Stock Trader Network (STN) is your premier hub for elevating trading skills, offering premium tools, exclusive insights, and a vibrant community to empower traders at every level. Founded by Joel Elconin and Dennis Dick, STN builds on their decades of market experience to deliver actionable strategies and education that prepare you for success in any market condition. For daily insights, tune into our subsidiary, PreMarket Prep.
The journey began in 1999 when Joel and Dennis crossed paths at Bright Trading. Joel brought a robust background, starting as a market-maker at Olde Discount for five years on the New York Stock Exchange floor, later refining his skills at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and mentoring a new generation of traders at Bright. Among them was Dennis, who transitioned from the volatile “penny stock” world, eager to expand his leverage and strategies. Under Joel’s guidance and with hands-on experience, Dennis mastered the influence of S&P 500 futures, turning a streak of 19 losing trades into a reputation as a versatile, profitable trader on Wall Street.
In 2012, their shared passion for premarket and after-hours trading sparked the creation of STN. Joel’s floor-trading expertise and technical insights pair perfectly with Dennis’s proprietary and retail trading know-how, creating a dynamic platform. Together, they uncover market catalysts, analyze macro sentiment, and share setups to thrive in even the wildest volatility.
At STN, our mission is to elevate your trading skills with the latest market interpretations and insights, not empty promises of quick riches. Beyond pro-level content, we foster an informal, community-driven space where Joel and Dennis trade playful jabs and recount memorable tales from the pits, Olde desk, and Bright offices. Whether you’re honing long-term strategies or seizing short-term opportunities, STN is the next step in developing your edge.
Joel Elconin
Joel’s introduction to trading was in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index Futures pit at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), after receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan. During his time at the CME, he was involved in Index Arbitrage as well as trading foreign currency futures and options. From 1994-1999, he was a proprietary trader for Olde Discount Corporation. Following his tenure at Olde Discount, he founded the Detroit office of Bright Trading, LLC. His responsibilities included trader recruitment, orientation and education as well as the day-to-day management of the office until 2003. Since leaving Bright, Joel has been trading independently using TradeStation. He has also continued to research and develop proprietary indicators and trading systems for the equities and futures markets.
In 2013, Joel and Dennis joined forces with Benzinga to start PreMarket Prep, bringing unparalleled coverage of financial markets for novice and veteran investors alike, all over the world. Their unique coverage of events leading up to the pandemic and throughout the entire crisis helped propel Benzinga to being a primary player in financial media.
Now, Joel brings his 40+ years of market experience to the Stock Trader Network (STN). Through STN, he will bring his simplified approach to technical analysis and will assist traders and investors in optimizing their exit and entry points in any market environment.
Dennis Dick
Dennis Dick, CFA, is a proprietary trader and market structure analyst at Triple D Trading Inc. He has 25 years of proprietary trading experience specializing in pair trading, crutch trading, momentum, contrarian, technical, and algorithmic trading. His insights into equity market structure are frequently cited in a number of financial publications including Benzinga, Reuters, WSJ, and the Globe and Mail. Dennis is the co-host of Premarket Prep, and a former member of the Capital Markets Policy Council at the CFA Institute. He holds his Business Degree from the University of Windsor with a concentration in Finance and Economics.
Brent Slava
Brent Slava has been tracking the stock market for about 20 years, with a focus on trading psychology and how news affects stocks. He studied finance at Western Michigan University, where Brent spent hours of free time digging around the beta version of Google Finance, trying to uncover specific reasons for price action. He graduated from Western Michigan and went on to begin a career in financial journalism.
Brent met Joel at Benzinga’s Southfield, Michigan headquarters in 2012. When Joel and Dennis began recording a primitive version of what would eventually become PreMarket Prep, Brent was eager to help on the production and news side of things. Working closely with Joel and Dennis, Brent began soaking up the guys’ vast amount of trading knowledge – especially the ins and outs of technical analysis. Brent was head of Benzinga’s newsroom for about 10 years and continued to work with Joel and Dennis over this time.
Brent will be helping the Stock Trader’s Network by producing and guiding educational and engaging on-air and written content. He’ll be spending time in the chatroom sharing thought-provoking perspectives, facilitating meaningful conversations and posting relevant breaking news. He’ll also be helping the team define and monitor the business’s vision and goals.
