THE DESKRESEARCH
A research dossier · April 2026

Ten active traders worth following — and why.

We started from a pool of roughly one thousand names — prop-desk alumni, championship winners, Schwager wizards, low-profile forum specialists, options-flow quants — and filtered aggressively for verifiability, methodological substance, and the absence of the usual grift. See the final ten · how the bot uses them · dashboard.

Published · 24 April 2026 Reading time · 35 minutes total Scope · short-term · swing · active trading

Methodology & caveats

This report was compiled through targeted public-web research across trader-focused forums, podcast archives, publisher catalogues, regulator databases, and the traders' own primary channels. The candidate pool was widened to a working ~1,000 names surfaced from the US Investing Championship leaderboards, r/Daytrading and r/RealDayTrading flair posts, Chat With Traders' 320+ guest archive, SMB Capital's training desk profiles, Trillium alumni, Bookmap and Jigsaw Trading instructor rosters, TopstepTV regulars, Wyckoff Analytics, CMT Association speakers, Wiley / McGraw-Hill / Harriman House trading titles 2015–2026, the Market Wizards series, Barclay CTA rankings, SpotGamma and QVR media lists, and fintwit lists with the follower threshold lowered to 1k for niche specialists.

Every PnL figure in the ranked ten is either (a) sourced with a live URL, (b) paraphrased from a cited podcast or publication, or (c) clearly labelled Estimate with explicit reasoning — strategy type plus known or inferred account size plus typical realistic returns for that style and regime. Retail trading returns are inherently hard to verify. Brokerage statements are rarely published; hard verification exists for only a handful of names — Kullamägi's Swedish tax-return trail, USIC reporting for Minervini and Kell, Hougaard's Danish competition media reporting, and Brandt's Wiley-published self-disclosed VAMI.

The charlatan filter: for each finalist we ran "[name]" scam, "[name]" SEC, "[name]" FTC, and "[name]" lawsuit searches. Where noise surfaced the names were either downgraded to honorable mentions with caveats or excluded outright. Nobody on the ranked ten has a personal FTC, SEC, or FINRA enforcement action.

25 April 2026 audit update: the list was tightened around actual short-term and swing-trading operators. Dr. Brett Steenbarger and Cem Karsan remain high-quality support layers, but they are not ranked as setup traders. Oliver Kell and Adam Grimes were added because they better fit the active-trading mandate.

26 April 2026 bot rebuild: after backtesting the synthesized multi-trader bot showed losses on most strategies, the active implementation was narrowed to Kristjan Kullamägi (3 swing setups) with Lance Breitstein as a discipline harness. Hougaard and the other trader modules are research references only, not active strategies. The research dossier below is preserved as a record of how the search funnel worked — see architecture and what changed and why for the bot itself, and trades for every backtest signal.

The search funnel

Source bucketNames surfacedPurpose
US Investing Championship 2019–2025 leaderboards~180Verified % returns
Chat With Traders episodes 001–322322Day-trader style verification
r/RealDayTrading flaired traders~60Low-profile respected
SMB / Trillium / Kershner public alumni~80Prop-firm verified PnL
Topstep personalities + funded payouts~40Futures discretionary
Bookmap / Jigsaw / Axia Futures instructors~25Order-flow niche
Wyckoff Analytics / CMT speakers~50Method specialists
Harriman / Wiley / McGraw-Hill authors 2015–26~90Vetted publishing
Barclay CTA & hedge-fund DB (small CTAs)~120Audited returns
SpotGamma / QVR / Eifert volatility circle~20Options-flow edge
Fintwit / StockTwits / X niche reach >1k~180Active retail / hybrid
Academic momentum-strategy authors (SSRN)~40Peer-reviewed edge
Podcasts: TradeCraft, Flirting with Models, Top Traders Unplugged, AlphaMind, The Derivative, Alpha Exchange~300 epsCross-referenced

After deduplication and a first-pass filter — active within 18 months, no major charlatan flags, teachable method documented somewhere — the working shortlist was ~60 names, from which the ranked ten were selected on a combination of verifiability, methodological distinctiveness, and reader-usefulness. Read the ten →

Honorable mentions

Twelve close calls and support-layer specialists — strong resumes but displaced by a better-fitting finalist in their category, or better used as context than as setup models. Each is worth following for the reason noted.

  • Benn Eifert, QVR Advisors @bennpeifert

    Co-CIO of QVR, former Wells Fargo prop trader, PhD UC Berkeley economics. Runs institutional volatility relative-value strategies (VIX futures dislocations, dispersion, Euro dividend futures). Regular on Mutiny Fund, Alpha Exchange, Bloomberg Odd Lots. Excluded from the ranked ten only because QVR funds are institutional-only — but for understanding the options-dealer ecosystem, essential reading.

  • Mike Bellafiore, SMB Capital @MikeBellafiore

    Co-founder of SMB Capital; author of One Good Trade and The PlayBook. Runs the NYC prop desk whose training program produces some of the strongest retail-to-prop transitions in the industry. Playbook-building framework is the best structured approach to self-development for discretionary traders. Dropped because his focus has shifted substantially to firm management and mentorship — Breitstein carries the SMB / Trillium / Kershner category.

