Chris Brecher

Senior Managing Director of Stocks

Chris Brecher grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. After receiving a gift of $50 worth of stocks which appreciated to $500, Chris discovered his passion for the stock market. Upon finishing his degree in Paleontology and Marketing, Chris took a job in a stock market boiler room (think “The Wolf on Wall Street”). In watching his fellow brokers lose every time by taking shots in options, Chris wanted to find out who was making money on the other side.

He found the answer at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and moved to Chicago with very little money to be a clerk on the floor. There he learned how to trade stocks and options from experienced floor traders. He then became a Discount Stock Broker for the commission-free trading. There, Chris honed his craft. His parents sent him $200 dollars and he parlayed that money in $23,000 in 2 years!

Figuring he was ready for the floor, he leased a seat, and started trading in the IBM pit. Subsequently, he bought a full CBOE seat within the year. After 8 successful years on the floor, Chris realized that electronic trading was making more money than floor trading. He left the floor to work for a NYC day trading firm. While Chris was both opening offices and training the traders, he still managed to be in the top 5 out of 800 traders for all 9 years he was with the firm. When the firm was taken over in 2003, he decided to trade from home. Since 2003, Chris has traded on his own, opened his own trading educational site, and worked as a content provider for Simpler Trading.

Where to find Chris at Simpler

Chart Patterns

Get real-time trade alerts and daily live trading with Chris Brecher, Sr. Managing Director of Stocks at Simpler Trading. This program is designed to help you master his setups, strategies, and market “feel” at your own pace.

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Simpler Essentials

We’ve taught thousands of traders over the past 10+ years. The most consistently successful have a strong foundation in trading basics. That’s why Simpler Essentials focuses on these critical core skills and breaks them down into bite-sized chunks that you can consume at your own pace. Our commitment is to deliver the best trading education while being responsive to your feedback.

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Simpler Central

The Simpler Trading Team is unlike any other. While most other services offer ‘hypothetical’ trades and theories, we share our actual trading ideas in real-time. Like you, we have our own money on the line. Because we provide instant trade alerts, you can watch for setups, even if you work full-time with a smartphone or tablet.

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Chris's trading plan

Why am I trading?

 I have always loved trading.

What is my approach?

Technical Analysis, Tape Reading, and Analyzing Market Moving Events

What are my goals?

To make money for myself and teach others who are interested in learning how to trade.

What are my objectives?

I want to consistently make money through proper initiations while managing the risk and the amount of money at risk. I enjoy trading more if my risk and amount of money in the trades are limited.

What markets will I trade?

Day Trading Stocks, Options, Futures, Bitcoin ETFs.

What timeframes will I trade?

When deciding my timeframe on a trade, I always look at multiple markets. I will trade whatever timeframe shows a good setup. I look for:

  • 1-minute huge probability patterns;

  • Short term “panic trades” 

  • 15-minute trades with chart objectives

  • End of the day trades

What setups will I trade?

I focus on just a few high probability chart patterns for both short and long term trades:

  • Head and Shoulders patterns

  • Inverse Head and Shoulders patterns

  • Bull and Bear flags

  • A variation of the trend line trade, called a ledge trade

  • The DOJI

  • The Measuring Gap

My entry and exit rules are:

Have 3 reasons to initiate a trade. If the reasons I initiated the trade become absent, then exit or at least tighten my stop.

My Risk Management rules:

  • Try to size your trades in 2’s and 4’s. This way a trader can take profit on half, or three quarters.

  • In money management, I like to sell half of a winning trade and let the other half run.

Where will I place my stops?

When buying a stock, I try to place my stops under recent support levels.

My pre-market activities and routines:

Read the news on CNN, CNBC, WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg and TheFlyOnThe Wall; and  built three different watch lists:

  • Indexes and futures that are likely to influence my trading decisions

  • Stocks that are in the news

  • Stocks that are in my “main list” of stocks that I always watch

My post-market activities or routines are:

I look for stocks that have market breaking news before the next day’s opening or after the close.

How will I find new symbols/markets to trade?

I look for high probability setups.

What Tools will I use for my trading business?

  • I like to use the MACD lines to see momentum changes and extremes.

  • I use different variations of moving averages in different time frames.

  • In addition to moving averages, I use the ATR Trailing Stop.

Trading commandments:

Since I started trading, I have watched hundreds of traders come and go. The most successful:

  • Preparation. Most traders spend hours, before, during, and after the close, pouring over charts, reading news items, stock correlations, and other things that might give them an edge.

  • Have 3 reasons to do a trade, but only one to exit a trade. 

  • Care about direction, not price.  

  • Have a short memory. So many traders complain about missing trades or losing trades, which bothers them so much, it affects their ability to make future correct trading decisions. I try to forget about past trades unless they help me hone my trading skills.

  • Enjoy trading. 

  • Don’t care how much other traders claim to have made. 

  • Have no ego. I have often sold a stock at a loss, and then realizing my mistake, go back and buy the stock at a higher price than where I had sold it. 

  • Are able to “tone out” distractions. With most trading from home, traders must treat trading as a business, and not be distracted during the day. Every day, I get dressed, and approach my trading desk as if it is in a public trading room. 

  • Always know your exit point, when indicators and other factors determine that you are wrong.

Trading Notes:

  • As seen when day trading, preparation is key.

  • After identifying a trend, go to the short term chart, identify the pattern, and use indicators to time the entry.

  • Try to position size in multiple’s of 2’s and 4’s.

  • Try to let some of your position go to the maximum objective.