Borsellino 10 Commandments

Lewis Borsellino's 10 Commandments of Trading

Source: Lewis Borsellino — CME floor trader legend. Traded for Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, EF Hutton. Made $4.7M in a single day (1987). At one point responsible for 10% of S&P's total volume. 20 years of P&L without a single losing year. Words of Rizdom podcast, Part 2 (March 2026, 71K views).

Background: Who Is Lewis Borsellino?

• Started as an order filler in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME)
• Rose to become the largest individual S&P futures trader in the pit
• Featured in USA Today as the biggest S&P futures trader in the country
• 20 consecutive profitable years — maybe 10 losing months total across two decades
• Traded ~1,000 contracts daily, sometimes making 2-3 ticks, sometimes 100 points
• Founded TeachTrade.com in 1996 (20,000 subscribers from 19 countries)
• Built an algorithmic trading system (5-min candle open range) that made $2M in 6 months
• Later founded a cybersecurity company (3 employees to 100+)

The 10 Commandments

1. Trade for Success, Not Money

"If you're good at reading the market, the money follows."

• Focus on process excellence, not dollar amounts
• When you obsess over P&L, fear and hesitation creep in
• Many traders' careers end early because they fixate on how much they made/lost
• The competition is against the market and other traders, not a dollar target
• Money is a byproduct of following your trading plan correctly

2. Discipline Is Everything

"If you can't isolate yourself, shut off your phone, and focus only on your trading decisions, you're going to have problems."

• Eliminate all distractions during trading hours
• Monday to Friday = 100% dedicated to the craft
• No alcohol, no drugs, no bad habits during trading days
• Many traders get stuck in losing positions because they can't accept the loss
• Enter each day with a clean slate — yesterday's results don't matter
• "What have you done for me today?" mentality

3. Know Yourself

"Everyone has different levels of fear and greed."

• Understand your personal risk tolerance before sizing up
• Some traders are excellent at 1-2 lots making $300-500K/year with minimal risk
• The moment they size up to 5 lots, performance collapses — the money affects decisions
• Don't let money influence your judgment — know exactly where your comfort zone is
• You CAN grow from 1 lot to 100 lots — but it must be gradual and earned
• "You don't need to be a rocket scientist to trade"

Key insight: The people Lewis expected to succeed often failed. The "simpler" traders who didn't overthink outperformed Harvard MBAs who tried to rationalize every market move.

4. Kill Your Ego

"The markets will humble you. You think you're making money every day for a month, you feel like you can't do anything wrong. Then a catastrophic event hits."

• After a winning streak, you feel invincible — this is when you're most vulnerable
• Ego makes you take outsized risks, chasing "the big one"
• Worst scenario: a series of losses leads to revenge trading — risking everything to recover, instead of stepping back to reassess
• "I was always the first to laugh at myself. I'd tell people: I'm not as smart as you think."
• Don't believe your own hype. When people inflate your image, that's dangerous
• A small dose of ego helps you push boundaries, but overall ego is destructive

5. No Room for Hope, Wishing, or Praying

"When you're in a trade and start bargaining with yourself, that's the problem."

• When the market moves against you: "It'll stop here" → "Maybe I should lighten up" → "No, let me add more" → Averaging into a loser → Catastrophic loss
• Every trade MUST have a predetermined stop loss
• Traders break all rules hoping to be right — then the "men in white coats" come to pull you from the pit because your account is empty
• Accepting loss is the hardest thing a human can do — but it's non-negotiable in trading
• "Imagine working all week and your boss says 'Great job, but I'm not paying you.' That's trading. Some weeks you make nothing."

6. Let Profits Run, Cut Losses Short

"When I saw the algorithm was right and institutional buying was flooding in, I increased my position immediately."

• Lewis's algorithm: 600-point stop, 1,000-point target
• When order flow confirmed the direction, he added to winners (not losers)
• Base hits are good, but the big PnL comes from sizing up on the best setups
• Most of a trader's annual profit comes from a handful of exceptional trades
• Richard Dennis (Turtles) example: position trader who held for months on the best trends
• "The fastest way to turn a day trader into an investor is to let the market go against them" — because they refuse to cut the loss

7. Know When to Trade and When to Wait

"Before unemployment numbers on Friday, trading Thursday is not a good idea. The market will be choppy."

