John Bollinger joins Cobie & Ledger to talk about his career trading, the world-famous TA tool he created (Bollinger Bands), and generally shares his trading wisdom.
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Show Notes
Background
– Started as an options trader
– Spent a lot of time estimating volatility
– Would use a 21 day moving average for volatility
– When price would break out of range, you could expect a further breakout move đ
– They would chart and graph price literally by hand
– BBANDS BRINGS OUT GRAPH PAPER WITH CHARTS STILL ON IT a true OG đ
Major Changes Over Time
– Trading hasnât gotten easier or harder
– Data availability has improved tremendously
– Fear and greed have not changed one bit đ°
– bbands: âI can just get more done now in a day – Iâm better than I wasâ
Normalizing Trading
– Back in the day people who were interested would watch the S&P stock guide
– Recently weâve seen a huge explosion in trading
– bbands: âwhen I started out it was $75 round trip for a futures contractâ
– When Robinhood came out and said 0 commissions they forced everyone to play by those rules đč
– Theyâre doing it to crypto rn!
Onboarding to Crypto Trading
– Onboarding, from a technical perspective, was pretty hard to get involved
– bbands: âI wanted to trade volatility as you might image, and complex orders were very slow in comingâ
– Cobie: âA lot of people I knew were using bbands but we didnât know you were on CT your indicators are so widely used it feels like an old historic methodâ đŽđŒ
– bbands: âI think the fact that Iâm here proves that Iâm not deadâ LOL
– bbands: âI was at the supermarket awhile back and this guy comes up and says âOMG youâre John Bollinger, you arenât dead!â and my daughter looked up at me and was like âDaddyâŠ? đ„șââ
John Bollingerâs TV Career
– bbands: âI was an on-air TV financial analyst for Financial News Network – predecessor to CNBCâ đș
– Cobie: âIt was like the weather but John Bollinger with a chartâ
– bbands: âThe bands got named on-air! I was showing the chart and the guy was like what do you call those and I was like uhhhhâŠ. Bollinger Bands?â
Crypto & TA
– bbands: âcrypto is the best market for TAâ đ
– Cobie: âin 2013/2017 everything felt inefficient and very easy to predict, now it feels much harderâ
– bbands: âyes but itâs still better than any other market!â
Johnâs Glory Markets
– bbands: âgrew up as an equities trader, I love US stocksâ đșđž
– coined a term âRational Analysisâ as a combination of TA and FA
– Wanna look over his shoulder? he puts up about 40 charts you can download every Saturday afternoon on his website bollingerbands.com
*John getâs delivery and asks delivery guy if he needs anything⊠easily most wholesome guest ever on UpOnly*
bbands: âTA is pretty much like depicting emotion on paperâ đđ
Does Bollinger Capital Take Interns?
– Ledge: âCMS Intern looking for a changeâ LFG shoutout but ledge ur going to get me fired I love it here bls
– bbands: âI have⊠a very good test is if you can figure out how to contact meâ BANG there ya go opening for all u
bbands: âpunish your losers, feed your winnersâ sell losers let the winners ride
Chicago Trading Sayings
– bbands: âYouâre allowed to buy the bottom tick once in your lifetime, and youâre allowed to sell the top tick once in your lifetimeâ
– bbands: âThe corollary is that youâre allowed to do the opposite as many times as you likeâ lmao
bbands Exit Strategy
– None
– I guess if I can do half days, thatâs perfect
– John = bbands, daughter = shebands
Secret bbands V2?
– Not a secret, just had relatively little traction
– bbands V2 = exponential bbands
– People like the old ones
– Would never be a secret⊠âIâm the original open source guy all of my stuff is availableâ actually a benevolent leader
– It was hard to learn trading so weâd meet up and share ideas
Fighting Emotions While Trading
– Keep a tally of performance
– On a hot-streak its really, really hard not to be euphoric đ€©
– You have to just lean against them
Why Do bbands Work 40 Years Later?
– They are derived from a first principle of markets
– Everyone uses them in a different manner, you donât auto buy or sell when it touches a band
– You need to be able to adapt when the characteristics of the market change
Michael Burry/ Other Famous Traders
– These days just posts tweets like itâs the end of the world
– Theyâre stopped clocks – gonna be right twice per day đ
– Itâs really hard for perma-bears to make money
– bbands: âI just turn them offâ
– bbands: âif youâre bullish you wanna read the bears, if youâre bearish you wanna read the bullsâ
– read = literature, books đ
– yes bbands says read books you should do it
– You see it all the time in politics – you NEED to get out of your echo chambers and understand the other side
Macro Bias + TA
– bbands: âif weâre bias towards the long side (which we have been and still are) then we just look for pullbacks and buy themâ
– Cobie: âon a long enough timeline, Iâm rightâ
– Stay consistent
bbands Best Books
– Love the classics
– Richard D Wyckoff, H.M. Gartley, Robert Levy, Humphrey Neill
– Longer reading list on bollingerbands.com
Ledge: âjust gonna trust Luke and CMS Intern wrote all these downâ gotchu sir đ€
Supercycle
– We have a saying which has always stuck with me: âWe may be going to the moon but we will trade our way thereâ
Favorite Brewery
– Sierra Nevada in Chico California
– Love the constant innovation
Final Alpha
– widen your experience as much as humanly possible
– encompass a great range – read very widely, do things you donât normally do, have new experience⊠get a really broad perspective
– live life as widely and as broadly as you can
Notes by @cmsintern
Music by GiovanniPickle