'Perfecting Your Craft': Nour Atta's Method For Becoming A High-Earning Trader

Nour Atta is a technical analyst who specializes in long-bias options trading.

He began his journey at a young age: Atta was a Wall Street intern prior to teaching himself how to trade his own capital.

After returning from New York, Atta opened a Robinhood brokerage account and funded it with $20,000 he made from reselling high-fashion clothing, he told Benzinga in an interview. 

"I worked myself up to $25,000 where I had unlimited trades, and continued trading throughout school." 

After a mixture of lucky earnings trades, Atta moved his money to TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. AMTD, where he shifted his focus to technical analysis.

The trader told Benzinga he was lucky in the beginning, giving the example of trading on Micron Technology, Inc. MU earnings.

"I made around 600% on that trade. Micron was ahead in the cloud business [and] that’s why I entered."

Atta said he made a leap forward in his consistency after he placed an increased emphasis on risk mitigation. 

Atta's Trading Routine 

Atta trades both sides of the market in multiple time frames.

“I day trade and swing trade when the opportunity is right. But nowadays, it’s very hard with all these political issues going on,” he said.

Atta told Benzinga that due to the unique way he trades highly leveraged products, the intraday time frame is most suitable.

“It’s safer for me and my students because they can’t afford losses.”

Atta uses the following for the technical analysis of price trends:

• Four-hour charts for trends and 1-hour charts for swing entries and exits.
• Thirty-minute charts for trends and 5-minute charts for intraday entries and exits.
• Moving averages and pivot levels (i.e., major support and resistance).

“I use the 5-minute chart because the 1-minute is very choppy, especially on slow, low volume days,” he said. 

Getting To The Next Level: Risk Management, Psychology

“I have solid risk management — a lot of times you’ll get stuck in profit-taking — so, I really stick to technical support, resistance, volume [and] price action,” Atta said. 

Due to the leveraged and fast-changing pace of options values, Atta stressed the importance of defining risk prior to entry.

“I’m day trading weekly options. I risk about 10% to make 40% or 50% on a trade.”

If Atta feels a stock has room to run, he said he'll risk less cash in total but more on a percentage basis — potentially up to 35%. 

Last week, Nour traded Shopify Inc SHOP and provided Benzinga with an example of a successful trade.

“The stock was at $309 and I felt like it had room down to $290. I went in with less money, due to the contract being expensive — that’s how Shopify is — and the stock sold off to $294.”

Education and mindset are extremely important, the trader said: despite his early success coming from sheer luck, Atta said the only way he excelled was with sound risk management principles.

'I'm Trying To Have Everybody Win' 

Atta told Benzinga he aims to leverage his unique knowledge and success in technical options trading alongside his Series 65 Uniform Investment Adviser certification to help democratize and increase success in the space.

“My goal is not only for me to make money. I want thousands of people to say that they made money with Nour trades,” he said.

“I’m trying to have everybody win; that's my goal.”

You can find Atta at nourtrades.com and @nourtrades on Instagram.