Transcript:
Livetraders.com is a collaboration between you and Jared Wesley and, your goal it looks like is to build a trading community of traders for traders and of course by traders and most of your clients come through word of, word of mouth which says a lot. So what does that mean, traders for traders by traders?
Anmol Singh: Well, the main uh, the reason why we put that in there is because there’s influx of trading education websites. There’s an influx of, you know, people providing trading education, uh, services, but necessarily they might not be traders. They might have traded in the past a little bit, or they might have been, uh, you know, just people who were good at marketing, but not necessarily trading. So what we try and do is, you know, we are traders first, we are always traders first, and now we’re getting into this education space as a business. So, we still trade every single day actively, and I think that’s really important for uh, people looking to learn how to trade.
David Brower: And by trade, you mean specifically stocks?
Anmol Singh: Uh, it could be anything. Could be trading stocks, could be trading currencies, you know, which is the foreign exchange-
David Brower: Right.
Anmol Singh: So um, you could be trading anything, could be trading commodities, oil, gold, silver.
David Brower: So your business is, I mean you access, or have access to uh, trades of all different kinds from all over the world, right?
Anmol Singh: Exactly. So we can uh, trade any instrument that has a uh, technical chart available because we’re trading based on a technical chart strategy. So as long as it has a chart available, which, you know most of the things do, uh, we’re able to trade it however we uh specifically specialize in the U.S. stock market and, and the uh foreign exchange currency markets.
David Brower: So, somebody is just kind of thinking in their head, you know “I’ve always wanted to trade or I’m kind of a, I’m kind of a weekend trader but don’t really know what I’m doing”. Are those the kind of people that uh, should be looking out to you?
Anmol Singh: So I think first thing people need to do is, you know, figure out what kind of trading are you gonna do. Because there’s several different ways to be involved with the market, you know, some of the members that I know, they have a job, they have a day job, they do their thing. And they might come home at nine, they might look at some of the stocks, what they did, and then they might put out orders in their brokers, right, based on what they learnt. And then they go about their work, and the broker will automatically handle, you know, the orders, or things of that nature. So that’s one way to trade, and then that approach, we call it “Swing Trading”, you’re not necessarily getting in and out every single day, you’re getting in, you might be holding it for a couple days, couple weeks, and then you sell it. So that sort of trading doesn’t involve a whole lot of work as long as you have 15 minutes, you know, 10 minutes a day to do a little homework, that should be good enough.
Uh, but then there’s a different type of people who want to do this as a career. They don’t have a job, or this is all they want to do full-time, then they day-trade. But for that you would need to have at least a good three hours in the morning uh, you know, from 8:30 till uh, 12:00 noon Eastern time, as long as you have that time then you can day-trade. So, those are the two ways people first need to decide which kind of trader they want to be. Do they just want to take control of their investments, and either do this alongside what they currently do, or do they want to fully get into this. That’s what they have to figure out first.
David Brower: And once they make that decision, then, your opportunity with them is to coach them, help them, do it the right way, correct?
Anmol Singh: Exactly, so the first thing they would need to do once they’ve, either once they’ve figured out what kind of trading they want to do, or even if they have not yet figured out this … We have offer for a free 15 minute consultation where they can you know, dial the number on the website, and one of my team members uh, maybe my partner, Jared Wesley, will speak to you for about 15 minutes, get to know you a little bit, and then suggest, you know, what are the right way for you.
And a lot of times you’ll be surprised when people call us, we just tell them, “Hey, you know what, based on what we’ve learned by talking to you, it might not be the right thing for you at the moment, you know, so I suggest you saving up some capital for the time being, or you know, looking elsewhere, cause you know, we determined that your skill set might not be the best suited for uh, what kind of trading we do”. So that’s important, you know, the 15 minute call, so first, find out either whether this is even for you, and then we have uh, great resources on the website.
We have some great educational blog posts, and even a free e-book that we wrote, which will give you good insight of uh, trading, how the markets work, and whether this is something you should get involved with.
David Brower: And how long have you and Jared been doin’ this?
