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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Most trading strategies have an optimal type of market condition where they work at their absolute best, so having an understanding of market conditions and being able to detect and adapt to them can really have a huge impact on trading performance. But how can we measure market regimes properly? What techniques can we use to find that delicate balance between stability and reactivity so that it improves performance rather than reduces it? Our guest for this episode, Alan Clement, has completed ...
The performance profile of Mean Reversion is extremely desirable to a lot of traders. Mean reversion trading strategies can produce high win rates and a smooth equity curve, however there are risks, which can result in giving back a large portion of profits, or of your trading account, some times in a very short period of time. So what can you do to build mean reversion strategies that produce consistent profits while managing risk effectively? Todays guest, PJ Sutherland, is here to share the k...
There are a number of different aspects to trading that we really need to get a handle on to increase our odds of success. Some aspects we often put a lot of thought and analysis into, and others we may not consider so carefully or at all, which could be impacting our trading results without us even realizing. Todays guest, Dr Howard Bandy, is here to discuss the foundations of trading, and some of these aspects we really need to consider, whether we're just starting out or a more experienced tr...
Why is it that some traders can create trading strategies that perform well in real-time trading while other strategies fall apart? How do some traders keep their trading strategies fresh and adaptive to market conditions while other strategies just stop working altogether? Robert Pardo, president of Pardo Capital, author of the book 'The Evaluation and Optimization of Trading Strategies' and creator of the 'Walk Forward Analysis' approach, is here to chat about creating and optimizing strategie...
Who wants a steadily rising equity curve with little or no drawdown? I'm sure most traders do, but unfortunately it doesn't usually end up that way. Drawdown is a big part of trading and can be one of the the biggest challenges traders face, so what techniques can we use to potentially help reduce drawdowns? Our guest for this episode, Scott Phillips, is going to share techniques he uses to manage drawdowns in his own trading. In our chat you will learn: How to quickly test a trading idea to det...
Building robust trading strategies that can detect and adapt to market conditions can be a real challenge, and failure to do so can often result in poor trading performance and drawdowns. How can we build more robust trading strategies that adapt to market conditions as they change? Our guest for this episode, John Ehlers, who has a guest on episode 48, joins us to share some common problems traders face when building trading strategies along with tips on how to overcome them. In our chat you wi...
Trading algorithmically based on sentiment data is a relatively new field compared to more established approaches. With the explosion of social media and computing power, the analysis of sentiment data has also increased, with some hedge funds committing considerable resources to researching the applications of sentiment data in trading. However, there is also some skepticism of the value of analyzing social media for trading, so what is sentiment trading all about? Can sentiment actually be use...
Whether you're a retail trader with a small account or a fund manager with millions or billions under management, something that we all need to consider carefully as traders is how or where we're going to use the money in our trading accounts. 'Capital allocation' sounds boring but it can have such a huge impact on our trading results. Unfortunately, it can sometimes be overlooked for other aspects of trading like entries and exits, leaving traders with an inefficient use of their capital and ca...
Today's guest is a trader that has been requested quite a few times actually, I've had a lot of requests to have this person as a guest on the show, and the guest is Adam Grimes. Adam has two decades of experience in the industry as a trader, analyst and system developer and is currently Chief Investment Officer of Waverly Advisors. He's previously held positions at Level Partners, MBF Asset Management and SMB Capital and is the author of ' The Art & Science of Technical Analysis: Market Str...
When I was preparing for the previous podcast episode on system trading through the Brexit , I had to review some of the past podcast episodes so that I could include some background content for the guests, and as I was going through some of those past episodes I realized that there was so much great information in them that I had already forgotten about. I even found some concepts or ideas that didn't really catch my interest because it wasn't appropriate to my trading at the time but it's now ...
The results of the Brexit decision took a lot of people by surprise and the markets reacted accordingly. What was interesting about this market event is that we all knew the date and time period when the Brexit votes would start rolling in, so we had a rough idea when we might see some type of market reaction, if the market reacted at all. As systematic traders, what should we do in this type of situation: Should we continue trading as usual, following our systems? Should we override our systems...
Traders are always looking for an edge and today's guest shares a simple approach he calls an 'unfair trading advantage', that can have a dramatic impact on trading strategy performance. The guest on this episode has been on the show before, to discuss breakout trading strategies back in Episode 43 . In that episde we discussed the steps to building breakout strategies and we even released a breakout strategy toolkit , included an ebook, cheatsheet and EasyLanguage code for 2 breakout trading st...
Today we're covering a topic which can really be a concern for traders of all levels, from beginner to pro, and that is the topic of strategy evaluation. Have you ever found that real-life performance does not match expected results? Or perhaps you have a strategy that is stuck in a drawdown and wondering if it's actually broken? I'm sure we've all heard of data mining bias, over-optimization and curve fitting and the impacts this can have on our trading accounts. We may be even using techniques...
Nelson Freeburg was the editor of Formula Research, a newsletter that developed systematic timing models for the stock, bond, and commodity markets. He was also a research consultant working with institutional money managers to design proprietary timing models. Nelson had been an active trader since 1980 and occasionally spoke about his work to audiences around the world. In this episode, Linda Raschke shares memories of Nelson, his approach to model development and what we can learn by studying...
Markets are constantly changing. Trading edges come and go. In an industry with such a low survival rate, where some areas are changing at an ever increasing rate, what does it actually take to not only survive, but thrive, over an extended period of time? The guest on this episode, Linda Raschke, has been trading for over 35 years. She traded for several hedge funds before starting her own, ranking 17th out of 4500 hedge funds by Barclays Hedge for 'Best 5 year performance'. She's experienced a...
