Ep 576: Bot-A-Thon or: How to Trade When You Already Have a Full-Time Job

In Episode 576 of The Traders Podcast, your host Rob Booker talks to the producer Jason Pyles about a text he received from Paul, who works a full-time career as a pilot. Because Paul travels on long-haul flights, it proves to be difficult for him to monitor his trades.

Many currency traders complain that they can’t trade as their full-time job because they already have to work a non-trading-related full-time job and can’t be distracted by devoting their time and attention toward the markets. But that’s where automated trading can be helpful. In Episode 576, Rob talks about some of the finer points of robot trading.

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Links for this episode:

Subscribe to Rob’s YouTube channel here: https://youtube.com/robbooker

Rob on Twitter: @RobBooker

The Traders Podcast on Twitter: @TradersPodcast

TFL365.com

Trader Interviews.com

Jason’s movie podcasts:
Movie Podcast Weekly Jason’s comedic show where he and some friends review new movies in theaters.

Movie Podcast Network Twitter: @MovieCastNetwrk

Full Episode Transcript:

Rob: Mr. Pyles, I got a text message from one of our listeners.

Jason: Oh, did you? I love when the listeners text you at your personal phone number.

Rob: All right. So years and years and years ago, like when we were doing trader radio.

Jason: Mm-hmm.

Back in the day.

Rob: A hundred years ago, one of our listener’s name was Paul. I won’t give Paul’s name, but one of our listener’s names was Paul. Paul’s a long haul pilot for Delta. London, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Beijing, Dublin, Honolulu, Japan. Now, Delta doesn’t fly to Houston, so I don’t get to see him. Well, he texted me the other day. I haven’t heard from him in just years. He texted me. Now he’s doing a route from wherever. I don’t know where his home base is now, but Salt Lake and also Honolulu, which is just awesome stuff. Anyway, he’s like I’m getting back into it. Here’s what he writes, he writes, “Hey. I just grabbed your lifetime membership deal. I’ve known you for a long time. Have you lost your mind? That’s a lot of value. Thank you. Looking forward to getting some time with you between flights. I need to fly less, help my folks, and help my family. One of my family members has an issue with vertigo. Plus I’m going to retire someday. Wouldn’t mind cutting that retirement short. Move to Florida a few years ago from Long Island. Hope’s all well with you. My cousin is near to you in Houston and she works in mission control maybe we can go on a tour of a lifetime if I go over there.”

Jason: Oh, nice.

Jason: Lots of updates there.

Rob: How would you handle trading if you were a pilot and all these long haul flights? I remember talking to him about this.

Jason: Oh, my.

Rob: Way back when. Like how difficult it is to juggle flying, trading, all that stuff.

Jason: Well, I think there are two ways to handle it. At least two that I can see, Rob. It’s have a trusted trading partner for when you’re in the air, or to use a stop loss, right?

Rob: Yeah, that’s a good plan.

Jason: Okay. So those are probably the boring answers. I bet you have a more exciting way.

Rob: No, I love your answers. I love it when you comment on this stuff.

Jason: Okay. I know because it’s like …

Rob: I love it. I’m in the process now a year plus ago, I interviewed on the podcast on Trader Radio, I interviewed Scott Haywood who was, at the time, had gone from a dollar a day to a thousand dollars a day then got up to $2,000 a day by trading the robot. The robot is lovingly referred to as Finch. Still running. Still hundreds and hundreds of people out there running the robot. There’s a new version of the robot that is come out. I call it the Dr. Bill Finch because Scott Haywood and Dr. Bill in Los Angeles, who’s a real doctor, anesthesiologist, and Joel, super genius, former IT director at a major American university, and Steven, a ex-Marine. Anyway, just an awesome crew. I would call us the trading expendables.

Jason: Yes. Yes. I like this.

Rob: Get an imagine in your mind. As a side note, last night I got out of bed because I couldn’t sleep. The reason I couldn’t sleep is because I needed to see Rocky 2. Rocky 2 opens up by literally playing the end of Rocky 1. That’s the beginning of Rocky 2. It is some of the most gripping movie film that you can ever watch is some of this stuff. Unless you hate violent sports and that’s, of course, you get a pass.

Anyway, so being in the expendables. The expendables and I, we get together and we sort of formed a group of people who test and experiment and built and refine this robot to reduce its draw down and in some cases use a stop. In other cases, not use a stop. Dr. Bill reached deep into the Rob Booker archives of materials that I’ve taught over the years, and he made a refinement to the Finch robot that I now lovingly refer to as the Dr. Bill Finch. This one reducing the draw down and has a very consistent track record over the worst periods of time. 2014, which is garbage for robots and early 2017, which is double garbage for robots. The early 2017 is the financial equivalent of Rocky’s left eye in Rocky 1. You got to cut it open and let it bleed out in order for it to get better.

Jason: Right.

Rob: This robot refined things in a way. He just used stuff that I’d taught in the past, and he paid a programmer to build it. This refines that robot to the point that it’s consistent, the draw down is lower, and we’re in the middle of testing it. We have a new member of the back testing expendables. His name is Frederick. Frederick’s in Lexinburg, another lifetime member.

Jason: Mm-hmm.

Rob: Frederick is just pounding out the tests in meta-trader using our friend Daniel’s portfolio tester. We are fast approaching a time where I could say everyone listening who is a pilot. Just kidding, I know that that’s a really small number of people.

Jason: Right.

