Interview With Professional Trader Taylor Horton

Introduction

In this interview, I sit down with Taylor Horton, VP of Directional Options Strategies at Simpler Trading. Taylor has established a trading style that focuses on trading the weekly, 3-day, and daily squeezes using a directional options strategy. After spending some time with Taylor, it is no surprise that he has experienced success in the trading world. By looking into his mindset and how he approaches trading, there is a lot to learn from him, no matter what stage you are in your trading career.

To listen to the full interview, listen below.

Taylor Horton Interview

1 Minute Summary

Introduction:

Interview with Taylor Horton, VP of Directional Options Strategies at Simpler Trading.
Established a trading style focusing on weekly, three-day, and daily squeezes using a directional options strategy.
Success in trading due to his mindset and approach.

Early Trading Career:

Introduced to trading by his father and found a personal interest.
Started with micro-cap stocks and eventually discovered the TTM Squeeze and options trading.

Finding A Personalized Trading Style:

Emphasizes the importance of not copying another trader’s strategy and finding a strategy that fits your goals and personality.
Questions to consider when finding your strategy: Where are you in your personal life? Are you trading for income? Is this your full-time job?
Applying laser focus to one or two strategies becomes easier than focusing on multiple formulas.

Overcoming Setbacks and Obstacles:

The emotional desire to be good and fast can lead to self-inflicted damage.
The quickest way to achieve goals is often to take the slow and steady path.
Passion is important in keeping motivation during tough times.

Importance of Passion:

Understanding that trading is a complex journey with hardships along the way can help embrace the long journey ahead.
Realistic expectations and burning passion can help achieve goals.

Lessons from Mentoring and Teaching:

A common mistake in newer traders is thinking an indicator or signal service can replace experience and hard work.
Each trader has different goals, and copying someone else’s approach can be complex.
Being profitable in a trading room cannot replace the hard work it takes to be self-sustainable.

Risk Management:

The “Analyze” tab in thinkorswim® (TOS) platform is useful for finding trades with risk-to-reward skewed in your favor.
Finding trades with positive win rates and risk-to-reward ratio leads to profitability in the long term.

Dealing with Losses:

When placing a trade, understanding your risk tolerance and how much you can accept in a loss is important.
Losing is part of the game and can be viewed as a business expense.
Allocating the proper amount of capital at the location with maximum edge per your trading strategy is key.

Relentless Passion:

Being persistent and having a burning passion is needed to succeed in trading.
Finding your passion and working hard for it is the best way to chase your dreams.

Final Words of Advice:

Understanding the difficulty of trading will better prepare you for the long, difficult road ahead.
Enjoy the process and keep going – there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Early Trading Career

Taylor Horton was introduced to trading early by his father, who had established himself as a full-time trader. Like many kids, Taylor found interest in his father’s career and began to learn more about what it was like to be a full-time trader. The ability to call your own shots, create your own schedule, and be self-independent sparked Taylor’s interest even further. As the years went on, he realized that trading was interesting and fit his personality. Trading became his passion very quickly.

Like most traders, Taylor took a lot of time honing in and finding his specific trading strategy that fit his goals and personality. He started trading micro-cap stocks looking for cheap companies that he thought were undervalued. Taylor had his groundbreaking turn in his trading career when he was introduced to John Carter and the TTM Squeeze. At the time of being introduced to this new trading figure, options trading simultaneously found its way into his trading plan. Originally it was a lot of buying and holding naked options using technicals and fundamentals but later progressed into a directional approach utilizing the squeeze. Taylor’s journey to find his trading style is symbolic to any new trader, as it takes time to understand what trading strategy works best for you.

Finding Your Trading Style

Taylor progressed in his trading career and inevitably changed his style multiple times. He realized how important it is not to try to copy another trader’s strategy and to find your own home in the trading game. He would pose questions when searching for his strategy: Where are you in your personal life? Are you trading for income? Is this your full-time job? All these questions play a role in finding a strategy that works for you. This is the first step in mastering trading because it allows you to focus on that specific strategy. Applying laser focus to more than one or two strategies is difficult.

Overcoming Setbacks and Obstacles

Every trader runs into significant roadblocks, setbacks, and obstacles along the journey of becoming a successful trader. One obstacle that Taylor was able to shine some light on was the emotional desire to be really good and really fast. He is a driven individual who often would face self-inflicted problems because he tried to rush the process. Pushing for excellence is deeply ingrained in Taylor’s personality. It is possible to push too aggressively in trading – one of the hardest things to do in the world. With some pretty lofty goals, Taylor found an ironic realization. He found that the quickest way to his goals is usually to take the slow and steady path. This realization of going slower to achieve results faster became a tricky endeavor to balance mentally and emotionally. After really accepting the reality of the situation, he then allowed this theory to prove itself in his trading career.

