Tom Baldwin: The Fearless Pit Trader

Tom Baldwin is the largest individual trader in the T-bond pit. He worked extremely hard and stood there six hours every day. He believes patience is an impish trait that many people don't have. Average traders trade too much. For successful trading, traders have to be very selective and patient.

From being just a pure scalper, he has evolved as a combination of scalper and speculator. He averages 4 ticks profits on big positions and tries to keep the holding time short to minimize risk.

He uses bar charts of the past six months to look for key points such as high and low for the week, the halfway back point and consolidation areas. He also takes into consideration the important fundamentals numbers that come out.