I want to say that Canada had been getting some stronger economic reports and we're moving towards doing a 25 basis point hike um coming up I think at the end of January beginning of February yeah they were yeah um and so with with Canada's economy getting strong um and and oil performing well um which is a big the commodity that that the Canadian dollars tied to a lot of things just looked really well when paired with the Japanese yen and so once it kind of comes back into that demand zone um I started looking for some entries um and I found that one at the end of January yeah and so I took that one and I think on that one I got out at a two to one okay yeah that's and again that's brilliant right regardless of what anybody else may think about um you know I was only a two to one the fact that you made money on that trade I did came up with it yourself is a fantastic achievement there's many traders that don't do that right or can't even do that don't even understand and again just little tweaks had you'd held on for a little longer etc you know I mean it could have been um you know I mean up here that would have been again another brilliant fantastic trade I mean it already was but um it makes sense you know when we think about now what potentially is happening um fundamentally in this sentiment wise traders might be thinking to themselves well why is you know priced Canadian dollar doing something like this when we're potentially in a risk of environment and you know really the answer to that is and I've explained this I guess in in the group but in also um certain videos on YouTube is that we understood and I was saying this for months and Justin will attest to this right that um risk sentiment can push prices to where you want to be a buyer right just absolutely yeah so absolutely so so I I always look at whether you know for better or for worse I always look and I kind of you know tell traders to um to to maybe have the perspective potentially um of understanding that yes we are in a risk of environment and the Japanese yen is a safe haven currency but if we can time this right the market is more on than off right so if you can time these pullbacks where at this top point in time um you know we get in you know uh uh long here for example right and we don't know what's going to happen you know the next day the day after day after we could for example you know be more more risk on right and if that's the case then this would have going to look like an absolute bargain if prices are in a risk off all we do is we look for you know maybe a demand zone better entry lower that's exactly or or better prices that's exactly it because the upside potential we don't mind losing one or two or three trades because if we get this right and this trade idea right that could be a 10 15 20 30 to one type trade right you know I mean and having that confidence um understanding why you're looking to you know buy the Canadian dollar and sell the Japanese yen um you know it is for me you know invaluable right and it's you know the rules to the to the to the game ultimately right yes you know so um but yeah Justin thank you for uh for doing this and um really just offering to do the interview and um I guess if anyone else is still listening because you know YouTube gives the the algorithm um then if you ever seen this but generally people would drop off after you know maybe five ten minutes right but if anybody but for anybody yeah it's massive you see a curve right it's it's like you get like a time horizon and uh you know that's time and then you get like the viewers right and then you'll see like a spike at the beginning like that might be like say two minutes you know four minutes etc you get a big spike and then for some reason you get like a big drop off when it goes like that you know goes like this so by the time you kind of get to the end of the video maybe what will be in we're in like 30 minutes maybe something like that 47 minutes but yeah we've been talking for 47 minutes just it's that easy when you get into it is it is there's there's there's you know it's like there's there's there's you know not too many people are going to you know uh stay to the whole video right but for anyone who is listening anyone who's listening and watching still what would you say uh to those people with regards to you know the benefits of mentoring and you know just joining Trading 180 I would say that you should join because having a community of people who are actively engaged in sharing the knowledge the resources the articles and the understanding of of how that adds color to whatever you're doing with trading should just be a fundamental that that all people have I think understanding risk sentiment understanding monetary policy of fundamental analysis as it pertains to what is moving markets will help increase the quality of whatever you do tactically to execute your trades you know it just it's the difference between being a hobbyist and being a professional yeah yeah it sure is it sure is and Justin I thank you again for this interview brilliant trading mate and yeah we'll just keep you know I'll keep mentoring supporting and yeah we'll get you you know if you're not already we're gonna definitely get you to where you want to be very very soon absolutely thanks Leon no worries take care just thanks again all right take care