|  MAR 2008

Interview: Daytrading With The StockBandit’s Jeff White by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan

Interview: Daytrading With The StockBandit’s Jeff White by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan Jeff White, founder and chief technical analyst of TheStockBandit.com, started trading the markets in 1998 and has since gained extensive experience in both stocks and options. His trading style has gradually evolved over the years, including, as he mentions in the interview, understanding the true usefulness of the exchange of ideas for an individual’s trading. STOCKS & COMMODITIES Editor Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan (JG) and Staff Writer Bruce Faber (BF) interviewed White via a conference call on January 7, 2008. JG: Jeff, how did you get interested in trading? My wife and I put some savings into mutual funds in the summer of 1998. That third quarter the market corrected and we lost money. So I decided that I would rather learn how to do it myself and turn to individual stocks rather than just mutual funds. That is when I became a trader. JG: How often did you trade starting out? How long did you hold onto your positions? Back then, I would hold onto things one to two weeks at a time. We got into a period not long after I started when the market saw a lot of what turned out to be excessive momentum, with the NASDAQ virtually tripling in the next year and a half. So it was a good time for momentum trading. I found that I liked to grab stocks as they were starting to break out of patterns. Because I was trading short term, I turned away from fundamental concepts and went purely into the technicals based on the price action. As I saw resistance levels being broken, with demand increasing for a stock, I saw that was breaking through ceilings, and that was how I was basing my entries. I would take my entry and ride the move as long as I could until it fizzled out. Then I would move on to the next idea. JG: It sounds like it is extremely simple, but we all know it’s not. First of all, you mentioned that you were looking for stocks that were breaking out of patterns. Are there any specific patterns you like to look at? I look for classic chart patterns like bear and bull flags, wedge patterns, triangles, and consolidation-type patterns like rectangles or channels. Those are the ones I key in on. It is not that I’ve found they work so much better than some other method. What they do is keep me disciplined. They make things black & white for me as far as when to be in and out of trades. That is what is most important to me because I try to approach my trading with a survival orientation. I want to preserve my capital first and foremost. Yet I put that capital at risk in order to turn a profit.

by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan