The number of retail traders and investors participating in the stock market grew significantly in 2020. In July, Joe Mecane, head of execution services at Citadel Securities, told Bloomberg that retail traders on peak days accounted for as much as 25% of the market, a sharp uptick from the 10% retail traders seen in 2019.
Such an explosion of interest has also driven demand for insights. Opto’s very own YouTube channel, Opto CMC, has experienced an uptick in viewers looking for interviews with experts and educational material.
Here, we revisit five of the most-watched videos from the year.
1. Secrets of the Institutional Trader
Trevor Neil is a technical analysis expert and the founder of BETA Group. With over 40 years’ experience as a professional trader, he is an important member of Opto’s community of experts. This video is taken from an interview filmed alongside an Opto masterclass in February 2020, which saw Neil outline professional trading techniques for individual traders.
In this video, Neil explains why it is unwise to compete with institutions like professional traders and hedge funds. He also explains how individuals can utilise systematic trading methods to their advantage.
2. Why Normal Doesn’t Make Money — Part 1
Tom Hougaard is a professional trader, author and trading coach with over two decades of professional trading experience. He specialises in price action trading and pattern recognition, which has helped him win the annual Danish share trading competition four years in a row. As an authoritative figure on price action trading, Hougaard has been an integral part of Opto’s community of expert traders.
Speaking at an Opto event in November 2019 as part of the Normal Doesn’t Make Money series, Hougaard attempts to change the way you, an individual, look at trading stocks and indices. “For the first decade of my career, I sat and watched you trade. I must have watched a hundred million trades go over the tape during the 10 years that I sat on the trading floor,” Hougaard says. It is this insight that informs his presentation in the video.
3. Jim Rogers on Finding Value During COVID–19
Renowned investor Jim Rogers, co-founder of the Quantum Fund and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index, has become one of the most sought after market commentators for investing insights, even in retirement. In this Opto Sessions episode, he provides listeners with insight into his investment strategy and discusses why he had long warned that the world was heading towards a severe economic and market reversal.
Rogers also explains how to navigate market downturns and highlights where he’s finding investment opportunities — including Russia, a region he identified as primed for growth.
4. How to Use Technical Trading Strategies
In what has become one of Opto’s most-viewed videos of all time, trading technical analysis veteran Trevor Neil again educates individuals on the particulars of technical analysis and how technical trading strategies can be used as part of an investment approach.
Filmed as part of Opto’s Tricks of the Trade event in September 2019, Neil provides a breakdown of Relative Rotation Graphs — a unique visualisation tool created by Neil and his colleague Julius de Kempenaer to show cyclical rotations of markets or sectors around a benchmark. He explains how traders can use this tool to identify outperforming stocks and indices when trading.
5. Trading Psychology with Tom Hougaard
What makes a successful trader? Can everyone train for and achieve a successful mind? Why do most traders run their losses? What are the most common mistakes? These are just some of the questions that Hougaard explores in this video, as part of a broader presentation on trading psychology.
“When I’m in a losing trade, I step back and say: ‘I’m just wrong’. I think the vast majority of losing trades do the exact opposite of [how] I do it,” Hougaard considers. For him, successful trading is not about technical or fundamental analysis but how you think when you’re in a position — be it losing or winning.
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