Having been exposed to what trading is like since 8, he now has plenty of credentials including SeekingAlpha certification.  In this interview, he shares his background along with some insight on how to gain an edge in trading.  Enjoy!

“Phil, correct me if I’m wrong, but you are best known for the investment site you manage (Phil’s Stock World).  However, you’ve had quite an

interesting background and experience, especially from your entrepreneurship aspect.  Can you give us your career roadmap?”

Once upon a time I was Director of Network Sales at Intelligent Electronics, who were acquired by IM back in 1997.  I was there in the 80s, when you actually had to be quite a geek to design a computer network and I was a real technophile back in the bad old days of computing.  I left that job to start Delphi Consulting with my father, who was a Systems Analyst and in the mid 90′s I started a Real Estate Data company called Accu-Search which grew big enough to be acquired by DataTrace (a division of FAF) in 2004.  After that I concentrated on General Corporate (sales, efficiency) and M&A consulting and, of course investing.

“What led you to starting Phil’s Stock World?”

As an investor, I had tried many different stock and options newsletters and found them lacking to say the least.  I already had people asking me for market advice all the time due to my consulting work and my tech background was invaluable helping me sort the wheat from the chaff in the dot-com era so I was already a known stock picker and before I knew it I had thousands of readers.  What started as some postings on Blogger in 2006 turned into Phil’s Stock World and gained a life of its own.  I think we fill a real need in the marketplace for real information without all the BS – people really respond to that.

“With the emergence of new communities like StockTwits, the exposure of trader web sites and blogs are increasing.  Now, as a seasoned player in this field, do you have any tips for the new comers, or even the experienced ones?  What helped you get to where you are today?”

LOL, that’s a tough one as I’ve had several marketing consultants tell me we’re doing everything wrong.  We don’t advertise, we don’t go for promotion and we give away free trials of our newsletter because we don’t want people to sign up for a Premium Membership UNLESS they are sure they want it.  Our site is very different as we (Optrader, David and myself) are on-line chatting directly with our members during most trading days.  We don’t make calls and run off to do a TV show, we’re there following the markets with our readers, adjusting strategies, commenting on the news and answering questions live, when it matters.  I can’t help other stock guys if they aren’t ready to make that kind of commitment to their members – that comes first.

“How long have you been trading?  What is your main trading strategy?”

I’ve been trading since I was eight years old.  My grandfather in England was an investor and he would sit down with me on weekends and go over his portfolio and we’d read the paper and he’d tell me about what companies he liked and didn’t.  My job was to circle all the stocks that were nearing their 52-week lows and he would go over those to see if there were any “values” to be had.  The first stock my Grandpa Max bought for me was Cadbury’s, who I had been pestering him to buy and had come down sharply as there was a sugar shortage driving the price up.  My grandfather and I agreed that it was a short-term issue and not likely to affect their long-term outlook so it became my first stock.  I’ve been a value investor ever since and I use option strategies as a way to both leverage and hedge my investments.

“Do you have any strategies you can share on how you screen the stocks and determine your entry/exit points?”

As a fundamentalist there is no 5-minute guideline to identifying value but I will say that the simplest way to describe it is patience.  Find a stock you like, follow it long enough to get comfortable with it’s trading channel and, when the opportunity comes and they get near the bottom – BUY THEM.  When they move back up near the top of your value range – SELL THEM.  Investing is governed by greed at the top and fear at the bottom, if you can learn to play the middle, you can do very well for yourself.

“Do you have any big success/mistake stories?”

I called the top of this market too early.  In the summer of 2007 I thought stocks were way overvalued and the financials were in trouble and got a reputation for being an alarmist.  Of course no one was laughing by the end of 2008 but sometimes you can out-think the market when you focus too much on fundamentals and not enough on mood.  I did learn from that mistake and called a bottom to the market on a TV show called LiveStock on March 6th of this year, while the market was crashing and every MSM talking head was screaming SELLSELLSELL,  I laid out half a dozen bullish plays that afternoon, mostly in financials, that had huge returns – so now I’m a “guru,” go figure…

http://www.mogulus.com/livestock/ondemand/pla_6332938475165233151?initthumburl=

“What would be the key concepts investors need to learn in order to become a successful investor?”

Patience and balance.  We assign all our new members to watch a film that (hopefully) teaches patience and just this Wednesday I had occasion to quote Mr. Miyagi, who said: ” Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good. Balance bad, better pack up, go home. Understand?“  Substitute “trading” for “karate” and you can’t have a better summary of how important good portfolio balance techniques are to successful trading.

“Lastly, what are some of the investment resources out there that you use on a regular basis?”

I’m a big reader.  I read the WSJ and the New York Times cover to cover every day and then I hit the web and read my own favorite bloggers, many of whom now reside on our site under a section we call “Phil’s Favorites.”  Seeking Alpha also has a great collection of writers and then I’ve got a pretty large cross section of the normal data providers I go to for research but for me, it’s all about the quarterly reports and the financial statements and those you can find anywhere – the rest is timing and, if you watch your news flow and pay attention to world events, you can get a pretty good handle on that most of the time.