How A Day Trader Is Finding Success In Today's High Frequency Market

In a world where high-frequency trading eats up the vast majority of intraday liquidity, Ross Cameron has managed to carve out a niche for himself.

Cameron has found success as a trader thanks to a specific short-term trading style that allows him to capture moves on volatile stocks. So much so that he decided to turn his trading into another business—one that would allow him to educate other traders about the realities of the market.

That website became Warrior Trading. Cameron recently spoke with Benzinga about how the company has grown to be a resource for the day trading community, and the biggest challenges facing day traders today.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Benzinga: Can you explain the background of the company and what exactly Warrior Trading does?

Ross Cameron: I started Warrior Trading in 2012. My goal was to create a community that I wanted to be a part of. So at the time when I started Warrior Trading, there were a lot of other chat rooms out there, but none of them provided any education or any mentoring or any real support

[I thought], ‘Alright, I’m going to create that community and I want to surround myself with traders who are even better than me.’ That is how you become good at things.

So I founded Warrior Trading, and...we’ve grown to over 5,000 active members. We credit that to the fact that we focus on education.

BZ: Did you know how to run a business before this? How did you know what you were doing?

RC: All of the work experiences that I had in my life I feel prepared me for opening, and then running, Warrior Trading. I was fortunate, because the first business that I ever ran was a web design business, so I had the skill to build my own website. When I founded Warrior Trading my goal was the create a community based on education. Instead of focusing on trying to make a million dollars overnight, I wanted to do things like see how quickly I could grow a tiny $1k or even $500 account.

As a result of the type of trading I focus on, we don’t have a community of traders looking to get rich quick. Instead, we have a community of traders who are simply looking for a way to capture $200 of profit in the market daily. Like, even for you, if you were able to capture, let’s say $300 or $400 a day of profit from the market, wouldn’t that be like a pretty big deal? That would be awesome. I want to offer each one of the traders in our community with the skills and the knowledge to achieve those types of modest goals.

BZ: Why do you think you’ve had success?

RC: I would say that, people say this all the time, but content is the most important thing. I put a lot of effort into developing really good content. Some of it is members-only. Some of it is for the larger trading community. But by putting out that good content, people become interested.

Now, when I did things like a challenge where I take $500 and turn it into $100,000, that’s also something that people really resonate with. So it’s about creating good content and then engaging with the people that are following.

BZ: I gather that most of these people that are joining Warrior Trading are new traders who don’t know the the ins and outs of day trading. Is there a mistake that you see many of these types of traders making early on?

RC: I would say, if there’s one thing that I could do for beginner traders, [I would] tell them not to trade with real money until they’ve proven they can be profitable in the trading simulator.

One of the things that we did as part of Warrior Trading is we invested a lot of money into developing our own trading simulator specifically so students could trade in a safe environment before trading with real money. It’s that important. They benefit both the trader, because they’re less likely to blow up their account, but then it also benefits me as the owner of the business because, if they are less likely to blow up their account, they’re more likely to be a long-term member.

BZ: Is there any advice you’d like to give a new entrepreneur looking to start a business right now?

RC: There are probably a lot of different things that I could say, but one of the things that I would absolutely say is that if you really love what you are doing, then you’re not going to feel like it’s work. The reality is, building a business is a full-time job. I work almost every single day from 8:00 in the morning until 10:00 or 11:00 at night. I don’t have much life outside work. It is a tremendous dedication, but if you really enjoy what you’re doing then you’re going to enjoy every minute of it.

I think you have to just follow your passion. The reality is, if your passion is art or your passion is cars, you should follow that and find a way to turn that into a business. Then you are doing what you love every single day and there’s really nothing better.

Disclosure: Warrior Trading is an editorial partner of Benzinga.