It's Time for Retail Trading to Evolve

It's part of human nature to make snap judgements based on the surface-level perception of something. We easily convince ourselves that we understand what's happening or how something works, simply based on how the thing appears on face value.

But if you truly want to understand something, find a solution, or solve a problem, you should try to understand the logic at play. This begins by finding the starting point; figuring out the root cause or the first principles, and working from there.

Many beliefs I've held that have changed over time have been as a result of understanding more about the logic; I hadn't gone deep enough initially. This includes my understanding of the markets and all aspects of trading, but it also applies to mentoring others, running a business, and dealing with situations in everyday life.

Rather than having a shallow understanding of important things and relying on surface-level information, I aim to go deeper and figure out what's really going on. If something is important, it's worth spending the time and effort researching or dissecting what's really at the heart of it.

It’s often the case that what we want to hear is not the same as what we need to hear. But being told what we need rather than what we want can be uncomfortable, both for the person giving the information and the one receiving it.

This is particularly true in the trading industry. There are many hard realities people need to understand, but sharing these truths doesn’t help people sell their products. Instead, companies will play on people’s emotions and sell them an unrealistic dream. This leads to people’s expectations not being in line with reality.A

voiding the hard truths doesn’t just limit people’s progress, but it can actually cause damage to them both financially and psychologically. Instead, it’s important for people to have an objective view on reality, no matter how disappointing it is to them.

I believe in sharing and embracing the hard truths, because facing reality allows you to create a logical path forwards to reach your potential.

Since this is so important to us, we've included a section at the bottom of this page answering the tough questions that most trading education businesses avoid.

When I reflect on the bad decisions I’ve made in my life, or that I’ve seen other people making, there’s a recurring theme. They’re focused on short-term outcomes without considering the longer-term consequences.

This principle is true in the markets and in everyday life. The best decisions are made when you use second-order thinking. In other words, not just thinking about the immediate outcome, but also what the consequences of that outcome may be.

First-order thinking is quicker and easier, but increases the chance of a bad outcome. Second-order thinking is slower and more deliberate, but reduces the risk of negative situations later down the line.

As Ray Dalio said, “Failing to consider second- and third-order consequences is the cause of a lot of painfully bad decisions, and it is especially deadly when the first inferior option confirms your own biases. Never seize on the first available option, no matter how good it seems, before you’ve asked questions and explored.”

Related to this, I strive to always be a long-term thinker and always avoid the risk of ruin.

It may seem like 'doing the right thing' should go without saying, but we’re constantly faced with situations in our everyday lives where not doing so could work to our advantage. This includes taking actions that it seems no one will know about except for ourselves.

However, this relates to the previous value of considering second-order consequences. Usually when we don’t do the right thing, it’s favouring a short-term positive outcome at the expense of something much more important further down the line.

With the current state of the trading education space, doing the right thing is not a profitable ethos to live by. Instead, it pays to twist the truth, use underhand persuasion tactics, and fabricate reality. But there’s a cost involved in being unethical, whether or not it’s immediately obvious.

At times it may seem like doing the wrong thing is acceptable if no one else knows about it except for you. But while other people’s perception of you won’t change, your perception of yourself will be tarnished.

I will always be willing to give up personal gain if the alternative is the right thing to do. I’m not here for short-term wins, I’m in this for the long-term growth of our followers, Duomo, and myself.

When I started PuriCassar AG and was in the process of setting up an investment fund, there were a lot of negotiations and agreements that needed to be made. Being a competitive person, I always saw these as situations I needed to 'win' and come out on top.

My business partner gave me some great advice. Knowing I like boxing, he gave me an analogy. He said, "When dealing with other people, you need to try to win on points rather than going for the knockout. Otherwise, you might win in the short-term, but over the long-term people won't want to deal with you."

Over the years, I've seen how true this is and it's become a key principle I live by. Trying to gain everything for yourself may work in the short-term, but putting other people first and giving them more value than you're taking leads to outsized gains in the long-term.

You may have noticed, these days people seem to be trending towards a culture of take, take, take. Things are so readily accessible to us all that people now feel entitled, as if any exchanges need to be entirely in their favour.

Likewise, online culture has drifted towards a mentality of 'over-promise and under-deliver'. People gain things by making the biggest statements about who they are and what they can do, without caring about whether they can ultimately deliver on that promise.

These are short-term ways of thinking. You gain in the short-term, but you lose your longer-term credibility, reputation, and respect from others.