Anmol Singh: So we’ve been trading for a long time. Jared’s been trading for about 11 years, and I’ve been trading for 6 years, but live traders only started 2 years ago, in uh, 2015, uh, I think, yeah, 7th Jan. 2015 was when we started. So um, before we started live traders we were just trading on our own, managing our own accounts and uh, there was another educational firm that we coached their traders and we all ran a live trading environment where we used to just trade in front of all the members, and they used to just watch us trade or jump on board what we were trading. So that’s the [inaudible 05:26] we ran in the past, and then, you know, we decided, “Hey, why not just do our own thing, let’s do start something of our own”. And that’s when in 2015 we got together and we started Live Traders.
David Brower: Well Happy Anniversary!
Anmol Singh: (laughs) Thank you!
David Brower: (laughs) One of the things I’m impressed by, what what you said just a moment ago, um, is your uh, respect for the people who call you your authenticity about being honest with them and. and uh, just not trying to pull somebody into, into the game to be really objective about where they are, who they are, and what the potential of them having success is, uh, before you welcome them onboard right?
Anmol Singh: Exactly, because one of our business models is not necessarily, you know, we don’t necessarily focus on creating income in Live Traders by just selling coaches of programs. We have a hedge fund part of our business which is when we teach these traders how to trade, and once we start getting into a good level, we actually provide them the capital. So we give them our funds, allocated out of our capital, and give it to them to trade. In exchange we take percentage of whatever they make, just as a hedge fund. So we back them with our capital after training them.
So, for us, when, you know, it’s much better to turn a person off and say, “Hey, this is not the right thing for you”, rather than spending time, you know coaching him and then, you know, wasting our time. So that’s why we try and attract talent, you know, that has potential to do this. Uh, but as long as people have an open mind and a willingness to learn, I mean, they could really do it. And anybody could really do it, it’s just the mindset that we look for at that initial call.
David Brower: Well and it’s, there’s the difference between talk and commitment too, and once you feel their pulse and get a sense that, because I mean you’re investing your money in these people, so you’re obviously going to vet them thoroughly and as best as you can in 15 minutes right?
Anmol Singh: Exactly, and that’s all we try and do in the call and that’s to get a feel of what kind of time commitment they are able to give, and are they a person with a growth mindset, which is, you know, cause trading is, is a rollercoaster and times, and you will go through tough times, you know, every single week you will go through them. So uh, you have to be able to be strong enough of a person to realize that. So we are basically just judging the personality and that initial call.
David Brower: So you’ve coached uh, what, over a thousand traders and entrepreneurs in the last couple of years?
Anmol Singh: Yeah, I mean uh, as far as formally in terms of people who have taken our programs, there’s been thousands of students who’ve uh, gone through our programs. Then informally, which is through, you know, socially, and to coach, and I’m sure I have coached tens of thousands of people, uh, just based on the followers that we have on social media. But formally, we’ve coached over a thousand people as well.
David Brower: Wow, that’s impressive in such a short period of time. So how do you manage your time and run those businesses, and how do you help entrepreneurs start their own, their own, business?
Anmol Singh: Um, I just don’t sleep. (laughs)
David Brower: (Laughs) Good answer!
Anmol Singh: (laughs) You know I’m kidding, I mean I sleep, I sleep well, yeah I think that’s important, and you know, one of the things people always seem to say is, oh you know, “Don’t sleep, or sleep is overrated”. But you gotta sleep, you know, you, you, if you haven’t slept it’s just going to be hard to put that energy. I’d rather put, you know, 10 good hours in of hard core focused work, you know, than 20 hours of half, you know, 50% effort.
So um, what, the way I manage my time, it’s, I don’t really have a time management tool that I follow. All I do is when I wake up, I just figure out the task that I want to get accomplished. And they could just be as much as, “Hey, I’ve got to go to the gym today, or I’ve got to go eat healthy today. Or I have to do these errands today, or I’ve got to do this that today, or I’ve got to complete this by today”. So there’s no formal way of me managing it, all I literally do is I wake up, and then the first thing that goes through my mind is, “What are the things I want to get accomplished today”, and then I just make sure that I do those things.
