Greg Riba is one of the traders featured in the movie “Floored.” It is about the changing face of the pit traders in the Chicago futures exchanges. You can find him in the Floored Episode 4 on Babelgum. You can scroll to the time of around 7:15 to start seeing the Greg Riba part in the Floored Episode 4.
There is only around two and a half minutes of him, which is a pity because he showed a lot of trading wisdom. He was one of the coolest traders in the floored documentary. And this is very interesting because I have discovered over the years that making a lot of money is all nice and dandy. But being able to make money effortlessly and being cool about it, and having some fun with it, is the next level. It is more desirable. After slogging it out in the order flow trenches for many months attempting to figure out order flow trading and filling my mind with new information and order flow generators, eventually you want to achieve a new level of success. To make money and to do it effortlessly and being cool about it. No need to make a lot of money and constantly be grouchy or stressful about it.
In the beginning you may feel the pain of the order flow process, but eventually you do a little bit of extra work on the markets, your trading system and process, as well as your own trader psychology in order to attain the next level of order flow success – which is to make money effortlessly and in a cool way.
Now let me go into the trader analysis of his interview.
Greg Riba Trader Analysis
Greg Riba says:
You know they hate me at the Merc by the way.
Something happened at the Chicago mercantile exchange that people hate him there. I will post more on what happened to him at the end of this article so read until the bottom.
Then Greg Riba goes on to say:
“All I know is, when I first walked in, every m***** f***** has a Rolex on their hand. And I’m like, I’m looking at it, that’s all I could think about when I started trading. Everybody’s got more on their wrist than I’ve got in my account. I told you. It was just like you know what? I could beat these guys.”
These are very important quotes. It seems he didn’t start trading with a lot of money. Depending on what rolex watch he was referring too, perhaps he started trading with just a few tens of thousands of dollars. But the more important part is that he told himself that he can “beat these guys.” This is very important, because traders need to believe that they can find an edge in the market. They need to believe that the markets are inefficient, and that they can find and exploit those inefficiencies. And since another trader is on the other side of your transactions, you need to be able to feel that you can beat them in the market.
Greg Riba knows that you need to have complete conviction in your analysis and in your trades in order to make the money and then go make the big money.
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When You Win Should You Bet Less Or More?
Riba continues on with a few more words of wisdom:
And I swear to God that 99% still don’t get it, when you win you start betting less. Bet more!
I mean, if there’s one roll that you can make a hundred thousand dollars off, let it ride.
If you roll three sixes in a row, let it ride. Let the winners ride.
For most traders that are reckless, trade with high leverage, and don’t know how to manage risk and position size, then betting more is not going to help them. Those traders should trade with very low risk in the beginning so they don’t blow their account.
But for the other traders that already have survived and are looking for how to take their trading to the next level, then Greg Riba does shed some light.
Now different traders can make those quotes mean different things. The gambler trader may take Riba’s quotes and go and bet 30% of the account on a single trade. Another trader may read those quotes and decide to increase their risk per trade.
Let me tell you how I interpret them.
When I read those quotes I think about how to pyramid trade properly and responsibly. I think about how to catch the huge market movements and volatility. I think about potentially recalculating % risk after a new win. I think about how to perform order flow analysis in order to place the highest possible probability trades. I think about how to place better trades with the order flow and liquidity on my side. Because I know the best possible trades and the highest probability are not found by solely analyzing the chart.
Greg Riba is a floor trader, and it looks like he made quite a bit of money. Probably a few million over the course of the years. I don’t think he was using any technical indicators or robots.
Trading To Pay For A Sudden Need
Greg Riba then talks about trading to pay for a sudden need. I discussed this in a previous blog post.
They ask Riba, how he deals with the losing of money. He says he didn’t have to deal with it because he made money every day. Floor traders have that ability. They can make money every day. They can do that because they are trading the pulse of the market. They can actually get a strong feel for the order flow.
Finally they ask Greg Riba if he currently trades, but he gets cut off.
What Happened at the Merc?
Greg Riba didn’t want to explain why they don’t like him at the Merc. He also didn’t want to say if he trades now. Obviously something happened that he prefers not to talk about.
But what exactly?
Well I have found out what happened.
Since he is registered as a floor trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange he has a profile at the National Futures Association website. Click on the link below:
As you can see he registered as a floor trader back in 1993. He has had 5 regulatory actions against him from the CME, which you can view if you want. Greg Riba got fined for tens of thousands of dollars and suspended on multiple occasions.
It seems according to his basic profile on the NFA website, that he traded without notifying his clearing firm. He failed to honor a trade with another pit trader on one occasion. He failed to check a trade on another occasion. He also had inappropriate conduct with a female employee of the CME Club.
No wonder they don’t like him at the Merc. No wonder he doesn’t want to talk about it.
Interesting story Greg Riba has. It is always good to read about traders who made a few million and are cool about it. Always interesting to read about rich traders philosophizing about trading and the markets.
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