TTMLive2011

John Carter

John F. Carter: Trader behind TradeTheMarkets

John Carter’s father was a Morgan Stanley stock broker.  One day during high school, John came home from the mall where he was working at a store making cookies.  He had saved up $1000 over the course of a few months, and his dad told him that he and some of his friends were going to buy “some call options on Intel” the next day.  Although he had no idea what they were talking about, it sounded good.  He bought 10 call options at 75 cents, and sold them a few days later for $1.50, doubling his money.  He was hooked and has been trading ever since–going on 20 years now.

After high school, John Carter studied at the University of Cambridge, England, then graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with degrees in History and Economics.

John Carter was never that intrigued by the brokerage side of the trading world. Instead, he liked to try and test various online trading strategies through college and well into his corporate jobs. He became quite adept at making money, though there were times when holding onto it turned out to be a problem.  The road was not always easy and John learned his lessons the hard way like many day traders out there.  If you’ve seen him speak at the Money Show or Traders Expos, then you’ve probably heard the story about “the house in Minnesota” which still makes him squirm just to talk about it and relive it to this day.  After that experience, he came across Mark Douglas’s book, “The Disciplined Trader” and that helped to push him on the road to consistency.

John Carter eventually found a trading system he was satisfied with. He left corporate America to pursue full-time professional trading in 1998.  After a few years of trading on his own, he eventually grew tired of day trading by himself in his office and chatting with his Arrowana (a large fish).  He started to seek out other traders and post information online, which led to the launch of TradeTheMarkets.com.

McGraw Hill commissioned John to write a book entitled Mastering the Trade. Mastering the Trade by John F. Carter was released in January, 2006. Carter’s trading book soon climbed the charts at Amazon.com. Carter was also featured on ABC Money with his new online trading book “Mastering The Trade.”

Pat Barham

Pat Barham:  Live Trading Room Moderator

Pat has been actively trading futures and equities for the last 24 years. After attending the University of Memphis, he began his career in the agricultural industry, a career that would eventually introduce him to the financial side of agriculture. From that point on, Pat pursued the challenging opportunity of trading the futures market.

Through the years of trading, Pat has seen much change in the markets. From paper chart books that he filled in by hand every day to computers that do it all for you. From slow hand written order entry systems and even slower fill reporting, to electronic entries and fills in a split second. He has also had the opportunity to trade almost every futures contract that has been offered and to observe all types of traders, from icons like John Henry to traders that blow their accounts out in a few short weeks.

In dealing with these traders, he has also experienced first hand how people react or respond to certain market conditions over the years. He learned many years ago that to react to something is seldom good but to respond is preferable. In trading, the responders are the ones that have the longevity in the markets. With all Pat’s experience, teaching others to trade has been a high priority.