• Don't trade in dead, low-volatility environments
• Be where the action is — volatility and order flow
• "The worst thing is being stuck in a market with no volatility and no liquidity"
• Pre-news days are typically choppy — the only winner from overtrading is the broker
• This applies TODAY: many forex traders insist on trading EUR during low-liquidity periods and wonder why they can't make money

8. Love Your Losers as Much as Your Winners

"Any lesson you've ever learned in life — if it didn't cause you some pain, it wasn't really a lesson."

• Losses are your real teacher. Winners teach you nothing new.
• If you break rules and get away with it (overtrade and still profit, average down and recover), you'll keep breaking rules until the rules break YOU
• Lewis lost ~$50M at age 57-58 in a nursing home business — taught him never to personally guarantee all loans again
• "You have to learn from your losses in life, or luck won't save you"
• What did your losing trades teach you? That's the real question.

9. After Three Consecutive Losses, Take a Break

"I put a circuit breaker on traders I was backing so they could clear their heads."

• Lewis funded traders and installed mandatory break rules after 3 losses
• Funded traders panic: "Lewis will fire me if I don't start making money"
• Story of Brad Sullivan: Lost $25K in 4 months. Lewis told him: "Don't worry about the money. Just focus on YOUR process." Brad made $1M by year end.
• The break isn't about the strategy being wrong — it's about mental reset
• "Focus on the process, not the money. Follow your rules. That's all you need to do."

10. The Unbreakable Rule: Never Break the Rules

"You might break a rule and survive. But eventually, the rules will break you."

• Every commandment reinforces every other one
• Occasionally you break a rule and get lucky — this creates a dangerous false confidence
• If you consistently violate trading commandments, you'll pay with your profits
• The challenge: controlling ego when you've made $100K in a day or two
• Money is pure emotion — combine large sums with short timeframes and ego, and disaster follows

Lewis's Core Principles (Beyond the 10)

On Order Flow

• "I studied who was buying, who was selling, where the buy stops and sell stops were"
• Used 3 different analytical approaches simultaneously:
  1. GANN analysis specialist
  2. Reversal point specialist (tops and bottoms)
  3. Day trading specialist
• Combined all three to make real-time decisions

On Athletes as Traders

• Actively recruited athletes for trading — they understand repetition and drill
• "In trading, there's no practice day. Every day is game day."
• Athletes train their bodies through repetition → traders train their reactions the same way
• Speed of reaction + pattern recognition = the edge

On AI in Trading

• Former partner reduced data/signal costs from $200K/year to $5K with AI automation
• "AI will create more millionaires than you can imagine"
• BUT: concerned about AI bubble forming
• Warning: employees putting proprietary data into public LLMs = massive corporate risk

On the Current Market

• Gold heading to $4,000 (was $300 when he started)
• Believes in eventual dollar devaluation + peg to gold/Bitcoin
• $37T national debt is unsolvable — some form of reset coming
• BRICS nations moving away from petrodollar system
• "Bitcoin will hit $1M someday"

On Honesty

"If people were honest with themselves, they'd know exactly why they're not making money."

• Most failing traders know the reason: external pressures, undercapitalization, lifestyle expenses
• They try shortcuts instead of doing the work
• "Look in the mirror. If you can't do that, you'll drain your account and blame everyone else."

Quick Reference Card

BORSELLINO'S 10 COMMANDMENTS:

 1. TRADE FOR SUCCESS, NOT MONEY
    Focus on process → money follows

 2. DISCIPLINE IS EVERYTHING
    Eliminate distractions, clean slate daily

 3. KNOW YOURSELF
    Understand your risk tolerance before sizing up

 4. KILL YOUR EGO
    Markets humble everyone eventually

 5. NO HOPE, NO WISHING, NO PRAYING
    Every trade has a stop. No bargaining.

 6. LET PROFITS RUN, CUT LOSSES SHORT
    Size up on winners, not losers

 7. KNOW WHEN TO TRADE & WHEN TO WAIT
    Be where volatility and order flow are

 8. LOVE YOUR LOSERS
    Losses are your real teacher

 9. THREE LOSSES → TAKE A BREAK
    Circuit breaker for mental reset

10. NEVER BREAK THE RULES
    Break rules = rules break you

TRADER PROFILE:
  20 years, 0 losing years
  $4.7M in one day (1987)
  10% of S&P daily volume
  ~1,000 contracts/day

TRADE JOURNAL & PLANNING

Merged skill file · 4 skills · Topics: trade-journal-analytics, trading-plan-builder, alternative-data-integrator, fundamental-analysis