I aim to give more than I take, under-promise and over-deliver, and never gain at the expense of someone else (other than when executing trades!) This dictates the types of deals we do, products we launch, and services we provide. My first thought is always about who will be gaining from it.

To be totally honest, 'under-promise and over-deliver' sometimes clashes with my level of ambition and self-belief. I have a tendency to take on too many things at once, and fully believe in my ability to do them all to a high standard. But when I take on too many things, my time is spread too thinly and it becomes impossible to achieve my best in everything. That's something I've improved on over the years, and it's a valuable principle to keep in mind.

More often than not, it's the output or result of something that matters most to us. In many cases, it's the thing that our success is measured against.

Let's look at trading as an example. The output is the return you earn, and that's what most people will measure your success against. But if you really wanted to understand the quality of a trader's performance, it's actually the inputs you should be focusing on. One-off outputs can be luck rather than deliberate.

Likewise, if you want to improve something or achieve consistency in something, you should focus on the inputs, and the desired output will follow.

This is difficult to do, because it's often the case that you have to consistently work on the inputs long before the desired output is achieved. Many people see the output lacking and it causes them to get frustrated, lose motivation, and give up.

I've discovered time and time again, my desired outcomes can be extremely simple if I identify the few inputs that matter most. Once I've identified them, I have to forget about the output and just focus on being as consistent as possible at achieving those inputs to the best of my ability.

When I focus too much on the outputs, I can overcomplicated the process to achieve them. By focusing on the inputs, I can use 80/20 thinking to find the 20% of inputs that are responsible for the majority of the outcome.

This also relates to "Figure out the logic", because it's that way of thinking that allows me to figure out which inputs deserve my focus.

The thing that made me fall in love with trading was not the potential to make money, it was the potential to make discoveries. My passion for the financial markets has only got stronger over the years by learning and understanding more about the markets, the global economy, and human nature.

Passion is one of our internal drivers, and developing a passion for something is the second step in the sequence for achieving high-performance. But what's the first step? Curiosity. Curiosity develops into passion.

Curiosity is a magical product of our neurochemicals; we're built this way for a reason. Whenever I've followed my curiosity, I've discovered remarkable new things, found more joy in my work, and made hard work effortless. As much as work ethic and serendipity have played a part in my success, the biggest factor has been my curiosity.

I always try to continue learning and exploring my curiosities. I don't want to stop at surface-level information, I embrace going down rabbitholes rather than seeing them as distractions. It might seem like curiosity steers me off track at times, but more often than not it ends up being like a compass leading me to the good stuff.

For many years with my trading, I blindly followed sacred cows I'd picked up from various books and resources. The same rules, principles, and beliefs that I see many traders religiously abiding by today. For a long time, I didn't think to question them.

But as time went by, I began to notice how illogical a lot of this stuff was. I began testing things, researching topics, and figuring out the logic behind it all. I soon realised that so many things traders rely on as being factual are nothing but outdated received wisdom, passed on from one trader to another across generations - unproven, disproven, or unfounded.

It can feel unsettling to go against the crowd and take a contrarian path. In fact, if you listen to the self-doubt, you'll convince yourself that you're wrong and everyone else is right. Sometimes they will be, but not always.

There's a famous quote by William Calvin that says, "You can always spot the pioneers by the arrows in their backs." Being the first to do something or going against the grain is not usually easy. Especially in the online world, you open yourself up to a lot of criticism. This is something I try to accept and embrace.

I care about uncovering the facts and figuring out what's right. I try not to be swayed by the desire to have other people agree with me. The truth is what matters most.

As Steve Jobs said, "Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking." As traders, we're trapped by dogma far too often.

The short answer is no. The company makes some revenue from selling courses, but I do not receive any salary or other earnings from this, and often have to pay some of the costs from my own pocket. Overall, Duomo has directly cost me more money than I've ever received from it, and indirectly there has been a huge opportunity cost.

In the industry, many people make their money from selling courses rather than trading. So this is a very valid question. The reason we have not made as much revenue as we could is because we are not willing to go through many of the marketing tactics that other companies and individuals use. For example, we choose not to show off an extravagant lifestyle, we talk about realistic returns, we focus on the skill development rather than money and lifestyle aspects, and we are not aggressive or pushy in our sales process.

Since there are so many people in our industry who are willing to say and do anything to get sales, I often say our approach is like bringing a knife to a nuclear war. But we still prefer to stick to our values and ethos.

