Alex Wasilewski, co-founder of PureTick, has been a professional trader and money manager for well over 30 years.

After opening up a brokerage account at Bache & Co. while a police officer in 1980, his interest and early success trading soybeans after his night shifts prompted the local Long Island branch office manager to recruit Alex to become a stock broker. Most people eschewed the stock market in early 1981 but Alex, always the contrarian, saw good times ahead for stocks. He graduated the Bache (now Prudential Securities) training program on the day Ronald Reagan was shot, and that was around the time the stock market started up from its lows and even in the face of numerous setbacks, never looked back. Neither has Alex.

Though his first efforts in the brokerage business met with little acceptance, Alex cold-called skeptical investors on the merits of buying an out of favor dog stock whose "pie in the sky" CEO was busy touting his obviously flawed ideas of competition. Chrysler did OK for those who listened to Lee Iacocca and Alex Waselewski. There were many other out of favor investments that did well for clients over the years.

The big thing that bothered Alex was the fact that no matter how astute and profitable the calls, he always felt like a "cheap salesman" forcing people to see it his way. That is where the lure of independent trading began to present itself as an alternative to trying so desperately to help others.

Alex knew, however the dismal record of independent short term traders. Over 90% of his clients who called their own shots lost money. A greater than number even lost money listening to the advice of the brokerage in-house analysts. But there were the few. There were some great traders who defied the odds, who proved the random walk might not be so universal after all.

He began a multi-year campaign to read every book he could on trading. He did not stop there. He attempted to contact every big name trader in the world. A few returned the calls and letters. Little tidbits of advice stuck, and slowly turned losing ideas into profitable ones. Alex even paid large sums of money to personally train under some of the more notable trading advisors. From these people he slowly took certain ideas, setups, strategies and filters and adopted it to use in his own account.

Alex strongly believes that the keys to trading success are alive and present in ALL traders. He believes that what you program in your subconscious is far more important than what you program into a computer. Your personal will can conquer any obstacle.