Massimiliano works for a company that provides financial services to businesses.

When he started trading 15 years ago, Massimiliano, like many other traders, initially opted for a discretionary approach.

Realizing the limitations of this method, he soon sought another way – an approach where decisions are based on numbers, tests, and tangible data.

This search led him directly to Unger Academy®!

With us, Massimiliano learned a scientific method that allows him to trade without spending sleepless nights staring at charts and making sound decisions based on tests and statistics.

The results are undeniable!

Since the beginning of the year, his portfolio has generated a +15% return on his invested capital.
Moreover, inspired by the teachings of the Academy, Massimiliano has decided to participate in the World Cup Trading Championships to test himself.

Want to learn more about Massimiliano's journey and how Unger Academy® has changed his approach to trading?

Don't miss this interview!

You’ll discover:
• Why Massimiliano switched from discretionary trading to Unger Academy®
• What has benefited him most from our training program
• How his participation in the World Cup Trading Championships is evolving
• What he values most about the Unger Method™

Enjoy watching 😎

Transcription

Introduction

Chelsi
Hey everyone, I'm Chelsi from Unger Academy and today, I'm here with Massimiliano, a successful student from Unger Academy. And further on we'll see what we mean by a successful student. Hi, Massimiliano. Welcome!

Massimiliano
Thank you, thank you very much, Chelsi, for this invitation and the opportunity you want to give me in this interview.

Chelsi
You're welcome! So tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do in life, and what you are involved in.

Who is Massimiliano and how did his journey in the world of trading begin?

Massimiliano
So, I do something in life that is entirely different now, in the sense that I like the world of trading, and I would like it to become my profession one day, something that I could study, have fun with, and also make a living with.

However, now, this isn’t the case. Because it's a very engaging hobby, but it's still a hobby. Currently, I work in a company that deals with corporate finance. And in short, now, I’m still doing this job.

I come a little bit from Andrea's world because Andrea is an engineer who studied at Milan's Polytechnic. And I also worked at the Polytechnic for about 27 years, and maybe there is something left in our DNA imprint! Of course, I dare not compare myself with him, but let's say that we come from the same world.

So, I started to approach the world of trading about 15 years ago, and you know, "trading" is a big term under which there is everything. In the beginning, after reading a few books, I obviously started off as a discretionary trader. And what happened as a discretionary trader? Well, you are always afraid when trading because there are no certainties. If you do everything on demo with what I like to call "Monopoly money", everything is pretty easy. However, when you start to trade with your own money, I can assure you that the emotional part is well over 50%. Because when you see prices going up and down and then up and down again, you start wondering, "Will this be the right time to open the trade? Will this be the time to close it?" That's a Hamletic doubt that’s always there.

So, what was going on? Like many people, I started with scalping. Then, if it didn't go well, it became trading. And if it didn't go well, it became position trading. And if it didn't go well again, I kept the positions open for a lot of time, because if you were capitalized enough, you can keep them open even for months. Because you know, sometimes the market returns to those prices it touched, so you can recover.

However, to do this, you have two choices: either trading with a very large capital that allows you to keep positions open for a long time, or trading with very small positions. And to do the latter, well, you can do it on the micro futures, where you can play it with less money, but not on all markets.

Then, of course, you win and lose… because the discretionary method, in my opinion, is only suitable for very few people in the world because it takes a deep sensitivity to the markets. In addition, since I was also working at the Polytechnic, I couldn't trade the markets during my working hours, so I missed many European market phases. That's why I worked more with the American markets, because after the end of my working day, the American exchanges are still open. So in short, I always stayed up until midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock, and that was not very healthy.

So, then, at some point, I stopped and started looking for other ways. I began to approach the world of systematic trading because I saw that it offered more opportunities. The first one was that it's based on a serious method that essentially eliminates the emotional part. Because the moment you find a method, you have to follow it through. You have found something that works. Well, I mean, you have to look at yourself in the mirror: either you have split personality issues, or you obviously stick to that method.

And since it's automated, it also allows me to have a portfolio of strategies that works for me all the time, like right now, while I'm talking to you. So, you can do 2 things at the same time: you can have a job and be a trader because if you have done your homework well, you’re also getting results with those strategies.

Since the beginning of the year, my portfolio is gaining +15%. It's composed of indexes and commodities. So, there's gold, there's platinum, there's gasoline, there's Lean Hogs… in short, it's well diversified. And that's also very important because when you trade with a totally correlated portfolio, if things don't go well for your strategies you risk losing a lot of money. So diversification is really one of the most important things.

What helped him the most in the Unger Academy training program

Chelsi
Great. And what problem did you have, in terms of trading, before you started training at the Unger Academy? What were you looking for?

Massimiliano
Well, I was looking for, let's say, not random ideas, but possibilities, opportunities, insights. Because to research new trading opportunities manually, that is, with pen and paper, is a crazy job, in the sense that backtesting an idea without computer support can take you weeks, only to find out that the idea was wrong.

