Inside a trader’s mind: Q&A with Abetrade
by CryptoJelleNL
Abetrade is a full-time trader, who first started trading cryptocurrency in 2020 - but has been trading other markets for much longer. Over the past years, Adam has provided trading education through tradingriot.com and X (former Twitter) account Abetrade. His educational content (and the shitposts to go with it) have helped him grow his X account to well beyond 100,000 followers.
Adam recently partnered with WOO X – and promised to give us an exclusive look inside his trading kitchen. Let's discuss Adams's journey to becoming a profitable trader. In today’s article, we learn more about his path to becoming a profitable trader, the mistakes he made along the way, and the valuable lessons he has learned. Read on to steal a few of his tricks!
Allow me to introduce today's chef: Abetrade.
Introducing Abetrade
Adam has been trading financial markets for 6-7 years – but his journey probably looks a bit different from yours. Most of Adam's trading experience stems from legacy markets, most notably the German 10-year bond. "Although I have known about crypto since 2015-16, my original path of trading was in legacy markets, starting at forex and then moving to trading the fixed-income markets, namely the German ten-year bonds."
Over the years, he developed what he describes as a discretionary trading strategy, with many systematic aspects – based on order flow, volume, and price action. When asked about his edge, he explained that it's his patience that wins most of his trades.
"Throughout the years, I learned only to take the trades that are just too obvious and screaming at you to take them rather than sub-optimal trades."
It wasn't until five years after first learning about crypto, that Adam's interest was piqued. Global markets crashed as a result of the outbreak of COVID-19, and then recovered – crypto leading the charge. When traders see a strongly trending asset – they tend to pay attention, as did Adam.
The lockdowns that followed also pushed him to start writing a blog at tradingriot.com – covering a range of concepts that have since gained popularity in online trading communities.
Question: Why did you launch TradingRiot?
A: I started the website which was originally just a free blog during covid as I couldn't really do anything else instead of just sitting at home.
The blog covers concepts such as order flow and auction market theory which I learned when I was actively day trading bonds.
In 2020 when I started the blog, these concepts were not really “mainstream” like they are today and there were only a handful of people on Twitter talking about them, especially in crypto.
Also, the content that I cover on my blog was back in the day only accessible behind a big paywall and I myself spent a lot of money on different courses talking about these things, so being bored at home, I felt like it could be a cool thing to start a completely free resource which I wished I had myself when I was learning how to trade.
Daily Routine
Adam is a true night owl – doing most of his work in markets around midnight in his time zone. It is around this time that most markets close for an hour – and everything slows down. Adam uses this time to analyze the markets and prepare for the next trading day. "There are different things I like to look at in crypto and legacy markets, but my overall approach stays the same once I am done with my preparation, I very often just set limit orders or alerts for markets of my choice and take it from there the next day."
He likes this approach because it allows him to be flexible – contrary to his approach prior to 2022 – when he heavily relied on day trading. He decided to change to a less labor-intensive approach as he started feeling slightly burned out, and his financial situation allowed him to focus on bigger moves and be more picky with his trades. As such, Adam now primarily swing trades.
"I am very happy that I spent the early years day trading as it taught me a lot about market microstructure. I was able to build a lot of confidence by taking a lot of trades, so I never hesitate with execution."
Setting his alerts allows him to focus on other things until the market presents an opportunity. When those alerts start ringing, Adam hops in and gets to work.
"I have always dreaded having a corporate job, as I am not much of a people person. The fact that it's up to me if I manage to make or lose the money is one of the most significant drivers why I keep showing up every day."
When he is not active in the market or busy working on other projects, Adam likes to spend his time outside, rather than wasting his time on the internet.
Q: When venturing outside, it's inevitable that people will ask you what you do for a living. How do you answer?
A: Most of my friends know what I do, but when I meet new people, I prefer to say that I work in finance, or I work in tech or whatever, not to mention trading or crypto in general.
Although it is not unique to crypto and trading, there is just so much grift and scams on social media evolving around this space that on the few occasions I mentioned I trade for a living, I had to explain for the next 30 minutes that I am not running some pyramid scheme.
So ever since that, saying that I work for some company in tech or finance is just much easier.
Adam's trading journey
Adam spent the first 2-3 years of his trading career learning. "Technical analysis is not rocket science, but putting things to work, managing risk, collecting data, and building a robust trading system takes a lot of time."
He explained that his background also made him more risk-averse – seeing as he could not afford to blow accounts, or just lose sums of money on irresponsible, stupid trades. He understood that trading must be taken seriously from the start – and quickly learned that like any other job, it takes a lot of time to master. It also didn't take him very long to understand that trading is not a get-rich-quick the scheme, where I will just take a few trades and sit on beach every day.
"I had made a lot of mistakes throughout the years, from not betting enough when I should when I was right, fading trends too early, get-rich-quick and being stubborn when I was wrong and a million other things, but I always tried to learn from it instead of just letting it haunt me. "
Some of Adam's trading days work out better than others. Missing fills, getting stopped out just before the market goes in the direction of his trade or just being flat-out wrong on trades where he had strong conviction are just a few of the things that can go wrong in any given day. In his experience, being on Twitter makes this worse, as everyone always seems to long the bottom and short the top.
"One of the things with swing trading that I struggle with nowadays is sometimes understanding that there will be prolonged periods of nothing, especially when I manage to miss trade and know that I will now have to wait days, mostly weeks to see another opportunity in that market."
Q: How do you deal with those struggles?
A: I trade more markets, I trade crypto, FX, commodity, and index futures, so I know that if I miss something in FX, there might be exciting opportunities in crypto coming soon, etc.
Parting Questions
Q: If you could give one piece of advice to a beginner trader, what would it be?
A: Don't believe things you see on social media.
Q: What are your expectations for the next year?
A: Honestly, I don't know, and I don't care. My trades span from a few days to a few weeks max, so trying to predict things a month from now is not my place to do.
Word of thanks
A big thank you to Adam for taking the time to share his thoughts with us today. Be sure to check out his Twitter & blog to learn more about his trading style, or follow him on his journey.
Author's Disclaimer: This article has been written for informational purposes only. It should not be construed as trading or investment advice in any shape or form.
Editor's note: CryptoJelleNL provides insights into the cryptocurrency industry. He has been actively participating in financial markets for over 5 years, primarily focusing on long-term investments in both the stock market and crypto. While he watches the returns of those investments roll in, he writes articles for multiple platforms. From now on, he will be contributing his insights for WOO as well.
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