Interview  |  JAN 2007

Interview: Larry Levin Has Those Traders’ Secrets by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan

Stocks & Commodities V. 25:1 (66-72): Interview: Larry Levin Has Those Traders’ Secrets by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan Larry Levin is the president of Secrets of Traders, a commodity trading educational firm dedicated to helping traders succeed in the futures markets. He trades the Standard & Poor’s 500 on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and has been in and around the S&P 500 futures pit since 1989, where he started as a runner for Lind-Waldock. Levin moved up through the ranks from runner to phone clerk to desk manager of the S&P desk and began to trade for his own account in 1994. In 1998 he formed Trading Advantage, a publishing company, to distribute his self-authored trading course, Secrets of Floor Traders. In 2000 he sold the rights to the course to Secrets of Traders, LLC, to market his products. He has recently written his newest trading course, The Secrets of an Electronic Futures Trader, designed to give the electronic futures trader the competitive edge. STOCKS & COMMODITIES Editor Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan interviewed Larry Levin via telephone on November 2, 2006. Q: Why is it so important for traders to think for themselves? A: Unfortunately, most people don’t want to take responsibility for their actions. The one major component an individual needs to be a successful trader is to take responsibility for their actions. They have to be an active winner and an active loser to play the market, to trade, and to be successful. If you are not willing to do these things in your own best interest, you will never have a chance to succeed. And that is the no. 1 reason most traders do not succeed. Q: What got you interested in trading? A: When I was about 19, I was a year into college trying to get a marketing degree, and a few of my friends were working at the CME as runners, making maybe $3 an hour, and it looked cool. College didn’t feel like it was for me at the time. I wasn’t enjoying it at all, and what they were doing down on the trading floor, even if it was just taking orders to the trading pits and back, looked exciting. So I got a job as a runner for Lind-Waldock back in 1988. I was a year out of high school.

by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan