Jônata Cavalcante
🇧🇷Brazil· Cotriguaçu
City councillor by day, self-taught trader by competition — from one of Brazil's most remote towns.
Jônata Cavalcante is a city councillor (Vereador) of Cotriguaçu, one of the most remote municipalities in Mato Grosso, Brazil — and a self-taught trader who competes in the Copa BTG Trader 2025.
He discovered financial markets in 2016 while working as a Relationship Manager at Sicredi credit cooperative, where he spent more than five years offering investment products to members. He left the cooperative, became a union manager, and kept building his trading knowledge independently — no paid courses, no mentors, only YouTube, social media, and trial and error. That track record eventually opened the door to politics: he ran for city councillor and was elected with the second-highest vote count in his municipality. Today he holds both roles at the same time.
From Cotriguaçu, far from any financial centre, Cavalcante trades derivatives, equities, forex, crypto, and Brazilian commodities such as Boi Gordo, coffee, and corn during B3 market hours. He sees the distance from São Paulo not as a disadvantage but as a source of calm. He is the father of Nicollas and Nadine.
Interview
Cotriguaçu is one of the most remote municipalities in Mato Grosso. How did you discover financial markets and Copa BTG Trader 2025 from there — what was the path?
I discovered financial markets in 2016 when I started working at Sicredi credit cooperative. I worked there as a Relationship Manager for more than five years, and during that time, while offering investment products to cooperative members, I began expanding my knowledge into derivatives, equities, and crypto assets. After leaving the cooperative I worked as a union manager and continued speculating in the markets. After building a strong track record in both roles, the opportunity came to run for city councillor. I was elected with the second-highest vote count in my municipality. Today I serve as a councillor and, because of the schedule flexibility that brings, I trade in parallel.
You are a city councillor and an active trader at the same time. How do you manage both, and does your political work change the way you think about economic decisions in the markets?
Today I dedicate myself primarily to my councillor mandate, but I balance my schedule and execute trades during B3 market hours and at other times in forex and crypto. Right now I am focused on study and operating in a simulator, building enough capital to stay in the market longer. I follow the markets every day: derivatives, equities, commodities, especially Boi Gordo, Coffee, and Corn, the main agricultural products in my region. The daily practice of risk analysis as a trader makes me better at reading the political and economic landscape of my municipality. I can capture market sentiment more easily when the subject is politics, and I plan my actions in a way that connects me more quickly and efficiently to what the population actually needs.
Most Brazilian traders come from São Paulo or large urban centres. What is it like to trade from a small town in the interior — what advantages and disadvantages does that bring?
Being a trader in a small interior city is isolating. There are almost no other people here who work in financial markets. Because so few people understand what a trader does, many confuse it with gambling, and those who have tried and lost money prefer not to talk about it at all. Living in the interior makes it harder to access information and to be close to people who actually live from the markets. Everything I have learned until now I found by persisting and searching on my own: YouTube, social media, the internet. I never bought a course or paid for mentoring. I chose the path of mistakes and corrections and decided to become a professional on my own terms. Trading from the interior has the advantage of operating from a calm place, living a lighter life without the rush of a big city, and that can positively influence your decision-making. The disadvantage is not having access to other traders or environments that breathe the same trading mindset.