For full transparency, I will share details from the financial accounts for The Duomo Initiative Ltd. These are the exact figures that are submitted to HMRC each year, and these are the only accounts used for Duomo. This includes any training program sales, YouTube ad revenue, and affiliate payments (the only revenue sources for Duomo).

‍2023 Tax Year
Revenue: £58,674
Profit: (£4,491)
Nicholas' salary or other earnings from Duomo: £0 (negative if you count costs paid)

‍2022 Tax Year
Revenue: £63,498
Profit: £652 (this was not distributed to Nicholas)
Nicholas' salary or other earnings from Duomo: £0 (negative if you count costs paid)

‍2021 Tax Year
Revenue: £59,694
Profit: £4,898 (this was not distributed to Nicholas)
Nicholas' salary or other earnings from Duomo: £0 (negative if you count costs paid)

‍2020 Tax Year
Revenue: £88,591
Profit: £2,654 (this was not distributed to Nicholas)
Nicholas' salary or other earnings from Duomo: £0 (negative if you count costs paid)

Before 2020, the company operated as a subsidiary of PuriCassar AG in Switzerland. At the end of 2012, it became The Duomo Initiative Ltd in the UK (formerly called PuriCassar UK Ltd.) The financial accounts for Duomo as part of PuriCassar AG were similar to what's shown above.

To reiterate, I am not receiving a salary or any form of payment from the company. As you would expect from our revenue, our team is also paid below what they deserve. They are willing to make that sacrifice because they're passionate about trading, and believe in the values and vision of Duomo.

Of course, we do hope Duomo will grow and make more money in future. But we will not deviate from our principles or values to achieve that.

Following my answer to the previous question, it should be clear that I am not earning money from Duomo. So the next logical question is, "how do you make your money then?"

My income comes from two things: trading and consulting.

Trading first became the source of my full-time income in 2012, when I left my career in banking. Before that, trading provided part-time income alongside my banking salary.

I also accept consulting offers occasionally when it's something that interests me. These will usually take no more than one day per week, and I have not taken on more than one or two projects per year. These are not on an on-going basis; I am usually only spending my time on trading and Duomo.

Consulting work has included:
- One of the top 10 biggest investment banks in Europe.
- A publicly-listed UK hedge fund.
- Launching a global impact investing firm.
- Successful 7-figure capital raise for an AI start-up
- Strategy team for a political campaign (candidate successfully elected MP).
- Development of a new trading platform for wealth management clients.
- Business development for an established bank in the Middle East.
- Other financial services firms.

These consulting projects are not related to Duomo. They are as a result of my career in the financial industry.

I should also mention, an article incorrectly stated that I worked for Your Success Academy selling books and courses. YSA was actually just a YouTube channel we set up as part of Duomo, as we thought it may be better to have a dedicated channel for psychology-related topics. There were never any books, courses, or anything else for sale, and it was not a separate business. In the end, we decided to keep everything on the main Duomo channel and closed YSA.

Something I've learned over the years is that people will twist narratives in their content to make things more interesting, and achieve more views or engagement. This also happened to me with one of the biggest magazines in Europe. I still have a video recording of the interview I gave them, but the article they published doesn't reflect the truth. They claimed I told them I was a recovering trading addict and now only trade small amounts to avoid relapsing - this is not true and was not something I said in their interview (I have the video!) I find these things both hilarious and deeply concerning!

This is a complex question, as there are a number of reasons for doing this. I'll try to summarise some of the main points.

I first started doing this as a way of sharing the discoveries my team and I had made over the years. Stefan and I had developed a new market model and theory of price movements, and I truly see it as ground-breaking.

I've always enjoyed sharing new things I've discovered or learned. Whenever I learn something from a book or study, I end up telling everyone around me (in fact, people get sick of it!) When I first started seeing profitable returns consistently over a prolonged period, the first thing I wanted to do was to trade for other people - even without taking any payment in return. I just enjoy the fulfilment and validation from it.

But Duomo has gone beyond that stage. I spend so many hours on Duomo every week, and I don't get paid for that time. At this point, it doesn't make financial or logical sense to continue. But I feel like I'm on a mission.

Firstly, I am committed to the people who have trusted in me and enrolled as members. I feel personally responsible for helping them succeed.

Secondly, I hate how the trading industry has evolved over the past decade. There are too many people sharing unfounded opinions, outdated methods, and disproven information. It's an industry full of scammers and facades. When I left my job in banking, people were impressed that I was going to be trading full-time. These days, telling people you're a trader feels embarrassing.