So you set goals in the morning and you make sure you do them, and uh, try to do them as early as you can. So I, I never waste time in the morning just sitting or watching TV, or planning what to do. First thing that I do is just knock out all the tasks that I thought about in the morning, and then I can figure out what else I want to do.
David Brower: Well I do exactly the same thing, and sometimes if I’m lucky, I go to bed about, hm, 10:30 I suppose and get, get up about 5:30. But often times, I’ll wake up at 4:00 because that list will already be there going “Okay, let’s go, let’s go”
Anmol Singh: Yep.
David Brower: And so I’ll get up at 4:00 and just go out and rattle off that list and make sure things are done and productive, and then all a sudden my day is in motion, you know?
Anmol Singh: Yeah that’s also, that’s one of the things I have to work towards is trying to get in a little bit earlier so I can focus on more of the areas of my life, you know, meditation, or, or even just getting that workout in early in the morning, get it over with. Because as the day goes by, you know, you start to lose motivation, so if you just knock them out in the morning, you know, then it’s done.
David Brower: Well and one of the things that comes through in your in our conversation, I mean I mean there’s a lot of ups and downs, there’s uh, sometimes big money involved, big investments, a lot of uh, concentration, good decisions have to be made. And so to be able to get into that kind of place, uh, obviously you have to eat well, exercise well, sleep well, so that you’re uh, so that you’re at your best when you’re working between 8:30 and noon.
Anmol Singh: Exactly, you have to be at your best in the morning and that’s where you need most of the focus during that 9:30-10:00 time. That’s the most busiest hour for us, cause that’s when the market opens, and a bulk of our trading is done in the first 30 minutes. So that’s kind the power hour where we definitely need our full focus and the [inaudible 11:27] slacking one day it doesn’t pan out that well then.
David Brower: Absolutely right, absolutely right. When you’re working with companies involved with education and finance, and investments, social media, even real estate. I mean you got your toes in a lot of different things here huh?
Anmol Singh: Oh yeah. I mean that is one of the things that I learnt from my family and you know, also other mentors that I’ve had along the way is to, just when you get some money in, just put it in somewhere else, just keep putting it somewhere else. So that’s one of the things that I did is, when I got the trading thing down, I got the capital, and I bought a property. I took that money, started Livetraders. Or I took that money, and maybe I had some idea about a social media app, you know, hired a programmer, lets build this out.
So, you know that’s something I constantly do, and that’s one of the biggest proponents, I’m one of the biggest proponents of that. It’s to when you have some cash, don’t spend it, just put it somewhere else, put it back into the business, reinvest it somewhere, you’re gonna get some sort of return. Even if its you know, as much as putting it in a fixed deposit or something, just do something with the capital, get some return out of it.
David Brower: So when you get the capital available, then is there a certain percentage? Or how do you figure what you’re gonna throw back into all these different ideas and what you’re gonna set aside? How do you, how do you figure that?
Anmol Singh: Right, so, first thing that I do, before I even have the money, is to figure out if I had the money what would I do. Right, so, you set, you set your goals beforehand, so you say, when I started trading, I was thinking, “alright, what If I could make you know two hundred thousand dollars a year, what could I do with that money” and then I found a property, and I was like, “this property is available, seems like if I rent it out I could get you know 10% on it, after hiring a property management company, I might get 8% on it”.
So I already planned it out and once I made that first kind of check that I got from trading, I immediately just put a down payment on it, I mean, you could put 10 – 20% down, you know, you don’t need a whole lot of money, plus you could finance and pay along, along the way. And that’s how I started.
But one of the rules that I do have, which is a fixed one, is a 10% of everything that I make goes right back into my own education. That could attending networking events, that could be attending conferences, that could be attending conventions, that could be attending, you know, maybe I want to hear somebody speak that I like, or maybe even just buying an online course, maybe I just want to learn how this social media thing works. Right? Spend some money, buy a course, learn how to do it. So that’s one of the things that I always do, 10% of everything I make in a month has to you know go right back into some form of education.
David Brower: I like that. I’m writing that down actually. I kind of do that hit and miss, but having a plan like that, I think uh, that’s brilliant. It keeps you focused, it keeps you growing and learning, and that’s what we all have to do no matter, no matter what kind of business we have.
