Oliver Kell is the winner of the 2020 United States Investing Championship (USIC), where he delivered an officially verified annual return of +941.1% – one of the highest gains in the competition’s historical stock division.
Kell’s trading framework is not built on theoretical models or overnight success. A former Bowdoin College quarterback, Kell treats financial markets like an intensely competitive sport where patience, pattern recognition, and execution under pressure dictate long-term survival. Introduced to trading by his father—a former market maker on the Pacific Stock Exchange—Kell spent over a decade refining his process, including six initial years of trial, error, and costly lessons before reaching consistent profitability.
Drawing heavily from classic growth and momentum pioneers like William O’Neil (CAN SLIM), Jesse Livermore, and Nicolas Darvas, Kell codified his edge into a technical framework called the Cycle of Price Action. His process strips away financial news, earnings predictions, and market opinion, relying instead on price action, volume, and moving averages to identify high-beta growth stocks at low-risk entry points.
The following 10 Trading Principles form the operational blueprint behind his record-setting performance. Built to eliminate FOMO and emotional bias, these rules prioritize capital preservation, rigid stop-loss discipline, and objective price action over market predictions.
Who is Oliver Kell?
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Background: Raised in San Francisco, Kell was introduced to financial markets early through his father, a former market maker on the Pacific Stock Exchange. He attended Bowdoin College, where he played quarterback for the football team and majored in government.
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Trading Experience: Kell spent over a decade refining his process. Prior to his record 2020 win, he spent his first six years in the market experiencing standard beginner learning curves before establishing consistent profitability.
How Did He Achieve +941% in 2020?
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Market Timing: During the initial COVID-19 market selloff in early 2020, Kell moved primarily into cash. This protected his capital and allowed him to aggressively re-enter the market at the bottom as high-growth momentum stocks began to turn.
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Top Winners: His biggest gains came from riding explosive growth and momentum stocks out of the March 2020 lows, including trades in Livongo Health (prior to its Teladoc acquisition) and Tesla, alongside major consumer trends like Peloton and Spotify.
Oliver’s 10 Trading Principles
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Put Risk First
Never risk more than a 3–5% stop loss on any position. Determine your exact dollar risk prior to entering a trade, making capital preservation your highest priority.
My Take: One really bad trade can wipe out months of progress. “Best losers win.”
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If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail
Convert raw stock ideas into actionable trading strategies. Mentally rehearse entry, execution, and exit scenarios before committing capital.
My Take: Most of my work happens late at night + before the market even opens. I’m building focus lists, marking pivots, studying leadership, identifying themes, setting alerts, reviewing earnings dates, and visualizing different scenarios beforehand. Once the bell rings, I don’t want to be “thinking,” I want to be reacting to preparation. The traders who consistently look calm usually prepared the hardest.
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Trust Your Stops, Not Your Stocks
Always enforce a strict stop loss. Trail your stops upward as price advances to lock in profits and ensure a winning trade never turns into a loss.
My Take: The market does not care about my opinion or thesis. This was one of the hardest lessons for me emotionally because I used to marry ideas. Now I understand that my stop is what protects me from myself. If price breaks my level and the trade loses character, I respect it and move on. I can always re-enter later!
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Better to Be Out Wanting In, Than In Wanting Out
Eliminate FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). If you miss an entry, move on gracefully—the market will always present another high-probability setup.
My Take: There is nothing worse than being trapped emotionally in a position you know you oversized, chased, or forced. I’d much rather miss upside than sit frozen in a trade that’s completely violating my rules. There will always be another setup. Always.
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Let Your PnL Dictate Aggression
Use progressive exposure to insulate your account from drawdowns. Scale up position sizes when on a winning streak, and aggressively taper sizing down during losing periods until consistency returns.
My Take: When my system is working, leadership is acting well, and my equity curve is healthy, I naturally press harder. When conditions become choppy, or I’m in a drawdown, I intentionally reduce size and become defensive. I trade in bursts. You don’t need to force activity every single day. Some environments are designed to pay trend/momentum traders extremely well. Others are designed to chop you apart!
