Imre Gams

About Imre Gams

Imre Gams is a professional trader and world-class trading performance coach. He has been trading professionally for over 11 years, since his first trade in the summer of 2007, and has been in the markets almost every day since. He trades futures, options, and global macro.

Imre has done something very few traders ever do: he made the full jump from retail trader to institutional trader. Along the way he was personally recruited by one of the most legendary traders of all time, Andy Krieger. 

What sets Imre apart is the way he thinks about trading. He sees the market as a game between many players, and his real focus is on understanding how those players act, how to find a real edge, and how to master the mental side of trading.

From Apple Employee to Andy Krieger's Desk

Imre did not come from a finance background. His degree was in history, English, and philosophy, and it was actually a philosophy class that led him to a book on market behavior that first got him interested in how the market reflects human psychology.

He went into the corporate world and landed a great job at Apple, with a good salary, benefits, and stock options. He hated it. After a chance meeting with a successful entrepreneur, he decided to bet on himself. He quit Apple, sold his stock options to fund his trading, and went full-time. The early years were hard. He blew up accounts trading forex with too much leverage and slowly hacked together a track record he knew was based more on luck than skill.

So he begged his way into a real-money proprietary trading firm, willing to work for almost nothing just to sit beside professionals and learn. There he learned the thing that changed everything: risk management and how to survive long enough for an edge to play out. He traded his way up through the firm and was eventually made a performance coach, where he built a rare skill, helping experienced traders raise their game. His clients included former pit traders, traders from the desks of huge banks like Credit Suisse, and even a former portfolio manager from Millennium Management, one of the largest hedge funds in the world.

After several years with the firm, Imre caught the eye of Andy Krieger. Krieger is famous for some of the largest forex trades of all time, including shorting the New Zealand dollar in 1987 with a position so large it was said to exceed the country's entire money supply, making close to a billion dollars in today's money on a single trade. Andy personally recruited Imre to work with him at his fund, and the two have remained business partners and friends ever since. Working with Krieger took Imre's understanding of the market to another level. He saw how the biggest players in the world move money and build history-shaping trades, the kind of perspective you cannot get from books or YouTube. It only comes from being in the room where the real decisions are made.

How Imre Trades

For Imre, trading is not about picking a level and guessing direction. It is taking part in an auction, a game with many players. His edge comes from understanding the other players, what they want, what they are forced to do, and when.

He defines an edge clearly. An edge is not a setup, a strategy, discipline, or willpower. It is a repeatable cause-and-effect pattern in the market that you can build a risk framework around, so that over many trades you come out with positive expected value.

• He reads the market regime first. Most of the time markets are balanced and efficient, and only sometimes do they become imbalanced and start trending. Knowing which one you are in tells you whether a trade will work or fail.
• He focuses on order flow, not just price. He watches where value is migrating, how aggressive buyers and sellers behave at key levels, and where big players are forced to act, like around month-end rebalancing, news events, and options expirations.
• He trades futures, options, and global macro, and he is a big believer in options because they give more control over risk and remove the pressure of being right on direction alone.

The Inner Game

This is where Imre stands out, because he spent years as a performance coach studying why traders fail. He explains that the brain's threat center, the amygdala, pushes us toward urgency and quick action, which is the opposite of what good trading needs. That is what makes traders cut winners early, move stops, and overtrade after a loss.

His answer is not more willpower. It is understanding why you behave the way you do and then building a process that takes the decision out of the heat of the moment. He worked on this deeply, even doing years of psychoanalysis to turn his harsh inner critic into what he calls a "benevolent" inner voice that asks one simple question after each trade: did you follow your process? He also trades from a place of calm and stability rather than scarcity, because a trader who needs the next trade to work will rarely make good decisions.

Learn From Imre Gams on Chart Academy

Imre Gams is preparing a masterclass for Chart Academy on the deeper game of trading: how to read the market as a game between players, how to find and define a real edge, how to read market regimes and order flow, and how to master the mental side so your own brain stops working against you. He brings the lessons from inside the institutional room directly to you.

The masterclass is launching soon on Chart Academy. Join the waitlist to get access as soon as it goes live.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Imre Gams?

Imre Gams is a professional trader and world-class trading performance coach who has been trading professionally for over 11 years, since his first trade in 2007. He started as a retail trader, became a professional at a real-money prop firm, worked as a performance coach for other traders, and was later personally recruited by the legendary trader Andy Krieger. He trades futures, options, and global macro.

What markets does Imre Gams trade?

Imre Gams trades futures, options, and global macro. He came up trading forex early in his career and uses options often because they give him more control over his risk.

What is Imre Gams's trading philosophy?

Imre Gams sees trading as a game between many players, like an auction or a negotiation. He believes good trading comes from understanding the other players in the market, what they want and what they are forced to do, and then finding a repeatable edge with a clear risk framework around it. He focuses heavily on market regime, order flow, and the mental side of trading.

What does Imre Gams mean by an "edge"?

For Imre Gams, an edge is not a setup, a strategy, discipline, or willpower. It is a repeatable cause-and-effect pattern in the market that you can build a risk framework around, so that over many trades you end up with positive expected value.

Who is Andy Krieger and how is he connected to Imre Gams?

Andy Krieger is one of the most legendary traders of all time, known for some of the largest forex trades in history, including his famous 1987 short of the New Zealand dollar. He personally recruited Imre Gams to trade at his fund, and the two have been business partners and friends ever since.

What can I learn from Imre Gams on Chart Academy?

On Chart Academy, Imre Gams teaches the deeper game of trading: how to read the market as a game between players, how to find and define a real edge, how to read market regimes and order flow, and how to master the psychology of trading so you stop making emotional decisions. His masterclass is launching soon, and you can join the waitlist to get access as soon as it goes live.

What is Chart Academy?

Chart Academy is a free, all-in-one trading education platform designed to help traders learn real, practical skills from world-class traders. It offers in-depth masterclasses taught by real traders across stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, and trading psychology. In addition to educational content, Chart Academy includes personalized learning paths, downloadable resources, and access to exclusive tools and rewards, all in one place. There are no subscriptions, no paywalls, and no credit card required. The goal is to make high-quality trading education accessible, practical, and easy to follow for traders of all levels.