This podcast episode made me think back to the very first computer I bought in my high school days. We’re talking about the mid-1980, when computers were still relatively new. Actually, my first computer was a commodore 64 (how good were they!), which my parents bought me, but the first computer I actually bought myself was a pretty serious computer at the time. It cost about 3 or 4 thousand dollars, which back then was quite a bit of money. And this computer only had a fraction of the power that we have in our mobile phones these days, but back then it was one of the fastest you could get. Anyway, this computer had a special switch on the front of the case, it was called the 'Turbo' switch. I’m not exactly sure how it worked, but when some programs were running slow, I could flick the turbo switch on and it would accelerate the performance of the computer. And I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great if we could have a ‘Turbo’ switch for trading, where we could just flick the switch and instantly boost our performance? Wouldn’t that be awesome? Well, I don’t think such a switch exists unfortunately, but there are definitely things we can do to accelerate our performance, and that’s exactly what we’re discussing today with our special guest and leading performance coach Steve Ward. Steve has over 25 years of teaching, coaching and training experience. He works with traders, fund managers and banking professionals across the globe, helping them to improve their decision making, risk taking and ability to achieve and sustain high performance. Steve’s work is focused on delivering evidence-based practical strategies and tactics, and in this podcast episode we discuss a number of performance accelerators in trading. Here’s some of the things you’ll discover: The key factors that can accelerate trading performance, Why the ‘j-curve’ is so important for developing traders and how to shortcut the process to profitability, How the best traders manage the short-term discomforts of trading to achieve long-term gains, Why suppressing emotions in trading can be like trying to hold a beachball underwater, and how to improve our behavioural flexibility for higher performance, How situational awareness training used by the US marines can improve our trading abilities, Tips to functioning at our best in a world of hyper distractions, Plus, much more. 

Better System Trader

164: Performance Accelerators - Steve Ward

In this podcast episode we’re going to be talking about something incredibly fundamental to traders. It’s something we have to do all the time as traders, and it can have such a huge impact on our trading performance. In fact, it doesn’t just impact trading, it can impact ALL aspects of our lives. So, what is it? Any ideas? It’s decision making. Now I don’t need to explain the importance of decision making, it’s pretty obvious… I’m sure we’ve all made good and bad decisions over time and had to live with the consequences, but as traders, what can we do to improve our decision making? Well, in this podcast episode we’re joined by special guest Agustin Lebron. Agustin began his career as a trader and researcher at one of the worlds largest market-making firms - Jane Street Capital. Over the years he has traded many different kinds of securities and has created, developed and implemented successful trading strategies. In my chat with Agustin you'll discover: The “laws” traders need to apply to make better decisions, Why you're never really happy with the trades you make and what to do about it, Identifying your “personal edge” and leveraging it in the markets, Why traders need to integrate “storytelling” into their processes, The dangers of traders “mistaking the map for the territory”, How to approach a model when it’s breaking down, Plus, much more. 

163: The Laws of Trading - Agustin Lebron

Glad you could join us today for a discussion on what is probably one of the most popular topics in trading, and that is entries and exits. Traders love talking about entries, but the truth is, when you dig deeper and test them out, you might just discover lots of entry and exits techniques either don’t actually work very well at all or don’t work as well as expected. So, how do traders know what makes a good entry or exit? How do we go about building effective entries and exits for our trading strategies? Well, in this podcast episode we dig deeper into entries and exits with special guest Kevin Davey. Kevin has just released a book on entries and exits, so we’re going to dig into that a little and discuss a number of other aspects of entries and exits too, including: What makes a good entry – logic, symmetry, indicators, patterns or something else? How to test the effectiveness of an entry to determine if it’s any good, An unexpected way to use entries that could radically improve your trading strategies, The hidden dangers of combining and optimizing exits, A simple technique to determine if you could be optimizing too much, Where to find enough entries and exit ideas to keep you busy for a year, Plus, much, much more. Let’s get started with my chat with Kevin on entries and exits.

162: Building effective entries and exits - Kevin Davey

  Our special guest for this episode has done some really interesting work into strategies that manage trading strategies based on their current performance. This can have a huge impact on performance results, but what does it actually mean, how does it work and how can we do it? Well, David Bean from Capstone Trading Systems is joining us to explain exactly that, plus he’s going to share a whole lot more, including: Patterns versus indicators, where they fit in a strategy and which works better, Why market regime filters may not be the best approach and an alternative solution that could be better for you, How to really dig deep into understanding how a strategy and market truly works and the benefits of knowing that, How to determine the best time to start trading a strategy and when to stop trading it, How to plan for, manage and even profit from strategy degradation, Plus much more. So, enough of the delays, lets jump right into my chat with David Bean.

161: Improving performance with strategies that manage strategies - David Bean

I just want to start by saying happy new year! I know it was a few weeks back, but I hope you’ve had a good start to the year and I wish you all the best for 2019. Now I’m really excited to be sharing this episode with you for a number of reasons. I think it’s very timely considering this is the time of the year where we make new years resolutions. We reflect on where we are and what we want achieve. Perhaps we’ve set some goals and started achieving some of those, or maybe even broken some of them already. In this episode we’re going to be talking about what it takes to be the best, or perhaps I should say YOUR best. We’re going to be talking about high performance trading, what it takes to have a successful trading career over the long term. And joining us for this chat is one of the best, Linda Raschke. As I’m sure you know, Linda has experienced a very high level of trading success throughout her career. There aren’t too many traders around who can say they’ve had the level of performance, success and longevity that Linda has had, so she’s really an excellent person to discuss this with us today. She’s going to share some stories with us, and some valuable trading wisdom which I’m sure you’ll find valuable, so let’s jump straight into my chat with Linda, hope you enjoy it!

160: How to achieve long-term trading success - Linda Raschke

With so much focus often on the actual trading strategies or investments, portfolio construction can sometimes become an afterthought… or not even considered. However, as we’re going to hear about today, portfolio construction and optimization has the potential for huge increases in wealth... But there are a number of aspects we need to carefully consider if we want to maximise the potential of portfolios. Joining us today as our special guest is Adam Butler, CIO from quantitative asset management company Resolve Asset Management. Adam has published some interesting research on portfolio construction and optimization, and he’s even provided a portfolio optimization framework that can guide investors and traders towards the appropriate optimization method. In my discussion with Adam today, you’re going to discover: How some traders and investors apply rules to portfolio construction based on a flawed premise, How the ‘Portfolio Optimization Machine’ framework can guide investors toward the appropriate optimization method, Why some errors in estimates don’t have a particularly large impact on portfolio outcome and where the real challenges comes in, The differences in constructing portfolios in stocks versus futures, The multiple dimensions of diversification and how to approach the risks of rebalancing, How to choose the best portfolio construction and optimization technique for you, Plus much more. 

159: Maximising the potential of portfolios - Adam Butler

With recent market stock market actions, talk again is turning to whether this is just another correction. Will the bull market resume or are we in the beginning stages of a bear market? In this episode we have a timely look at the market with Troy Bombardia from investment research firm Fundamental Capital and the website BullMarkets.co. Troy has been working in his family’s hedge fund for 10 years now, and applies a unique mix of Fundamentals, Technicals, and Statistics to his trading models. In my discussion with Troy today, you’re going to discover: Why Technicals alone can’t give an accurate reflection of the long-term market view and what you need to incorporate instead, Why lots of traders that use fundamental analysis are doing it wrong and which fundamentals really drive stock market declines, The difference between a bear market and a “big decline” and the conditions to watch out for in each, Why leading economic indicators are also leading stock market indicators, and how to read them to prepare for potential market changes, What the economic indicators are saying about stock market conditions right now, including when the Bull market could be ending and the final step to watch out for as it unfolds, The importance of reflection in trading, and the 2 key aspects traders need to focus on to always be improving, And much more. 

158: Bull, Bear or Correction? Reading the signs - Troy Bombardia

Joining us today as special guest is Michael Grech from Quantopolis. Mike is a quantitative trader with a background in signal processing and computer modelling, and in our chat you'll discover a number of interesting topics, including: Trading based on assumptions and building portfolios of diversified strategies, Why every trader should have some kind of volatility strategy in their portfolio and how to balance risk vs reward in volatility strategies, Mike's latest book on quantitative investing, How concepts from the book "Thinking Fast and Slow" have applications to traders. Plus, Mike is going to let us in on a project he’s currently working on that uses a combination of simple systems and Artificial Intelligence to mimic a human trader and also to calculate market probabilities. We cover a lot in this episode so check out my chat with Michael Grech.

157: Assumptions, Probabilities and Diversification with Michael Grech

A common dream sold to traders, especially when they’re starting out,  is the dream of sitting back on the beach sipping cocktails while our trading systems go to work and make us money. While certain aspects of that dream are possible, for example automated trading, traders still need to do a lot of work to get to that point. We’ve got to research the markets, find trading edges, do testing and robustness checks, monitor strategies and systems, tweak and adjust where required... It’s really not as simple as the dream sounds. But with recent advances in technology, including AI, machine learning and quantum computing, are we close to having fully autonomous trading systems? That is, can systems really learn trading rules themselves, find profitable edges and trade them, while we do sit back on the beach, boat or couch sipping cocktails and counting our money? In this podcast episode we're going to explore how recent advances in technology are impacting the trading space now and where it could be taking us in the future. And to do that we have special guest Dr Tom Starke from AAAQuants. Tom specialises in AI and machine learning solutions and he has some interesting insights to share with us, so let’s get started now and jump over now to my chat with Dr Tom Starke.

156 - Where is technology taking us? - Dr Tom Starke

In this episode we’re going to be talking about the pits. The trading pits may be closed (or most of them are anyway) but there is a lot of history there. There are lots of stories and events that occurred in the pits over the years that we can still learn from today. On this podcast episode we have special guest Damon Pavlatos who has been extensively involved in the commodity and financial futures industry since 1978. He has held Exchange Memberships on the CME, CBOT and Mid America Exchange. Not only did he trade on the floor for himself but he also executed for some of the biggest players around, including Paul Tudor Jones, Louis Bacon, Monroe Trout, Toby Crabel and others. In Damons 40+ years of experience he’s seen a lot, and he’s experienced a lot too. So, in our chat today he’s going to share some interesting stories from the floor, and some valuable lessons for traders of all levels of experience too. Some of the things you’ll discover in my chat with Damon are: The crash of ’87 – what it was like leading up to, trading through it and how the crash of 2008 was scarier than the crash of 87, One of the biggest causes of traders blowing up their accounts - it may not be what you think, Why volume could be the most important indicator and how order flow ‘clues’ can impact trading results, Why it so important to ‘stay ahead of the curve’ and adapt to changes in technology and the markets, Why some types of brokerage firms are dangerous and how to check if they’re properly capitalised, And so much more. We cover a lot in this episode so let’s jump over now to my chat with Damon.

155: Stories from the trading floor - Damon Pavlatos

Ever wonder how the ‘other side’ trades? I suppose it depends what ‘trading world’ you live in but in this episode we’re exploring 2 different worlds - the institutional world AND the private trading world. And joining us to do that is special guest Petra Zacek. Petra started out in the institutional world and in this episode she shares some interesting stories and lessons about her time there. But now that she’s a private trader she’s also going to share some insights into trading her own account and the transition from institutional to private trading. Some of the things you’ll hear in our chat today are: Why it’s important to think outside the box and express your trade idea in different ways, Making the switch from institutional to private trading and the impact her institutional experience has had on her trading today, How the institutional world research ideas, including what private traders are up against and how we can compete, Benefits of collaboration, using algos as an additional filter on top of a setup, how to balance accuracy with win/loss ratio plus a whole lot more. So let’s jump over to my chat now with Petra.

154: From Billion dollar trades to private trader - with Petra Zacek

Quite often the focus for traders are the technical aspects of trading - indicators, back-testing procedures, robustness checks, statistics, trading platforms, infrastructure etc. All of these aspects can have an impact on trading performance. However, there are other aspects of trading too that often go unrecognised, ignored, and can have a huge impact on our performance no matter how good our strategies are. What are they? Joining us today to discuss high performance trading is Mandi Pour Rafsendjani. Mandi is a trader, speaker and peak performance trading coach who works with independent traders, prop trading firms and hedge funds to improve their trading performance. Some of the things you’ll discover in my chat with Mandi are: The key aspects that set high performing traders apart from everyone else, How traders can identify what’s really holding back their performance, Why it’s important to have a ‘reset button’, Two aspects of drawdown and how traders can more effectively manage drawdown, How to strengthen your ‘taking-losses’ muscle to better handle losses, And much more. So let’s jump over now to my chat with Mandi on high performance trading.

153: High performance trading - with Mandi Pour Rafsendjani

"Backtesting trading strategies does not work!” Got your attention? Maybe you agree with this statement. Perhaps you strongly disagree and you’re currently heading out to the backyard to grab your pitchfork. Or maybe you’re shaking your head thinking ‘what the heck swanny, have you finally lost it man?’. Well, the good news is I haven’t lost it (yet). We're going to dive deeper into this statement in the podcast episode today. But first, I'd like to introduce our guest - John Ehlers. John is a friend of the show. He’s been a guest multiple times, discussing topics such as cycles, indicators and digital signal processing. In our chat today we’re going to tackle robustness and also intraday trading. Some of the things you’ll hear on the show today are: The startling differences between intraday and daily timeframes and the critical factors you need to watch out for, Why it’s more difficult to predict where market prices are going on an intraday basic compared to daily timeframe, and how you need to think about intraday data differently, We’ll be digging deeper into this “Backtesting trading strategies does not work” statement to find out what it means, How to use a simple Genetic Optimization trick to determine the robustness of a strategy How Genetic Optimization can be used to identify suitable ranges for optimization parameters Why short walk forward periods could be better than longer, Plus a whole lot more. So lets jump over to my chat now with John Ehlers.

152: "Backtesting trading strategies does not work" - John Ehlers

As Warren Buffet once said: "the stock market is a manic depressive.” The market can be full of euphoria and greed one moment, and switch to fear and panic the next. This can often be a time of danger and high-risk for some traders, but for other traders it’s a time of immense opportunity. How? In this podcast episode we’re joined by special guest Larry Connors. Larry has over 30 years in the financial markets industry and has been featured on the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, & many others. He has been providing high-quality, data-driven trading research for over 15 years, and I’m sure that many BST listeners have a stack of his books on their bookshelf. I definitely do! In my chat with Larry you'll discover: How human emotions drive the market, and why it’s so important to look beyond price charts and indicators to understand what's moving the market, How we can leverage extremes in specific human emotions to create quantifiable and profitable edges, How Larry came up with the idea of publishing his book ‘Buy the Fear, Sell the Greed’ and what traders can learn from it, 3 simple indicators to quickly judge the mood of the market, How Warren Buffets investment approach to be ‘fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful’ can also apply to short-term trading, And yes, I’m going to ask Larry about that famous ‘Stops hurt’ chapter published over 10 years ago that still has people talking today, Plus we cover a whole lot more. 

151: Buy the fear, sell the greed - Larry Connors

In this podcast episode we’re going to be talking about strategy design and different ways to look at the markets, and joining us as our special guests is Rikard Nilsson from Autostock. Rikard trades all different styles and markets, and has even built his own trading platform with some interesting features he’s going to share with us. Plus he’s going to share some interesting ideas on how he looks at the markets, some of which you may not have heard of before, including: The 'Predictive Average' indicator – how it can be used to indicate potential market behaviours over the following days/weeks and months, Validating strategies across different instruments, Excluding certain parts of the day based on data, Adaptive 'Backtrack Technology' and how to filter trading signals and position sizing dynamically based on past market behaviour, Plus loads more, so let’s jump over now to my chat with Rikard. 

150: Looking at markets from different angles - Rikard Nilsson

If you’re looking for inspiration, motivation and practical advice on improving your trading results, Better System Trader delivers every fortnight. Each episode brings you an expert trader who shares their own story, along with the steps, both good and bad, that they've taken on their path to success. With a focus on actionable insights, the tips and tricks used by the experts contain loads of value, providing you with insanely practical tips and tools you can start using TODAY. Improve your trading with Better System Trader.

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