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Brett Golden And His Team At ChartLabPro Talk Algorithms And No Regrets

Stocks—I don’t own them, I don’t understand them. I hate to admit that, but someday I will take care of both these issues. For those who do have stocks and want to understand them, buy more, or manage them better, than ChartLabPro is definitely a site you should check out.

 

 

We caught up with Brett Golden, co-founder and President, and his team to get the scoop on the ChartLabPro “algos.”

 

First, a little team bio:

 

Brett Golden

Mr. Golden is Cofounder and President of ChartLabPro.com Before starting ChartLabPro.com, he was a partner at Southport Harbor Associates. A firm that is dedicated to helping maximize both hedge fund and private equity clients, set their strategic direction and increase their assets under management.

 

Mr. Golden has a broad array of investment banking and investment management experience. Prior to being the Director of Sales and Marketing, Mr. Golden founded Colonial Capital Partners, LLC., a client-focused investment bank, where he raised hundreds of millions for hedge funds and both public and private companies.

 

 

Mr. Golden was a minority owner in First Colonial Securities Group, LLC., a family-owned boutique investment bank with $3 billion in assets and 20 offices. Mr. Golden also founded the spin out ColonialDirect.com, an online brokerage.

 

Greg Troccoli

Greg has been providing institutional quality Technical Analysis for over 25 years. A majority of Greg’s career was spent working with Prudential Securities, where he held the position of Chief Technical Analyst, covering all global markets. In addition, Greg was employed by Bear Sterns and most recently Deutsche Bank-Americas. His research has been utilized by over 3,500 institutions worldwide, including eight central banks, proprietary trading desks and a large contingent of retail investors and financial advisors. Furthermore, Greg has an extensive media presence and has been a weekly contributor on CNBC’s Fast Money, Closing Bell, in addition to Bloomberg TV and Yahoo Finance.

 

Greg developed his proprietary research methodology to assist clients, through various market cycles over the past three decades. His process begins with a top down approach to the world’s largest global markets and in turn applies technical analysis expertise to identify developing pricing trends. As trends are identified, we incorporate this analysis for a best of breed risk/reward profile.

 

Louis Lukac- Head of Algorithmic Trading

Louis Lukac, former Director of futures research for Prudential Securities. In 1990 he along with Jack Schwager started Wizard Trading. Louis work in system design and testing began while still an undergraduate at Purdue University.

 

The Wizard Global Systematic Program employs computer assisted trading strategies based principally on technical analysis. Technical analysis uses internal market data (e.g., price, volume, open interest, sentiment) to determine price trends. No discretionary intervention has been utilized although Advisor does reserve the right to utilize its discretion in extraordinary circumstances. The program uses a wide spectrum of strategies including trend following, countertrend, and pattern recognition approaches developed and streamlined over many years of research.

 

Additionally, this program incorporates a volatility adjusted portfolio allocation method developed initially by Louis Lukac and Jack Schwager. The program attempts to optimize position size on a daily basis based on the relative volatility of multiple market sectors across previous time period. Market sector allocations are based on several criteria, including historical profitability, sector balance, and liquidity.

 

Tell us a little more about ChartLabPro.com

We created chartlabpro.com originally for friends and family to access our proprietary algorithms online.  We have running these algorithms for 15 years running institutional money.  Our friends and family found very little quality investment ideas on the internet and we thought we could really help the online investor make better investment decisions and education them with an institutional approach.

 

What’s a typical day at ChartLabPro.com look like?

Typical day starts by uploading our algos to the servers.  We also provide commentary with dictionary views on the markets.  We start researching around 6:00 a.m. to high light the days events. We provide three commentaries throughout the day.  A large part of the day is responding to helping people.  We  try to respond to people within an hour.  My biggest pet peeve is when i email a site I pay for and I don’t receive a real response within 24 hours. I would say at least half my day is R&D for building our next phase, which is providing model portfolio’s and risk management and portfolio diagnostics.


How do you motivate yourself?

When you love what your doing, I don’t think you need motivation.  What motivates me is providing the best investment platform where the retail investor can reduce their risk and make money.  We want the average person to realize they can make money and it is achievable. Ultimately, when I receive an email from a user telling me that we made their financial situation a little easier buy our investment ideas or they love the site, keeps me moving forward.

 

Got any great bootstrapping tips for the lean startups out there?

Don’t spend money you don’t have.  Slow scale and make sure there is proof of concept.  Just because you love the idea does not mean everyone else will.


 
When do your best ideas come to you?

Before I go to sleep, then I typically get out of bed and hop back on the computer and map it out.  I don’t like to wait when its fresh in my head. 


What entrepreneur do you admire?

Too many to answer, but someone who has little programming and more design skills, I would have to say Steve Jobs.  It’s not about profits its about the product!

 

What would you be doing if you had one year off and $500,000 to spend?

I would never take off a year, I would use the $500,000 to grow my business.


 
A lot of people have big ideas. What gave you the confidence to actually put your life on hold and realize yours?

Tough question, I have always basically worked for myself, I don’t think I can be put into a corporate box and do one task all day.  I like wearing many hats and watching something grow that I can control.


Any regrets?

None, waste of energy.


 
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs struggling to get their business off the ground?

Make sure you are doing it for the right reason, not to own your own business.  Are you really helping people or solving an issue?

 


Web App or site you couldn’t live without and why.

  1. Businessinsider.com
  2.  zerohedge.com-I like to have a contraian point of view, the markets are always upwardly biased

 

Can you share some number with us?

This will be our first full year and we should hit about $200,000 without any marketing.

 
 
Where can our readers reach out to you?

We have a facebook page chartlabpro,

twitter-@thechartlab

or visit our site www.chartlabpro.com

 

Thanks, Brett! When I do need to get on that stock-buying train I’ll definitely keep ChartLabPro in mind!

 

Photo Credits

ChartLabPro.com

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