Quick story... I was at a wedding last year and someone asked me what I do for a living, so I told them I was a trader. They replied, "oh, is that the thing all the people from Love Island talk about on Instagram." That's not something I enjoy being associated with.

Realistically, I don't think Duomo will have the influence to change the industry as a whole. But I do believe there can be a ripple effect that can eventually cause that change, and Duomo can be part of that. I would hate to give up now and accept that people are falling prey to companies and individuals who just want to make money at other people's expense.

Thirdly, teaching people how I trade and about the discoveries I've made has also helped me clarify my thinking and improve my own performance. I've uncovered a lot of my implicit knowledge and made it more explicit. So I've also gained from this process.

Finally, Duomo is a stepping stone for much bigger things. We are currently working on two projects that have huge potential. One of these projects is a fintech platform that I truly believe can change the industry for retail traders, leading to a much higher percentage of them being profitable than the ~90% failure rate that's currently reported. My biggest goal and dream is to bring that platform to the world, and the work I do at Duomo will help me make that a reality.

Many trading educators will claim they're teaching people because they want to "give back". Although it's satisfying to help other traders achieve success, I don't believe that's the main motivation for anyone doing this. For most educators, the main motivation is making money from teaching other people, regardless of whether they end up succeeding or not.

Money is not my motivation. In fact, I would make far more money if I wasn't working on Duomo. In fact, I did make more money each year before I started Duomo, and I turn down big financial opportunities these days because Duomo is my focus. My goals are much bigger than just making more money.

There are occasionally negative comments suggesting that if I was actually successful at trading I wouldn't have any time to teach. This is completely false.

A trading day involves a lot of waiting around. Some of this time is filled with analysis and following the financial news, but there is still a lot of spare time in between trades or trading-related actions.

When I worked in banking and was trading part-time, I loved the social aspects of my job. Once I became a full-time trader, the social side was completely missing. If I wasn't working on Duomo, I would be working on other things alongside my trading (in fact, I already do!)

Additionally, I love working and this is how I spend most of my time. I usually work 7 days a week, and will typically work in the evenings too. This means, there's a lot of time to get things done. At the moment, I don't dedicate much time to my social life or other activities, as work provides me a lot of fulfilment - but maybe that will change at some point in the future.

PuriCassar AG is a company based in Switzerland that I co-founded with Dr. Alexander Cassar in 2012. As of 2019, I am no longer a shareholder in the business.

We set up PuriCassar to launch an investment fund that would offer services to people outside the upper wealth bracket who were underserved when it comes to investment services. Unfortunately, the regulation costs involved in the type of fund we wanted to launch meant it wasn't feasible. We would have needed an unrealistic level of AuM for the management fee to cover the regulation costs.

As a result, the company ran as an asset management firm, mainly investing our own money and people involved in the business. It was during this time that we developed an algorithmic trading system and refined our Duomo Market Theory.

In 2015 we launched The Duomo Initiative as a division of PuriCassar. Our intentions were originally to launch a series of free videos on LinkedIn to share our unique discoveries and approach in the markets. But after seeing it gain more interest, we decided to make it a more serious venture.

An article was written about Duomo a number of years ago that continues to gain interest. In that article, they make a lot of false accusations about our background (as individuals and as a company). One of their claims was that they contacted the Swiss regulators to see if PuriCassar was authorised as an asset manager, and they were told we weren't and that authorisation was required. This was misleading information; it's true that we were not registered with the Swiss regulators, but we have confirmation from our financial lawyers back in 2012 that confirm under certain conditions you can be self-regulated as an asset manager, and that it is not a protected title.

In 2019, The Duomo Initiative was spun-off from PuriCassar. I became the sole owner of Duomo, and gave up my shares in PuriCassar. PuriCassar still exists and offers services in the financial industry. I am not directly connected with the business anymore, but I still work closely with Alexander, and may be involved in PuriCassar again in the future.

I do live trading sessions multiple times per week in our community. During these sessions I take live trades in real-time and explain my full decision-making process. There's no hiding away or doing everything in hindsight like you see elsewhere, it's as real as it gets!

No, teaching the Duomo Method won't have a negative impact on my own trading opportunities or performance.

There are three main reasons for this:

1. We are not teaching this to enough people to have a major impact in the market.

2. We rely on major markets that have the most liquidity. It would take a huge amount of volume to change the opportunities we identify - it's just not a realistic possibility.