From the very beginning, I have been reading Larry Williams' great books. Eh, this gentleman, who's still one of the greatest traders ever because nobody has managed to make a 11,000% gain in the championship yet… Well, this gentleman recorded the inefficiencies on pen and paper at that time. You know, we were in the 1980s,the early 1980s. So, the work was gigantic. Back then, he didn't have the possibility that I have today, to use MultiCharts and Easy Language to code my ideas, whether they're right or crazy, and see if they hold up, and then from there, look for price patterns, add biases, see the best hours of the day, and look for the sustainability of the trading system… Well, that's certainly no small value add! Before switching to this world, I didn’t know that it was very crucial, and I recommend it to everyone.

Obviously, it is a long road. It’s an economic investment because those of you who have done what I did and joined the Academy, which provides students with the knowledge and hard work of Andrea, our coaches, the whole group, and in short, the entire excellent team, it means a lot. It means finding yourself with quote-un quote “a ready-made meal”, but then you have to process it, you have to study it, you have to personalize it, you have to test it. In short, you have to make it your own.

Chelsi
So the part that has changed the most is the transition from paper to leveraging technology...

Massimiliano
Exactly. The transition to systematic trading allows you to trade faster anyway. In the same week, you can try 5 ideas instead of taking 5 weeks to test one. And then, if you do it right and believe in what you're doing, you can even use a cell phone to monitor your portfolio, and live your life, so that you’re not tied to the monitor for 10 hours a day, and that's no small thing either.

Why did he choose our program among the many available in the market?

Chelsi
And what made you decide to join Unger Academy out of all the training programs on the market?

Massimiliano
Having a person who has won the World Cup Trading Championships 4 times should already be enough. Because the Championship is a third party that judges your performance, and it's a whole different thing compared to people who post pictures of airplanes and villas, and when you ask them for a broker statement, they don't give it to you. In my job, the person judging you must be a third party, not a friend of yours. Also, the championship is done with real money, so there's little shenanigans there. If you're first, you're first. If you're fifth, you're fifth. If you're last, you're not even featured in the standings.

So, having such a pragmatic person like Andrea, who has won the championships 4 times, it's really great. Before I decided to join the Academy, I also watched videos on YouTube where Andrea gives many tips and talks about his approach and his method. And he really made me realize the reliability of the person and, of course, the professionalism of the whole working group.

A person who nevertheless talks calmly, explains things to you, doesn't make too many fireworks (which is useless), again showed a pragmatic side, which is also mine, and I said, okay, this is a person that I can trust, without a shadow of a doubt. At the end of this whole journey this year, I also signed up for the World Cup Trading Championships with real money.

Chelsi
Wow, excellent!

His participation in the World Cup Trading Championships

Massimiliano
I do this for fun, of course. I mean, I have no ambitions.... But at some point, it's also a measuring tool because, as I said, there’s a third party judging you.

And it started well, in the sense that, by the end of January, when the rankings were published, I was first with, I think a +58% gain or something like that. I stayed in the top 5 until the end of February-March, and then the trading system I use went into equity control. Going back to what I was talking about earlier, having equity control is crucial. Because there's no point in letting the systems run free. That system started not performing, so it went into equity stop, and now it’s starting to recover. I don't show up today in the rankings but as you know, the championship lasts one year, so it's a marathon and not a 100-meter dash race. If the trading systems that I put in place and the market starts working in a certain way, I might even finish the year in the top 5, and that'd be a great satisfaction for me!

Chelsi
And how does what you learned at Unger Academy help you in the Championships?

Massimiliano
Well, the key is the method. And we said, the method is crucial, so I love that fact that I'm afraid, that I can check out the markets and my strategies when I want, that I know that my trading systems have rules anyway, so there is a stop loss and a take profit, which of course I have optimized in the in-sample part and then implemented in the out of sample, before I deposited the money and signed up for the championship.

And I also like having an equity control that tells me when to stop or tells me when to restart my systems, and I follow it unwaveringly. Because every time I've taken decisions other from what the equity control suggested, going back to that discretionary soul of mine… Well, it's often been a disaster, meaning the system was correct.

So, it’s better to follow the good instructions that you receive, from the Academy, from your courses, which, as I said, teach you a method. A method that is priceless, it is invaluable, because it’s an academic, scientific method, so already these 2 terms fulfill everything, I mean, they are the very opposite of discretion.

How did his trading approach change?

Chelsi
Ok, so besides the Championship, how has your trading changed after your experience with Unger Academy?

Massimiliano
Well, it has become more selective, more methodical, and with less uncertainty. I now trade with a portfolio that I think is very well balanced, where the equity bundle of the strategies has a positive slope. So this means that when a system occasionally underperforms, there's another one that outperforms, in a continuous positive relay of all systems. Clearly, equity control does the lion's share of the work, meaning that the same portfolio would probably perform worse without equity control.

