Stocks & Commodities V. 31:8 (34-38): Interview: Managing Risk With Lan Turner by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan

Managing Risk With Lan Turner by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan

One Tick At A Time

Lan Turner has worked in the financial industry for more than 18 years and has taught his ideas on stocks, futures, and forex trading to clients, professional traders, and brokers from around the world. Turner is the CEO of Gecko Software (www.GeckoSoftware.com) and chief design architect of Track ’n Trade LIVE trading platforms and charting applications. Turner is also president of PitNews Press and editor-in-chief of PitNews Magazine. He is an author, publisher, and public speaker, having taught live trading seminars across the US and internationally. He has also presented at the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange education centers.

Stocks & Commodities Editor Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan spoke with Turner on June 5, 2013.

Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself — your background, and how you got interested in trading.

It started in the late 1980s, back when the Internet was just getting started and becoming quite popular. I had a small company that imported modems, network cards, and hubs. It was a wholesale distributor of computer hardware. The Internet was really taking off at that time, and all the computers needed to have modems. So I was making quite a bit of money importing modems and selling them up and down the street to all the computer stores here in the Midwest.

Since I made a chunk of money selling modems during the Internet boom, I needed to figure out a way to invest some of the money. So I started to invest in the stock market at the time the Internet boom was beginning. I made a huge haul on my very first trade.

Most traders will tell you that making a bunch of money on your first trade is a big mistake, because then you think you’re really good when really, you don’t know what you’re doing. That was classic for me, too. I made a whole bunch of money in the stock market and then turned around and quickly lost most of it and was right back where I started.

I decided that I better figure out how to do this if I was going to do it, so I started to study. And that’s when I started to look into different markets. I was introduced to the futures market by a friend of mine, and I started looking into and researching the futures market. When I discovered the futures market, I absolutely loved it.