3. There isn't one set strategy that everyone using the Duomo Method follows. We focus on developing custom trading systems and approaches for each individual, relying on their unique strengths. Therefore, although we will take the same opportunities sometimes, there will be many different trades taking place across different markets and time horizons.

With that being said, if sharing the Duomo Method meant taking a hit on my own performance, I would still do it. I get much more fulfilment from sharing the amazing discoveries we made with other passionate traders than I do from just making money in the markets.

Our reviews and comments are all genuine. We have never faked or paid for any comments or reviews, and we never would!

We also don't ask for reviews or testimonials until someone has finished the program. This is not done in a pushy way or asking anyone to give us a 5-star review. Instead, we just include a page within the last section of our program asking people to give their honest opinions on their experience via TrustPilot or our testimonial form. In future, we may also send an email to these members asking for them to leave a review.

Unfortunately, taking this 'hands off' approach to asking for reviews also means we don't get as many reviews as you may see from other companies. You'll often see companies asking for positive reviews shortly after someone has joined, while they are still in the positive 'honeymood period' after signing up. However, we believe it's much more important to show genuine feedback from people who have experienced the full program.

The other downside to this approach is that any negative reviews are more prominent. To date, we have only had a few negative reviews, some of which were from people who had never joined the program. We have only a couple of negative reviews from genuine customers, and it's clear from their feedback that they did not go through the program in the way it was intended. We don't advise our members to rush through the content and immediately start applying it to the markets; it's a skill that needs to be developed properly.

As for our comments, they are also all genuine. In fact, we get far fewer comments than we would like and we are currently working to increase the level of engagement that we see. If the comments are overwhelmingly positive, it's because we consistently try to overdeliver with our content. However, we do occasionally delete comments and block people from our channels, when people are being unnecessarily hostile, disrupting other viewers, or using ad hominem attacks. We want to maintain a positive and supporting environment.

We are not affiliated with any brokers. We have received many offers over the years, including some that wanted to provide a payment that far exceeds our current annual revenue. However, we prefer to stay independent and impartial, so we have declined all offers.

We don't have any conflicts of interest, and we are not receiving any payments to influence traders one way or another. Any views and opinions we give are 100% our own and represent what we believe to be true at the time.

Yes, I've not intentionally left anything out of the Duomo Trader Development Program. It took me 18 months to produce and the lesson scripts were over 400,000 words. I wanted the program to have everything someone could possibly need to replicate what I do in the markets and achieve success as a trader.

Of course, there are some things that can't be included in the main lessons.

Firstly, there is a lot of implicit knowledge that comes through experience, which is not possible to teach. Instead, traders will gain this for themselves by following the live markets and gaining experience over time.

Secondly, the markets are dynamic and there's always nuanced aspects to each scenario. It wouldn't be possible to teach all of this in a curriculum. Instead, we give our members access to our community and live streams with me, so we can follow the live markets together and I can explain the nuances of each situation.

Over time, if there are things we believe need to be added, or improved ways of explaining things, we'll update the program and give members access to the enhancements at no extra cost. My aim is to ensure this is the only training program an aspiring trader ever needs.

There are some elements of our method that are not unique, and many aspects that are. For example, we make use of common order flow trading techniques, auction market theory, market microstructure, and some other carefully selected trading information that is not unique to Duomo.

For trading psychology and other performance-related areas, we rely on scientific information and studies which are available to the public. The thing that makes these unique at Duomo is that we're applying them to a trading context and making connections that other traders seem to have missed. Most trading psychology courses use pseudoscience, received wisdom, and unproven tactics. We always refer to the science and rely on evidence-based information.

However, the Duomo Market Theory is completely unique to us. This is based on the discoveries we made about emergent behaviours in the markets that inform us about where price moves will occur. This theory disproves some of the other theories about the markets that have influenced the financial world, and I genuinely stand behind our theory as being a ground-breaking discovery in the markets.

The Duomo Method is based on this theory and the way we use the tools and techniques are unique to us. We do make use of some common tools such as trend lines, swing high/lows, and Fibonacci. But the way we use them is very specific and related back to our market theory. Some traders see we use these tools and are influenced by their pre-conceptions, assuming we use them in the typical basic way. In reality, the way we use them is much more nuanced with very specific confirmation criteria and parameters. The significance of these tools can be shown through activity changes in order flow.

The way we structure the overall trading approach is also unique. This includes, how we assess opportunities, structure a trading system, and optimise our performance. But since these are logical approaches and can be applied to other trading methods, I assume they will be more widely adopted eventually.