Stocks & Commodities V. 35:02 (32, 34–38): Ed Dobson On Transitioning To Independent Trader by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan

Ed Dobson On Transitioning To Independent Trader by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan

Former futures broker, book publisher, and author Ed Dobson always had a calling for the markets. He never lost that interest or stopped trading, despite becoming busy with his brokerage career and publishing business, knowing that one day he’d get back to trading more actively. Through the years, he continued to study charts, research spreads, write and publish books on trading, and assist his clientele of active traders. He served as a broker at H.S. Kipnis, Harris Upham, Smith Barney, and PaineWebber. He launched Trader’s Press in 1975 to connect with traders and to publish educational books and materials on trading and investing. He gave that up in 2009 to return to the path that he first embarked on when he was just 12 years old and turned his full attention to trading the markets.

Dobson has written or cowritten nine books on trading. His trading centers on options strategies but he trades all markets. He leads a local traders’ group in South Carolina. He can be reached at charttrader@charter.net.

STOCKS & COMMODITIES Editor Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan spoke with Ed Dobson on December 12, 2016 about how many years of looking at charts gives him a feel for the markets, what he doesn’t pay attention to, and about the spread and options strategies he uses, including overlapping condors, Christmas tree spreads, and short-term calendar spreads.

Ed, what got you interested in the financial markets?
I was always a saver. By the time I was 12 years old I had some savings. My dad was a businessman and he introduced me to stocks. Since I had some money saved up, he thought he’d tell me about stocks. He recommended a Jacksonville grocery store and a building supply company. So I bought 20 shares of each and made a profit on them. That was enough to whet my appetite. So that’s how I got interested in the stock market ...