Josh Walter
Josh is a budding entrepreneur, already having 9+ years of experience building, managing and marketing various companies. He serves as the CEO and Partner of a marketing agency, Achieve IT. Prior to his entrepreneurial journey, he earned his B.Comm at the University of Calgary. Josh has been involved in trading securities on a retail basis since 2017, and continues to develop his trading strategies, from pairs and baskets, to simple technicals-based trading on an intraday and swing-basis. He now helps run the back end and technical side of STN, and covers the basics of trading for those beginning their trading careers.
Chris Brecher is a veteran day trader with more than 37 years of experience trading options, stocks, and futures, and the founder of BrecherTrading.com and TradingNest.tv, where he hosts “Trading Nest” on Stock Trader Network. He began his career as a floor trader on the CBOE in the early 1980s, famously turning $200 into $23,000 and buying a seat on the exchange, where he traded from 1985 to 1993. He then joined a New York electronic trading firm, ranking among the top five of 800 traders across nine years, before moving to independent trading in 2003. Brecher combines technical analysis, intermarket correlations, and market psychology, and is passionate about training traders through live sessions, real-time alerts, and educational content.
Prad Akkiraju, known on air as “Trader Prad,” is a proprietary equities day trader at Real Trading and an active prediction-markets trader who hosts “The Trading Edge” on Stock Trader Network. He specializes in building AI-powered trading tools — sector-rotation dashboards, options-flow analyzers, and SEC-filing research platforms — designed to give active traders an edge. Previously he hosted trading content at TraderTV Live. On The Trading Edge, Prad blends real-time technical analysis with his technology-driven approach to help traders sharpen their entries, exits, and risk management across stocks and options.
CC Lagator is a co-founder of Options AI (OptionsAI.com), a broker-dealer built to give retail investors simple, visual access to the same options strategies used by institutions, and hosts “Options Unchained” on Stock Trader Network. A former options market maker and a long-time trading educator based in Boulder, Colorado, Lagator co-founded the firm with the goal of making options spreads straightforward and approachable. Through Learn Options AI and the “Options AI Orbit,” Lagator delivers daily, jargon-free options education and trading insight, and has been featured in CNBC and Business Insider coverage of retail options trading.
Geoff Bysshe is the co-founder and President of MarketGauge.com, which he launched in 1997 and where he led development of the firm’s core trading technology. A trader for over 30 years, he began with an apprenticeship under Keith Schneider before earning his own seat as a floor trader on the New York commodities exchanges, where he was a FINEX member trading the U.S. Dollar Index and cotton options. He later managed quantitative equity strategies as a hedge fund manager at Millennium Partners. Today he oversees MarketGauge’s products, education, and operations, and mentors its traders. He holds an economics degree from Colby College.
Jeff York is a full-time trader and Pivot Point Technician with 28 years of market experience, and the founder of PivotalPivots, where he hosts “Pivotal Pivots” on Stock Trader Network. He learned pivot-point methodology from a former Goldman Sachs pit trader in 2002 and has since expanded and adapted it for a market where algorithmic trading drives roughly three-quarters of intraday volume. Through his service, York shows subscribers where to add or reduce risk and identifies market-timing opportunities across U.S. index futures, major ETFs, energy, gold, bonds, the VIX, U.S.-listed stocks, and forex. He also teaches his methodology to portfolio managers, advisors, and independent traders via webinars and live workshops. He is based in Huntington Beach, California.
Mitch Hoch, known across trading media as “Money Mitch,” hosts The Money Mitch Swing Show on Stock Trader Network. He brings more than seven years of market experience and is pursuing his Chartered Market Technician (CMT) accreditation. He built his name at Benzinga, where he launched the daily “Money Mitch Watchlist” podcast and hosted live market shows, and he serves as an analyst and live-trading-room host at the prop firm Trade The Pool, where he trades a funded account. A swing trader at heart, he focuses on sector rotation, seasonality, macro catalysts, and retail “story” stocks, scanning pre-market for high-momentum small caps with favorable risk-reward setups. His guiding principle: “Know thyself.”
Bluford “Blu” Putnam has served as Managing Director and Chief Economist of CME Group since 2011, leading global economic analysis and monitoring price patterns, volatility, and correlations across futures and options markets. He brings more than 35 years in financial services, with concentrations in central banking, investment research, and portfolio management. His career includes economist roles at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Chase Manhattan Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Kleinwort Benson, plus senior posts as Chief Investment Officer for Equities and Asset Allocation at Bankers Trust and President of CDC Investment Management. Putnam holds a Ph.D. in economics from Tulane University and has authored five books on international finance.