Introducing our new contributor - G.Bharadwaj

Hello people, I’m pleased to introduce @G.Bharadwaj, who’ll be a contributor on TradingQnA. Bharadwaj is an experienced trader and started his journey in 2001. Bharadwaj is a scalper and he only trades the 100 most active stocks at any point in time. He looks for stocks that tend to move in tandem with the indices, either up or down and trades them.

Bharadwaj has also been a consistent winner of the 60-day challenge. We had interviewed him a while back and published a post on Z-connect. So if you have any questions on the markets and trading in general, you know whom to tag. :slight_smile:

Welcome aboard G.Bharadwaj.

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Welcome, @G.Bharadwaj !

It would be interesting to learn from a scalper’s perspective.

-Neha

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@G.Bharadwaj

Welcome,

  1. Initially when you started day-trading, How many Years did it take, for you to get rid of the noise in the beginner trader’s head that keeps saying “GIVE IT UP” ?

  2. In your Opinion, How much does a Trader in their 30’s needs as Saving in their BANK ACCOUNT , before they decide to choose day-trading as a full time profession ? Appreciate if you could Please mention just the figure for this Question.

  3. As successful trader, would you say that the amount in your trading account plays a vital role in you being profitable? If the capital is reduced, will you be able to come out with same Return on Capital like now ?

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Hi @G.Bharadwaj which one is most difficult for a trader according to you:

Cutting the loss early, Running the profit Or Booking partial profit in a winning trade?

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Thank you @Bhuvan & @Neha_Raghuraman

  1. After every few consecutive losing months at a stretch, i would take a hard look at things and say, Ok this is going to by my last few weeks in front of the terminal, at that point market would give something to make me happy and continue the cycle :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: so i would say it was nearly AFTER 3 years of 9 to 3 trading that i decided with confidence that this is what i will do for my living for ever…

  2. Just the figure for this question is tricky 'cos lifestyle varies from person to person. But just like every other business on earth has a initial few years of losing (or zero) followed by a few years of minor profits followed by stable income, so is trading. We become a mechanical engineer after 4 years of rigorous study along with 100s of tests and exam along the way, but in our country people think they can “become a stock trader” after listening to hearsay or attending a few workshops :neutral_face:

  3. Capital adequacy should always be maintained. If a trader is ever worried about losing his/her capital, he/she obviously cannot perform best as especially day trading ultimately boils down to psychology and what more can affect our psyche than the fear of losing capital itself. So best way to go about is if you are ready to set aside 2 L as your day trading capital, you should use only say 25K, so that it will last 8 cycles!

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Cutting the loss early is the most basic as well as most crucial discipline that needs to be developed 'cos the other 2 you mentioned wont wipe out our trading capital itself!

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@G.Bharadwaj

Welcome again after a long time. A few questions to start with.

  1. What would you suggest Per trade Risk and Per day risk for a trader who takes 30-40 Trade per day.(though it is a function of Success ratio and RR, any thumb rule?)

  2. Do you think Volume would give us an edge in Intraday trading?

  3. What Drawdown % you say is acceptable in Intraday trading system?

4.Do you follow/suggest any scaling up method for scalper?

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Dear @G.Bharadwaj what is your Win/Loss Ratio Or %age in a day…week…and month? I mean Winning trades vs. Losing trades.

What is the basic and most important thing in Tape Reading?

Hi @Vandana1 a great opportunity to interact and learn from an experienced trader @G.Bharadwaj who has around 17 yrs of experience and consistently profitable. You can ask if you have any doubt about consistently profitable trading.

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Hi Akash, thanks for introducing me to him
I’ll keep in touch with him too … lucky to have so many experienced guides :innocent:

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What is Tape reading? I’ve come across this term first time

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Hi @Vandana1 Tape reading was widely practiced in good old days when computer trading was not there. Around 1900 Tape reading was very famous.

Jesse Livermore was a great Tape Reader which he mentioned frequently in his shadow Autobiography book Reminiscences Of a Stock Operator. Tape reading is basically… Watching the price on a moving tape to take Buy Or Sell call. Just by watching the changing price movement on a tape you can able to know about mkt movement and your favorite stock movement and decide to Go-long Or Short.

But now a days also lots of Professional Traders practice Tape Reading.

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It’s somewhat like today’s candles sticks and charts maybe … some people do tape reading even today when such advanced charting facilities are available ?

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Yes.
Today also lots of traders practice Tape reading because they are comfortable with it instead of modern technology. Even my 40 to 60% of trading decisions are based on Tape Reading. And it works around 60% of time.

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What! You do tape reading too!!
Where do you get these tapes from?

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Hahaha :joy::joy::joy: Basically when you read the mkt behavior just by watching the moving price on tape or screen it’s called tape reading. Without the help of chart or TA etc. But traders have given a new name like price action these days.

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I’ve never experienced reading tapes so can’t say much about it … but I think the indicators like stoch etc give a good hint of future price movements too … with computers we can even mix two or more indicators for confirmation of the trend … eg I mix williams %R with MA and it gives a good hint about trend change

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Okay …got it ! :smiley:

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You are right. Everybody’s Trading Style is different. Some professionals rely on HFT, Quant, etc and some still practice Tape Reading.

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@G.Bharadwaj

Thanks for the earlier response.

Many Traders hardly get an opportunity to interact with traders like you, So planning to make the best use of it while you are still around.

A few more Questions for you:

  1. Would you say, majority of your Intraday Trades are Trend Following OR Trend Reversal ?

  2. As of now, What is the least Intraday time-frame you are comfortable trading with ? Has this time-frame increased or decreased over your trading career ?

  3. Like many beginner traders are going through, during your first 3 years of 9 to 3 trading, after market study and analysis, Did this affect your inter-personal relationship with your family members, If Yes, were you able to mend it later as things began to work out for you ?

Hope its not too personal, But these are situations which many traders like me go through, but don’t find answers on YouTube.

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I can obviously answer only from a scalpers pov for 1 to 3…

  1. Minimum risk per trade - quarter % and MAX half % to begin with but i make sure i dont lose more than point 3 % max

  2. Volume is a relative term and depends on ones capacity, experience, capital & goals. For example given current liquidity in equity we can safely scalp upto say 1000 per order for reliance. While same reliance in future we can scalp upto 5 lots per order effortless.

  3. Assuming most day traders use at least 10X leverage offered in MIS orders, per day drawdown should not exceed 5% at any cost.

  4. Once a person finds consistent success in scalping equity, he/she can do the same in future and after replicating the same amount of success in futures, can shift to options as well. When i gave the interview 5 years back, i was trading only equity and found it hard to scale up beyond a certain point, gradually i moved to stock futures as liquidity increased,now from an year i am doing stock options as well as volumes in top 100 stocks are quite enough for a scalper of my size.

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