Trading can be tough, markets are noisy and finding signals in the market noise can be challenging. Also, applying indicators to trading strategies can introduce lag, however a lot of traders don't even realize the lag their indicators are introducing or the impact it can have on trading. In fact, the guest in our chat today, John Ehlers said "One of the biggest enemies of traders is lag". So, what's the solution? John Ehlers is well known in the commodity futures arena as the Creator of MESA, h...
Backtesting and execution are such key parts of algorithmic trading so choosing the wrong platform can have a huge impact on our trading. There are loads of trading platforms available and a lot of considerations which need to be made when choosing one that suits our needs, so in this episode we'll be discussing backtesting and execution platforms with Nitesh Khandelwal, department head at QuantInsti who also co-founded iRageCapital and iRage Global Advisory Services. After our chat on algorithm...
I'm sure we all want to create trading strategies that perform better and last for longer but there are a number of issues we need to look out for when developing robust trading strategies, some are well-known and some perhaps aren't. In this episode we'll be talking with Perry Kaufman about strategy development and more specifically some of the issues that can catch us out when creating trading strategies. Perry raises some interesting points about optimization that may not be well known plus h...
Andrea Unger is the only trader to ever win the World Cup Championship of Futures Trading ®* titles 3 years in a row, with returns of 672% in 2008 (futures division), 115% in 2009 (futures division) and 240% in 2010 (futures & forex division). This is his 2nd appearance on the podcast, he was also a guest on Episode 16 . In this episode Andrea discusses his approach to trade entries, how the traditional approach to entries can limit our ability to read the market and how he's modified the st...
Back in Episode 32 we had a chat with Laurent Bernut , a systematic short seller who spent years working in the Hedge Fund world specializing in short selling strategies. He shared loads of knowledge with us in that episode but we actually had a lot more to talk about. We ran out of time back then so in this episode we're going to continue with the chat, covering a bit more on short selling, including common problems and mistakes traders make when short selling, the 5 psychological stages of a b...
Experienced trader Tomas Nesnidal discusses building and maintaining profitable automated breakout strategies. He outlines four key components: point of initiation, distance, time filters, and regular filters, emphasizing creativity in development. Nesnidal also shares insights on how strategies degrade, offering solutions like frequent reoptimization and rigorous testing, alongside crucial advice on portfolio diversification and managing market correlations.
Murray Ruggiero is the chief systems designer and market analyst at Tuttle Wealth Management, with around 200 million dollars under management. He is one of the world's foremost experts on the use of intermarket and trend analysis in locating and confirming developing price moves in the markets. He is also a speaker, author and has been a contributing editor to Futures magazine since 1994, producing over 180 articles. In this episode we discuss various aspects of system development, including op...
For those traders looking for an edge in every aspect of trading, today's topic is something that isn't discussed too much but has had a great impact on the 2 guests of this episode. The topic is collaboration in trading and the guests are Michael Cook and Kevin Davey. Both of these guests have appeared on the podcast before, with Michael being a guest on Episode 39 and Kevin being a guest on Episode 5 and Episode 38 . Both have extensive trading experience too, successfully trading their own mo...
Larry Williams has been a guest of the podcast before, sharing insights from 50 years of trading in Episode 20 . In 1987 he won the World Cup™ trading championship, turning $10,000 to over $1.1 million in 12 months. He is a published author, with a long list of best-selling books and has also created a number of market indicators including Williams %R, Ultimate Oscillator, the Williams Accumulation/Distribution Indicator, COT indices, cycle forecasts, market sentiment and value measures. In this...
We've been very lucky to have a number of trading champions on the podcast before and this episode we get to talk to another champion trader, Michael Cook, who won the World Cup Trading championships in 2007 (Futures), 2011 (Stocks) and 2014 (Futures). Michael worked in the institutional world for a number of years before leaving behind the banks and hedge funds to trade for himself. In this episode we'll be discussing how to increase returns with the same risk, using the market to determine sto...
Happy New Year! The start of a new year is typically the time when people review their accomplishments and progress for the past year, and make fresh plans for the year to come. I thought it might be good to do a quick bonus episode with someone who knows all about setting goals and achieving them. That person is World Cup trading champion Kevin Davey, who was a guest of the show on Episode 5. Now this is a bonus episode so it's a really short one but it's full of great information, including th...
In this episode we're discussing the results of a quantitative study on stop losses completed by Cesar Alvarez of Alvarez Quant Trading . Cesar was also a guest of the show way back in Episode 3 . Cesar was director of research for Connors Research for almost 9 years, developing quantitative trading models for individuals, prop traders and hedge funds. In this episode he's going to share the results of a quantitative study on stop losses, also testing out some common pieces of trading advice to ...
Creating robust trading strategies can be a difficult task, sometimes taking months or even years to generate something you find acceptable. Even then, once you start trading it live there is no guarantee it'll work in the future. With strategy creation being such an involved process at times, how would you like it if you could just tell the computer the results you wanted and let it figure out the trading rules? Is it actually possible to create robust trading strategies that way? In this episo...
Andrew Gibbs has been involved in the financial markets since 2001 and is the founder and CEO of Halifax New Zealand . Andrew has extensive experience in all forms of equity and derivative contracts, managing millions of dollars and trading a number of markets around the world. In this episode we discuss volatility and methods to trading the VIX plus the benefits and methods of including fundamental data in technical quant models. Topics discussed Instruments you can use to trade volatility and ...
Jay Kaeppel has over 25 years experience in the financial markets. He has worked as the Head Trader for a CTA and published a number of popular trading books on Futures, Options and Stock Market Seasonality. He also spent a number of years writing a weekly column titled "Kaeppel's Corner" and publishes on his blog "Jay On The Markets". He is now Portfolio Manager for Alpha Investment Management, offering strategies such as the 'Alpha Multi-Income Strategy' to investors. In this episode we discus...
