The Striker Report

William Gallwas: Can you tell our readers about yourself? Where do you live, where did you grow up, and where did you go to school and so on?

Marko Grcic: I was born in1975 Switzerland, and living in the beach house surrounded with hundreds of islands in the city of Sibenik in Croatia where I also grow up. From 1996 to 2003 I was running my own company registered for trade, tourism and sports. I enjoy in hobbies like windsurfing, I was competing in the World cup windsurfing championship in 1993 and 1994 as a Croatian Youth champion and vice champion in senior division. In 2005 I graduated in Vern, Zagreb as Baccalaureate of Entrepreneurship economics.

In 2001 I become interested in commodity trading. While studding I was reading hundreds of books on trading, attended many seminars and testing all in demo platforms. In 2005 I started trading on Chicago grain markets with real money by following systems and methods of my mentor and guru, the best trader in the world, Larry Williams. I'm very grateful for his guidance as I've been trading for a living since early beginnings.

William Gallwas: As a developer, we know you have a unique and successful background, having won a trading contest with World Cup. Can you look back upon your this accomplishment and tell us about your reward?

Marko Grcic: I'm focused on two markets only, E-mini S&P500 Index and T-bonds. In software testing I use both; fundamental and technical analysis. After 18 years of studding the markets, I created unique strategy that includes 52 systems for S&P500 Index and 56 systems for T-bonds. They came out of my secondary arsenal that contains around 900 systems. My strategy is diversification thought different uncorrelated systems instead of markets. This allows me to keep focus on two very liquid and unique markets.

Since 1982 there's a real money Trading World Cup Trading Championships in futures and forex. Today it's a big competition with participants from 45 countries. In 2015 I took 5th place with 120% return, in 2016 I was world vice champion with 226%. Ten days before finish of 2019 I held 5th place with 79.6% return.

No doubt I enjoy in trading the markets. As a trader I don't force and push anything, I always try to achieve steady growth and decrease fluctuations. I'm very happy I can learn from the best traders in the world. Above all competition provides me a lot of energy and will power to progress and work hard.

William Gallwas: Do you travel and network with other developers to exchange ideas? What books, podcasts, or news sites have played a role in shaping the way you trade and think?

Marko Grcic: For studding and learning I would recommend seminars and books from Larry Williams. Trading also requires a lot of self discipline and skills that include many areas from psychology, physic, statistic, mathematics, economy, analytics etc.

In my opinion very important is the unchanging knowledge explained by natural laws. No doubt, there's no chaos in nature - everything is in accordance to the law. Nature just repeats itself and operates in holographic way, what means that every particle from atom, molecule, cell, man or planet reflect the whole as it operates by the same principle. Micro and macro scale exist in the same way governs by the same law. So if we understand one cell, we can understand the whole creation. Therefore I've been studding ancient Vedas and its theory of everything Sankhya that explain every law with simple math by counting vibrations.

In application of these ideas to the markets, there is always interplay of the three qualities; compressive, expansive and dynamism that connect the two natural opposites. I also pay a lot attention to the cycles as days and weeks as well as other cycles. In testing systems and protective stops I also apply numbers of fractal geometry as golden ratio, natural logarithm and symmetry. I found out it works really god for me!

William Gallwas: Swing trading systems (systems that carry overnight) were battered badly in 2018 but you carried on. Do you recall those volatile days in the S&P 500 between Feb 5 - Feb 10 2018 and what did you learn from that?

Marko Grcic: Obviously fear is much stronger emotion than greed, while markets as a emotional game it will always have tendency to move faster to the down side. I personally like volatile markets because they reflect overreactions and exaggeration what creates over sold conditions and good opportunities.

In trading, I just follow mechanical systems with proven track record and protective stops. Exits on the first profitable open allow me to achieve better winning percentage and to reduce draw downs. In entries I like to filter my trades with stop orders that also increase winning percentages.

It's very important to exclude emotions form decision making process because we're subjective and influenced by many events. Therefore I just test history to find good opportunities, and then follow my systems and strategy. When everybody is afraid, usually there's good opportunity to buy.

William Gallwas: Your systems are all now published on Striker's site. If you could pick just one system, looking at 2020 - which one would you recommend?

Marko Grcic: In testing system I use daily bars as a reference because they are published daily and has the greatest relevance as a cycle. If we have four consecutive down ranges without outside and inside day, buy on the pit open, exit is first profitable open and stop loss is fixed. This simple system brought me 27 consecutive wins in a row!

Of course my systems are more sophisticated. The codes of the system collects and merge different situations of past to predict future and find the best probabilities. This works as inclusion and exclusion blocks with yes and no conditions, what is a quality of intelligence as well as principle of artificial intelligence. The biggest advantage of such approach is to avoid psychological component and subjective mind. Sometimes I also use discretionary approach mostly for early exits wit profit there I try to recognize intuition and subconscious feelings or what we call decision on the first. No doubt, trading is both; art and science.

William Gallwas: How do you manage stress in trading? Do you have a daily routine that you go about?

Marko Grcic: Every morning I wake up early and practice yoga or focus of the mind to enjoy great bliss and get energy from the source. Steady mind increases potential for every action. I also walk a lot and spend some time in nature. I used to live in the big cities, but now I love in living by the sea and to enjoy in simple things as reading, arts, sports, etc. This way of living helps me to eliminate stress and attain peace and stability. I’m always very curious to search for the knowledge. I also love to work hard according to my plans and to enjoy life as it really is, perfect in every aspect.

William Gallwas: Geo-political events worldwide seem to be very hot with Britexit, US-China tensions, Iran falling apart, a new "Cold Russia" - since you live in Croatia, are you worried at all about Russia's intensions in the new year?

Marko Grcic: When we consider world in the short term, it seems very chaotic. But if pay attention to the changes that took place in the last century we see trends forward in improvement in literality, flow of information, greater productivity, decrease in war conflicts, etc. On the other hand, in democracy many times politicians profit from conflict and fear. In my opinion, the exponential development of east and west will continue, technology and artificial intelligence will increase global productivity what will take millions out of poverty and also ignorance. It will create better living conditions for many people and more time to search for inner potentials and happiness that is inside everybody not outside.

Presidents and leaders are today in and tomorrow out while levels of education, technology and consciousness are growing up, and no one can stop it. In my opinion, the biggest challenge of 21st century is transition from fossil fuels to the cheap and clean energy based on cold fusion.

William Gallwas: How can our readers get a hold of you?

Marko Grcic: I'm happy to publish all systems at Striker.com where subscribers can mirror all trades of the World Cup 2020 at attractive rates! Everybody is free to choose risk according to own preferences and choose moderate or conservative approach.

William Gallwas: Finally, do you have a New Year's resolution? Anything in the "what's new" category in your life? Will you start a blog, write a book, or contribute your trading knowledge to a local university?

Marko Grcic: I'm very focused on winning the World Cup Trading Champ 2020. I like to go step by step, slowly but surely. There’s still a lot to learn, test and trade, so my goal is mastering the game of trading by mastering the systems.

I will continue in scientific cooperation with scientists in my region and to translate Vedic books and texts, because I consider knowledge as the best prevention. I'll definitely continue to enjoy in all I'm doing and in every moment of life!

I wish very happy and prosperous New Year 2020 to you, our readers and people all around the world.