Importance of Passion

No matter the career, it is vital to have a driving factor to lead you to maintain a passion for what you do. This passion will ultimately allow you to keep pushing forward in difficult situations. In trading, especially in the earlier learning stages, times often get tough. For Taylor, his driving factor was the desire to be great and go into the journey with realistic expectations. From an early age, his father helped him understand that the road he wanted to go down was complex and he would not be sold any dreams. Going into the process and understanding that there will be hardships along the way helped Taylor embrace the long journey ahead. When you expect things to happen, and then they occur, they are often easier to handle. A good comparison would be if someone walked into a music shop, picked up an instrument for the first time, and expected to play it flawlessly. That doesn’t happen. Many also glorify on social media that anyone can trade and it’s easy. That is not the case. Taylor believes that nothing can stop you once you truly understand the process it will take to achieve your goals and still have that burning passion.

Lessons from Mentoring and Teaching

Taylor Horton has been on the team at Simpler Trading for several years but has been a mentor for many more. During this journey of establishing himself as a teacher and mentor, there was one big realization that any trader can apply to their trading. He pointed out that during the early stages of trading live online it can be challenging to operate at the highest level. When he has a live audience, many outside factors attempt to get into the space between his ears. Trading is a game where emotions are already elevated, but get amplified before an audience. The more time he spent trading with other people watching his every move, Taylor realized that distractions were all noise and did not affect the trade he was working. Our job as a trader is to take the best setup possible, allocate proper risk, and trade the play according to the plan. Any fears or thoughts that occur in the middle of the trade rarely impact the outcome.

During his time as a mentor and teacher in the Simpler Trading community, he found a common mistake in newer traders: believing an indicator or a signal service can replace experience and hard work. Even with the best traders in the world leading the online live trading, it is possible that some traders still don’t have the experience or skill set developed to follow along properly. Emotions differ from trader to trader, so copying someone else is more complex. At the end of the day, each trader has different goals and the quicker you understand yours the faster you can work toward accomplishing those goals. It is possible to be profitable in a trading room, but overly relying on just the information from the trading room cannot replace the hard work it takes to be self-sustainable.

Risk Management

Risk management is a part of trading, and every trader must find a way to manage their risk to become profitable. Taylor is a fervent fan of the “Analyze” tab in the thinkorswim® (TOS) online trading platform. Using this feature in TOS, he can find a trade where his stop loss yields a smaller loss than his take profit. When Taylor trades, he is often utilizing a credit spread strategy. If you can find a trade setup that can yield a positive win rate with risk-to-reward skewed in your favor, the combination of those two leads to profitability in the long term. So, finding a trade that fits the criteria is the selection process before taking a trade in the first place.

Dealing With Losses

To build on risk management, I asked Taylor how he manages taking losses and the more significant losses throughout his trading career. Taylor was straightforward: acknowledge that as a trader you are responsible for the loss, no matter what. Even in cases where news or something randomly occurs in the middle of a trade, you are still accountable for any risk in the trade. You can only lose what you are risking in most strategies. Understanding your risk tolerance and how much you can accept in a loss is the first step in placing a trade. As long as you honor your true risk tolerance, it allows you not to be hurt mentally, emotionally, or financially. At the end of the day, losing is part of the game, and you have to view it as a business expense. All you can focus on as a trader is allocating the proper amount of capital at the location with maximum edge per your trading strategy.

Relentlessness

Trading often teaches you much about yourself, and Taylor was quickly taught that he has “no quit.” Throughout his trading career, he has been relentless throughout the process. Being persistent is a trait needed in this game to succeed. Beyond relentlessness, it takes a burning passion for continuing to step into the fire day in and day out. This advice goes beyond just trading. Finding your passion and working as hard as possible for heartfelt desire will always be the best way to chase your dreams.

Final Words of Advice

To end my great talk with Taylor, I asked if he had any last words for traders before we wrapped things up. “Buckle up. It’ll be a long, difficult road.” This quote comes back to the early lesson his father taught him. Having this mindset and understanding what you are getting yourself into and the difficulty of trading will have you better prepared for what lies ahead. Another priority throughout his trading career has been to enjoy the process. Sometimes it feels like you can’t do anything right, but you will always find the light at the end of the tunnel if you keep going.

Conclusion

The insights shared by Taylor Horton during this interview shed light on the importance of finding a trading strategy that works for you and developing a mindset that can withstand the ups and downs of the trading journey. As Taylor noted, trading is a long and difficult road, but it is also a journey that can be rewarding with the right approach and tools. If you’re interested in learning more about options trading and want to join a community of traders who can support you along the way, check out the options trading room at Simpler Trading or Taylor’s Compounding Growth Mastery program. With the right guidance and resources, the goal is to find success in the exciting and challenging world of trading.