Anmol Singh: Exactly. And 10% is a good amount, you could get a lot of books out of that, you can get a lot of courses out of that, I mean whatever you want to learn there’s, everything you want to learn in this world exists online. And –
David Brower: That fascinating.-
Anmol Singh: Yeah.-
David Brower: How the world-
Anmol Singh: Yeah.
David Brower: Has changed so much in the past 10 years, uh, as far as that its kind of mind boggling, really.
Anmol Singh: Exactly. I mean, even if you want to learn about something that is not even proven. Aliens. Right?
David Brower: Right, right.
Anmol Singh: You can, you can buy courses or DVDs about that. I mean, there is just so much to learn-
David Brower: Yeah.-
Anmol Singh: That, uh, I don’t know how people get bored. They’re just so fascinating, there is always something more to learn.
David Brower: So do you and Jared uh, put on seminars and go out and speak and teach in public, and do the kinds of things that, that you’re talking about learning?
Anmol Singh: Um well, not really. We haven’t really done that yet. But that’s something definitely that we do intend to do in the future. At the moment we are doing mainly online, uh through webinars. And we do live streaming so we might have a live, you know, we’re in the office you know, we’re just streaming live video.-
David Brower: Okay.
Anmol Singh: Going over that. So we do a lot of those things. Uh, we did hold a live event last year, in uh, in July, which was a live trading event, where we took seven students for a whole week, with us in our office, right on Wall Street, above the stock exchange. And we all traded together for the full week. And that was a great experience for people, because they got-
David Brower: Yeah.-
Anmol Singh: Got to see me trade live, in front of them right. And show them how to do it. And they got to see me being up money, they got to see me being down money. And I think that was the biggest learning experience for them to see, “Alright, you know, this guy is down, but he doesn’t look like he’s crazy, you know”-
David Brower: Yeah, yeah.-
Anmol Singh: “He’s enjoying, he’s enjoying the process” and then they saw me make it back and they saw me come back and now I’m here making money, and that was the best learning environment for them. So that live event was great, we definitely gonna do another one this year. We haven’t planned it out, but maybe in California this time around.
David Brower: Okay.
Anmol Singh: Uh, so we are gonna have like one live event a year. Because we like to take small groups of 5, 7 people. But I think trading is one of the things where, you know, if you have a big crowd, 200-300 people, you can’t really learn.-
David Brower: Right.-
Anmol Singh: You know, in that environment. You gotta have small environment where people can just stand behind you and watch you trade and… I think that’s the environment we’re gonna go for.
David Brower: That’s great.
Anmol Singh: Yeah.
David Brower: And then you’ve got, what three online courses that people can sign up for?
Anmol Singh: We actually have plenty courses out. For stocks we have three courses.-
David Brower: Okay.
Anmol Singh: You know, basic, basic, intermediate, advanced. Uh, and then, for Forex, which is currency, we have two courses which is the basic one, which is just letting you know what currency is, how it works, how it’s traded. And then we have the advanced one, which is the actually getting into the technical strategies, and uh, different parts of the things. And then for some people who want to learn options, we have options courses. Uh, so that’s kind of how the educational line up is.
David Brower: So if people want to learn more, the place they’ve got to go is Livetraders.com right?
Anmol Singh: Yeah that’s correct. They can head on over to the website, they’ll be able to download the uh free e-book, read the blog posts, and there’s a number on the side they can call to have their uh 15 minute consultation. Apart from that, our social media pages are great. I mean we update them regularly with some really good content. So I think that’s a place where people should definitely head on.
David Brower: And the links of course on those are on your website as well, so it’s easy for them to, to find all the different content as well. There’s the 15 call, as well as the different courses.
Anmol Singh: That’s correct.
David Brower: Okay. Again Livetraders.com, Anmol Singh, from uh, New York City, Wall Street, enjoying the uh, enjoying the nice weather in New York City today.
Anmol Singh: Yes sir.
David Brower: (laughs)
Anmol Singh: (laughs)
David Brower: Its been a pleasure man, thank you very much, uh, really enjoyed it.
Anmol Singh: Thank you, thank you for having me.