Rob: Anyone listening that doesn’t want to sit in front of the computer. Anyone who wants to get exposure to this stuff, but literally there’s no way that you’re going to sit there and day trade, which I don’t know why anybody would want to do in the first place. That seems like a complete waste of time. Anybody that wants to do that could actually run that robot and not have the same risk of significant draw down because it does kind of filter out the trades. It’s more selective. Salon selective. It’s really selective. You’re worth it. You’re worth it.

As you can tell, I’m really excited about it. That’s what I would suggest to someone like Paul. You get that thing running because when you’re in the air, when you’re on the ground, when you’re with your family, what you’re going to do is you’re going to check in on it, but it’s going to run in the background. Every once and a while you’re going to need to get together with your family of traders and you’re going to need to tackle a problem that might have arisen. The robots turned off or the server went down or one trade didn’t close out at its profit. You’re going to have to deal with problems, but you’re going to be an asset manager. You can’t do this trading as your full-time job because you have a full-time job, and it’s hundreds of people in the back of a giant flying metal thing.

Jason: Right.

Rob: You can’t trade during that.

Jason: Mm-hmm.

Rob: So that’s what I would suggest.

Jason: I like that. Is Scott Welch apart of the trading robot expendables?

Rob: So Scott Welch would be like Jason Statham. He’s on the fringes. He’s so good and he’s so dangerous that he’s on the edges of it.

Jason: He’s so dangerous.

Rob: He’s just almost too dangerous for us.

Jason: Right. Right. I can see it.

Rob: No, he doesn’t do our same robot. So he has his own collection of robots, which are awesome.

Jason: I see.

Rob: On that note, I’m actually creating some of these robots now for stocks to run when the trade station platform.

Jason: Neat.

Rob: I’m very excited about that, Jason. It’s going to … In our last episode, we talked about buying value stocks on a dip. I have a way of doing that and we’re going to put that to work in the stock market. Then I’m going to be running … Remember, I said if the long term way to get rich off of Bitcoin is not to trade Bitcoin, it’s to take extra $200, $300, $400, $500, whatever you can per month, and buy value stocks.

Jason: Yes. You did.

Rob: That’s exactly what this robot will do. It will just do it automatically without you having to think about it.

Jason: Nice. That’s nice. Well, I hope you have followed the Dwight Shrute advice from the Office where you give the robot just a six foot cord in case you can unplug it if it turns on you.

Rob: I don’t remember that one. Scott Welch is going to love that comment.

Jason: That’s one of the funniest. I just love it. Anyways …

Rob: That’s pretty great. That’s pretty great stuff.

I have some news for anybody that’s interested in any of that. So I had some news that that robot is done. That robot is complete. That robot is ready. You can just … I don’t know. You can go to RobBooker.com. That’s the best place to go. You want more information about that stuff. But we put the robots on sale because I know a lot of listeners are going to want to see that. Some of you have been thinking about it for long time, so we put them on sale. It’s the end of the year and we’re having the online trading version of the Toyota-thon. You know, the end of the year sale. So go to RobBooker.com and I will put a link on the home page. It’ll just be a giant link on the home page with a robot with a six foot cord.

Jason: It should be you like jumping up in the air really slowly and then they freeze frame it when you’re half way up. Remember that? Oh, what a feeling.

Rob: Oh, right. Okay. I’ll do that in the office right now. I’ll take a picture of that. That’s a great idea.

Jason: I’m full of them today.

Rob: We call it the Rob-athon.

Jason: Right.

Rob: The Bot-athon.

Jason: Love it.

Rob: That’s actually … Yeah. On the 12th day of the bot-athon … Yeah, that’s good. My true love said to me Dr. Bill Finch … Yeah, go get it everybody. Do it. The bot-athon. That’s what we’re going to call it. Whatever. But, hey, you know what to do, people.

Jason: Mm-hmm.

Rob: Get the robots.

Jason: That’s right.

Rob: Jason, I had a question for you in the last episode and I forgot to ask it.

Jason: Okay. Let’s hear it.

Rob: You keep talking about a movie about a billboard.

Jason: Oh my goodness. Yes. It’s called Three Billboards Out Ebbing, Missouri. I know that’s not …

Rob: You’re just joking around with me now. There’s no way that’s the real …

Jason: I know. That’s what everybody says to me when they hear that. It’s not the sexiest title, but it is about three billboard outside of Ebbing, Missouri, except that’s a factious place. But it’s amazing. Do you like Francis McDormand? Do you like Fargo?

Rob: Yeah. A lot.

Jason: Okay. Well, see, if you like that, I think you’ll love this. It’s not a Cohen brother’s film, but it has that feel.

Rob: It has that feel to it.

Jason: It sure does. It’s a very dark comedy. It’s a crime drama. It’s very violent, as well, but hilarious. I saw it with a couple of friends in the theater. It was uproariously just a good time. I was crying laughing. Hilarious.

Rob: Where can people hear about your review of that movie?

Jason: Mm-hmm. MoviePodcastWeekly.com.

Rob: All right. Thanks, Jason, for your advice and your thoughts and your movie recommendations and your friendship.

Jason: Absolutely, Rob. My pleasure. It was fun to be here today.

Rob: We’ll see you next time everybody. We’re on every Tuesday and Thursday. Download us on iTunes. Wherever delicious podcasts are consumed and leave us a review. I like to read the reviews of the show and see what you think of the show. So if you could jump on over to iTunes and leave us a review or rating, that would be spectacular. That’s something you could do for us that we would really appreciate and really helps us out.

Jason: Mm-hmm.

Rob: And love the crap out of all y’all. We’ll see you later everybody. I’m Rob Booker. He’s Jason Piles. This is the Trader’s Podcast.