If you don't have a method, it's psychologically difficult. If you have a system that, over a year time, sometimes wins and sometimes loses, then sometimes wins and sometimes loses a lot... Well, that's stressful! Instead, with equity control, when you start losing too much you stop the system and use the other ones in the portfolio. That’s also very important. Because otherwise, you'd be tormented by a constant expectation that didn't materialize. And if you are discretionary, you can't measure that. Your bank account measures it, but that's not good. Instead, there must be a method that says, if you lost a lot at a certain point, that’s it. Then whether you do that with Bollinger bands or something else.... Everybody chooses their equity control, but it’s imperative to stick to it. That was a significant change in the way I trade.

Chelsi
And where do you think you would you be right now if you had not chosen to train with us?

Massimiliano
I'd still be trying to do scalping and then keep positions open a lot!

Chelsi
Really?

Massimiliano
Probably yes, but because that’s the human nature, isn’t it? Because one of the hardest things about trading is admitting you were wrong, and that’s a human trait. I mean, everybody says that. You know, when you trade you always end up letting the losses run and cutting the profits. It's unbelievable, I know, but that's the way it is. When you're losing, you say, "Now it’s going to recover, in 5 minutes it'll recover… by tomorrow it will recover..." And you eventually lose.

Instead, when you're earning something, you take it home immediately. But why do you do that? I mean, if you believe that your idea is right, you have to let it run. Switching to systematic trading has allowed me to take away that discretion, and if the profit target is $2,800 and the stop loss is $1,200, then you tolerate the $1,200 because you know the $2,800 will come. That’s also priceless. Of course, you have to stick to that because if you close when you're in profit of $1,500, you’re going back to your discretionary approach.

If the system can achieve the $2,800 target, you have to believe that it will reach $2,800. Because when you look at it afterward, you see that you hit the $1,200 stops, but you've also made the gains. So again, you have to keep your urge to click under control. Because after all we all have that urge when we look at the trades, don’t we?

Massimiliano’s advice to those who want to become traders

Chelsi
For sure! Okay, let me ask you one last question: what would you say to those who are watching this interview and are still undecided about whether to join the Unger Academy?

Massimiliano
I highly recommend it! And I also want to thank you for the time you gave me to tell my story because I hope that will be helpful to someone so that they don’t repeat the same mistakes I made. I'm talking about the idea of approaching the world of trading not having studied. Of course, everyone chooses what they think is good, what they have studied or what they like. But, really, thinking of pressing that famous button without having any foundation.... I’d sincerely go to the casino first!

The statistics are 50/50, and I can say that with certainty. So, what I can recommend, considering that I started with some smaller programs and then completed the full program, is to start with what I call, please don’t hate me, Andrea, the "Basic Course" that covers all the different patterns, because that’s... in my opinion... Those are the ABCs.

Andrea explains very well how to choose the patterns that win, given his experience, and since he won the Championships four times, I would say he deserves all the attention in the world. Even there, they come from studies, from statistics, from backtests, from codes.

So you can first make that first purchase, listen to the program, listen to it several times, and listen to it in general. When I took your Volatility program, and others that I did with other people whose other models I appreciate as much, I listened to them several times. Because each time you learn something new, something you had overlooked. I took notes, because if you take notes and go through them, you can start putting them into practice.

So, after the first program, it often doesn't stop there. A world opens for you and you want to take all the other training programs. You want to go all the way until you can code in Easy Language and put your systems on a platform. You want to see if your ideas work, even when you adapt them from the ideas, templates, and, of course, the systems that Andrea shares.

So, I’d suggest that if you want to be profitable, if you want to start earning money, either as part of your savings, or as a profession, joining Unger Academy is an important step towards seriousness, towards professionalism and clarity. And that's also because of their availability.

Because let's face it, there’s also a community where you can exchange ideas with each other, ask questions and get answers to those questions. It's never, "Oh, well, I don't have time, I'll get back to you in a month." That's also important to maintain, let's say, customer satisfaction. Knowing that there’s a group to talk to and where you can also compare ideas is an important part of the whole training.

Because you watch the videos, you learn things, you apply them… there can always be moments when you miss something. In those cases, I know I can ask and get a serious, consistent, precise, and helpful answer. That is also very, very important as an added value from you.

So, my advice is, if you don't want to continue relying on, let’s say, fate, Unger Academy is definitely the First Step. Then, from there, you will choose the further steps to take, right? So, there’s absolutely no doubt about that.

Chelsi
Possibly the Championship as well.

Massimiliano
Fingers crossed!

Chelsi
So, Massimiliano, thank you very much for your time, and I speak for the entire Academy, including Andrea, when I wish you victory in this year’s Trading Championship.

Massimiliano
It would certainly be a nice end-of-the-year gift, but as I said, I’m just participating, and that's fine. Otherwise, I'll sign up in 2024, 2025 and continue. I'm persistent!

Chelsi
Great!!! Thank you very much, Massimiliano.

Massimiliano
Thank you, Chelsi. Thank you.

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