Mike Melissinos landed a job at Bear Sterns shortly after graduating from college and he thought he had it made. But as luck would have it, Bear went down about six months after he joined.
This turned out to be good luck however because it really made him examine the people who he looked up to and the life that he really wanted to live. He came out of the experience with a whole different perspective.
After Bear, he decided to figure out how to invest for himself and got turned on to trend following. If you are not familiar with this style of trading, there are some links in the resources section below.
The one thing that stood out to me in this interview was when Mike mentioned how trend following felt more intuitive to him. It was something that he felt he could embrace and run with.
I think that this is a really important point because many times traders try to trade methods that are not in tune with their personality. That is what leads to blowups or erratic performance.
We talked about the inherit strengths and weaknesses of trend following and how he sought out the knowledge he needed to become a better trader. One thing that helped Mike a lot was the New York Trading Tribe.
If you have never heard of The Trading Tribe before, it is a series of groups started by legendary trader Ed Seykota. It is sort of a support group, but it is actually more like a development process for traders and is based on Ed's work in trading psychology. Mike talks about it in more detail in the interview, so check it out.
We also get into a ton of other topics in this interview. Mike talks sports, his fanatical obsession with health and how his fiancée has made him a better trader. He also gets into the details of how he started his fund and how he treats his investors a little differently than most fund managers.
This interview is over an hour long, so I'm really grateful to Mike for taking the time out to talk to me. It was a fun interview for me and I hope you enjoy it too.
In This Episode
- Find out how much he started his fund with
- Why the system doesn't really matter
- How he drives his family crazy at Thanksgiving
- The biggest reasons why traders fail
- How to maintain your health
- What you need to start a fund
- And more!
Click Play To Listen To The Interview
Resources Mentioned
- Melissinos Trading
- Get a free copy of Mike's 8 Misktakes That Distroy Investor Returns
- Oyster App
- The Trading Tribe
- Ed Sykota
- Dr. David Druz
- Michael Covel
Other Ways To Get The Trading Lifestyle Podcast
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- Right-click here and “Save As” to download the MP3
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Hi, I just found your podcast and have been listening to your last 5 episodes, great job.
It’s interesting to hear about fulltime traders coming from different backgrounds and using different strategies.
I would like to hear a little bit more about the traders strategies, if they are willing to talk about them, some have I heard.
Hi Kano,
Thanks for visiting and for the input. In Mike’s case, you can Google Trend “following” and “Turtle Trader” for more information.
Cheers,
Hugh
Hey Hugh,
Thanks for doing these podcasts!
I regularly check to see if you have any new blog articles or interviews, thank you for the quality content.
I might add that the interviews have gotten consistently better as you’ve done them. Keep up the good work!
-Jaymes
Thanks Jaymes!
hi hugh,
gr8 interviews bro. enjoy and learn a lot from them.
in the interview with mike melissinos, u said that he publishes his trading system and performance report on his website. i could see the performance report but not the system. could u post the url where mike discusses his system.
Hi Vivek,
Glad you like them. I don’t remember mentioning that he posted his trading system on his site.
However, Mike is a trend follower, so they all base their trading on what is basically a X-day breakout rule. So Google “Turtle Trading System” and the complete system that was used in the Turtle experiment is available for free. I think Curtis Faith or one of the other Turtles published it awhile back. It is the best place to start when it comes to trend trading. Backtest it and take it from there.
Cheers,
Hugh
Thanks Hugh!
Hi Hugh!
I see you are keeping a good paste with doing new interviews recently 😉 I always enjoy listening to them, I can always learn something from them. I appreciate you doing them, keep up the good work!
Is there any way I could download the last two interviews? I couldn’t find the “save this podcast” link anywhere.
Best regard!
Michael
Hi Michael,
Thanks for listening! Sorry we missed that, they have been added back in.
Cheers,
Hugh