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Linda Raschke

Linda Bradford Raschke (b. 1959): among the world's most respected short-term traders, from options market maker to fund manager. Street Smarts, codified setups and routine as the real edge.

On this page

Street Smarts (1995, with Laurence Connors) — one of the few setup books with rules precise enough to be falsified.
Period b. 1959
Path Options market maker (Pacific and Philadelphia Exchange), then independent trader and manager (LBRGroup)
Lens Short-term swing trading on futures
Key sources The New Market Wizards (Schwager, 1992); Street Smarts (1995)

Who she is

Portrait — Linda Raschke

Trained on the floor as an options market maker in the early 1980s, Raschke moved to screen trading after an injury and built a forty-year career of documented short-term operations through contests, managed accounts and thousands of public trading-room sessions. Interviewed by Schwager in The New Market Wizards, she became the reference for short-term traders: few patterns, clear rules, practical statistics and an iron routine.

Contribution

  • Codified, falsifiable setups — Street Smarts put patterns in writing with a name, conditions and management: Turtle Soup (the false breakout at the Turtles' expense), Holy Grail (pullback to the average with a strong ADX), 80-20. Beyond the individual patterns, the standard: a setup is either written down or it does not exist.
  • Momentum precedes price — her recurring operating principle: momentum extremes anticipate price extremes; the short term is traded in the direction of the last momentum expansion.
  • Routine as edge — evening preparation, levels written before the open, review after the close: the routine removes decisions from the worst moment to make them.
  • Statistical humility — targets by scenario, not predictions: "my job is to manage what the market gives, not to be right".

What today's students learn from her

  1. In the short term the edge is not seeing more: it is deciding earlier — levels and plans written while the market is closed.
  2. A pattern only counts with its context conditions (the Holy Grail without a strong ADX is just another pullback).
  3. Operational longevity is the real result: forty years of short-term trading are built on process and journaling, not on one lucky season.

Study path

In preparation — This entry will be extended with the documented *Street Smarts* setups and the structure of her trading day. The basics: setup and playbook.

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