  • Brent Kochuba, SpotGamma

    Founder of SpotGamma, coined the retail-accessible Gamma Exposure (GEX) framing in 2020. Former Credit Suisse / BofA derivatives broker. Daily levels (Zero Gamma, Call Wall, Put Wall, Volatility Trigger) are used widely by retail options traders. Karsan covers the same territory at a more institutional / strategic layer; SpotGamma is more of a data product — both valuable as support context.

  • Dr. Brett Steenbarger @steenbab

    Elite trading psychologist, author, and long-running TraderFeed publisher. He remains one of the best process and performance sources in trading, but the audit moved him out of the ranked ten because he is not primarily a short-term setup trader.

  • Anne-Marie Baiynd @AnneMarieTrades

    Former neuroscience researcher; McGraw-Hill author (The Trading Book, 2011); Fibonacci / harmonic specialist; regular TopstepTV personality. Trades futures and equities on multiple timeframes. Method is more classical-TA than differentiated, but she remains a high-integrity voice.

  • Pete Stolcers, OneOption @1OptionsTrading

    30+ year career from CBOE floor to retail options desk to his own shop OneOption. Transparent, reasonably priced chatroom. Strong strategy stack (AVWAP, 200-day MA, volume confirmation on options flow). Mixed reviews online but no regulatory actions; Stock Gumshoe long-term reviewers lean positive.

  • Tom Dante @Trader_Dante

    London-based Bund (German 10Y) futures intraday trader. Ex-prop at a London futures firm. His 2015 Chat With Traders Ep. 039 remains one of the most highly-rated episodes in the series. Very low profile — exactly the kind of low-follower-count, high-respect trader the expanded criteria wanted. Excluded only because his output cadence has been modest recently.

  • Peter Davies, Jigsaw Trading

    Founder of Jigsaw Trading, one of the most respected DOM / order-flow platforms. His Futures.io "Introduction to Order Flow — The Mechanics of Price Movement" is one of the foundational reads for futures day-traders. Jigsaw's course is used by Axia Futures for intern training. Niche but elite.

  • Roman Bogomazov, Wyckoff Analytics

    Adjunct professor at Golden Gate University for 10+ years; principal instructor at wyckoffanalytics.com. Co-authored the StockCharts.com Wyckoff Method tutorial. For understanding accumulation / distribution / composite operator thinking at a rigorous level, Bogomazov is the source.

  • Merritt Black, Apteros Trading / SMB Capital

    Crude oil futures intraday trader using Market Profile and order flow. Trains new traders at SMB Capital. Runs Apteros Trading for futures-focused education. Excellent order-flow-first futures voice.

  • Stefanie Kammerman, The Stock Whisperer

    26+ year Schonfeld Securities alum ("Rookie of the Year" in her class); specializes in Dark Pool print analysis. Popular YouTube / Trustpilot-reviewed trading room (~$70/mo Java Pit). Caveat: has mixed online reviews including a Ripoff Report complaint; no FINRA action. Included with caution.

  • Cem Karsan @jam_croissant

    High-quality volatility and dealer-flow voice. He remains in the stack as a GEX / vanna / charm support layer, but the audit removed him from the ranked ten because his edge is market-structure context, not a retail short-term setup model.

Charlatan archetypes we filtered against

Twelve patterns that served as disqualifying flags during the search. Matching two or more was typically enough to drop a candidate. No specific people named below — we excluded anyone with these patterns from the ranked ten rather than calling them out here.

  • FTC-enforced earnings-claims sellers. The Warrior Trading FTC case (2022, $3M settlement, $2.9M+ consumer refunds) is canonical. Anyone with a personal FTC action is excluded.
  • High-priced course-seller with no PnL disclosure. A $5k+ course / mastermind without independently verifiable personal returns is either downgraded with caveats or excluded.
  • Lifestyle marketers. Rented jet photos, before-and-after account screenshots, countdown-timer upsells. Almost universally a red flag.
  • Discord / Telegram signal ops with no audit. Paid signal services without a Myfxbook / kinfo / third-party tracking link.
  • Penny-stock pump-and-dump history. Documented coordinated pumps on low-float names. Excluded.
  • Perpetual permabears / permabulls. Retrospective claim-selectivity is distinct from real track record.
  • "$1k into $X" with no broker statement. Without broker screenshots or tax evidence, category noise.
  • Prop-firm affiliate farmers. Revenue dominated by referral fees to prop firms with high failure rates. Caveat required.
  • Deleted-tweet pattern. Traders who routinely delete losing calls while amplifying winners were cross-checked via [name] deleted tweet searches.
  • Unregistered fund solicitation. SEC-enforcement risk even absent formal action.
  • Ghost-written books. Several trading titles are packaged by publisher marketing with the "author" barely involved.
  • Faux-institutional branding. "Hedge fund" that is a single-person LLC; "Managing Partner" of a firm with no AUM disclosure.

Sources consulted

Primary interviews, podcasts & channels

Official trader channels

Verification · competition · regulatory

Community · forum references

Academic · strategy research

Context · background