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Only Price Action Pays
Ideas are meaningless without confirmation. Wait for price action to validate a buy level before entering; otherwise, pass. When an entry turns out to be a mistake, exit immediately.
My Take: I love narratives and themes, but price always comes first. A stock can have the greatest story in the world, but if institutions are not supporting the move through price action, volume, and relative strength, it’s irrelevant to me. That’s why I focus so heavily on: leadership, compression, breakouts, EMA behavior, relative strength and reactions to pullbacks. The chart tells me whether institutions agree with the story.
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Sell Into Strength to Avoid Selling Into Weakness
Lock in profits as a stock advances, particularly when it becomes overextended relative to its 10-week moving average. Stretched stocks face heightened risk of sharp pullbacks or multi-week consolidations.
My Take: Especially with Options! Selling into strength feels uncomfortable because greed convinces you the move will never end. But when names become extremely extended from key moving averages, euphoric, or crowded, I’ve learned to start paying myself gradually. Look for large extensions from the 9 EMA, emotional momentum expansions, vertical moves and major target levels. If you never sell strength, the market usually forces you to sell weakness later.
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Failed Moves Lead to Fast Moves
Cut positions swiftly if a stock reverses right after triggering a breakout. Failed setups often unravel rapidly in the opposite direction.
My Take: Failed breakdowns and failed moves often create violent reversals because positioning becomes trapped. Once price reclaims key levels, shorts cover, buyers step in aggressively, and momentum accelerates quickly. That’s why I pay so much attention to: EMA crossbacks, undercut & reclaim setups, failed breakdowns, reclaiming prior pivots and failed gap-downs. The fastest moves in the market come from failed positioning.
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Never Gamble on Earnings
Post-earnings reactions are unpredictable. Reduce exposure ahead of announcements, strictly track earnings dates, and maintain clear rules for managing open positions through reporting cycles.
My Take: Earnings reactions are largely out of our control. You can have the right thesis and still get destroyed because guidance, margins, positioning, or expectations shifted. Now I’m much more intentional around earnings: reducing size, trimming beforehand, avoiding oversized exposure and planning scenarios ahead of time. Stop trying to hit a home run every quarter.
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Never Chase Extended Stocks
Buy as close to the initial breakout or pivot point as possible. Never chase a stock that has already surged past its proper risk-reward buy zone.
My Take: This principle alone probably would’ve saved me tens of thousands early on. When stocks become massively extended from their moving averages, your risk/reward immediately worsens. Chasing usually comes from emotion, not process!! I spend most of my time waiting for price to come into areas of interest. For ex: pullbacks into the 9/21EMAs, tight consolidations, inside days, compression areas, weekly support pivots, etc.
At the end of the day, all 10 of these principles really tie back into one bigger idea. Survive long enough for my edge to compound. Simple concepts, but very difficult to execute every single day.
Core Strategy: “Cycle of Price Action”
Kell’s trading philosophy is heavily influenced by William O’Neil’s CAN SLIM growth framework, Jesse Livermore, and Nicolas Darvas. He codified his personal process into a system called the Cycle of Price Action (outlined in his book, Victory in Stock Trading):
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Focus on Growth & Price Action: He searches for fundamental leaders (strong earnings/sales growth) but lets price and volume dictate entry points rather than news or earnings reports.
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Moving Averages as Guides: He utilizes short-term exponential moving averages (10-day and 20-day EMA) for tactical trade management and longer SMAs (50-day and 200-day) for broader macro trend context.
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Strict Risk Rules:
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Stop Loss Limits: Strictly capping risk at 3–5% on entries.
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Progressive Exposure: Sizing up position sizes during favorable market conditions and cutting position sizes during losing streaks.
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No Chasing: Refusing to buy stocks that are extended far above their 10-week or 20-day moving averages.
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The video above is relevant because Oliver Kell walks through the specific technical chart setups and trade execution rules that put these 10 core trading principles into practice.
