Domenico Briganti
🇮🇹Italy· Reggio Calabria
"Trading isn't about earning a lot, all at once. It's earning a little, every day. Only that way do you get meaningful results."
Domenico Briganti's 2024 ITCup audit closed at +215.07%, second only to Daniele Ledda's +551%, with the Certificates sub-category title at +210.16% sitting on top of the overall result. His base in Reggio Calabria is unusual inside the championship's geographic spread, where most Italian retail traders cluster around Milan, Veneto and Turin, and his day job in private banking is the kind of institutional-adjacent context that explains the discipline behind a multi-month, +210% certificate-strategy run.
Briganti trades leveraged Vontobel certificates on a daily timeframe, favouring few, high-conviction positions of roughly 7 to 10 percent each rather than watching screens all day, a style shaped by fitting trading around a full-time banking career. He frames the craft in almost philosophical terms: emotions and outside variables must be neutralised, one trade at a time, because a single error can compromise an entire championship. In his own words on Bluerating's post-event coverage, the title was "an objective I had been pursuing for some time, the fruit of years of study and dedication," and six months later he appeared on the Investing Napoli 2025 stage at the BPS Contesti event.
Interview
By day you are a financial advisor at a bank, but you compete with real money and win. How do these two souls coexist in you?
In a way, the two are complementary. My job keeps me constantly up to date on what is happening in the financial markets. On the other hand, my trading is structured to be executed in the windows when I am not at work.
What do your colleagues and clients say about the fact that you are also a championship trader?
For my colleagues, a team of true professionals, I think it is an extra opportunity to compare notes on a kind of trading that often does not concern us directly. For my clients, I believe it is an extra guarantee and a source of pride.
The ITCup is played with real money, not a demo. How much does your mindset change when it is your own money on the line, in front of everyone?
In my view the psychological side carries a decisive, almost primary weight in trading. I entered the ITCup mainly to challenge myself, to compete against myself. In this profession you have to neutralise emotions and external variables as much as possible; the risk is losing your clarity, and that can be devastating. I tried not to think about anything and to focus on one trade at a time.
You finished second overall at +215%. At what moment did you realise you could climb that high?
I think ITCup 2024 was one of the longest editions compared to previous ones, around eight weeks. After the first month I understood that with consistency and determination the podium was within reach, even though I tried not to think about it until the very last day. A single error can compromise an entire championship.
What did you lack to finish first? And honestly, how much does it sting?
What I mainly lacked to reach first place was time, with all due respect to the winner. As I said, I was not in front of the charts all day; I used strategies on the daily timeframe. Honestly it does not sting, because I love what I do, private banking, so from the start I already knew which constraints I had to respect in order to take part.
You won Top Certificates at +210% on Vontobel certificates. Why certificates rather than stocks or futures?
Certificates have a big advantage: leverage. That comes, of course, against a great danger that for me could have meant the end of the championship, namely hitting the knock-out level. Leverage let me make few trades but with meaningful gains, on average 7 to 10 percent per single trade.
Certificates are an instrument few retail traders truly understand. What do you see in them that others do not?
Simply put, I have studied and tested them a lot. I know their limits and their advantages. They allow you to achieve large returns even from investments with small amounts of capital.
Was there a loss that taught you more than any win?
Not directly within this event; in that context there were few losses, thanks to method and discipline. But in general, yes, I have fallen many times, and the main cause was not accepting a loss and holding a position open longer than I should have. That teaches you to grow, and above all to understand that discipline is a fundamental part of this profession.
When you strip away the results and the numbers, what keeps you in trading? What do you love about it even when it hurts?
For me trading is a kind of inspiration for how one should behave in everyday life too, and it applies in many areas. It takes constant, daily effort; you need to set a goal and have the thirst to pursue it. Trading is not about earning a lot, all at once. It is more about earning a little, every day. Only that way do you achieve meaningful results.