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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Buckle up because we've got a special treat for your trading journey! Adrian Reid, a seasoned trader with a wealth of experience, joins us on Better System Trader, in this special "Trading Triumphs: The Journey to Success" series, to get real about what it truly takes to succeed in the market. In this discussion, we dig deep into 3 defining moments of Adrian's trading journey, to uncover what really helped him achieve success. We're unpacking the trials, triumphs, and timeless wisdom of trading....
This episode explores the critical role of decision-making in trading, highlighting common mistakes like unpreparedness and emotional attachment. Matt Zimberg explains how successful traders develop strong conviction, prioritize risk management, and learn to filter relevant information. He emphasizes the importance of self-knowledge, using trading journals, and drawing insights from diverse fields to refine decision-making and overcome innate psychological biases for sustained success.
Are you looking for unique ways to use "Big Picture" analysis to guide your trading decisions? In this episode, Brent Penfold from indextrader.com.au joins me to share some interesting (and effective) techniques he uses to determine the big picture to guide trading and investing decisions, including: Why the big picture is so important in trading, How technical analysis can fool traders, What are fractals and why they matter, Validating market reactions to specific levels, The Market Ladder that...
Which is better for trading strategies - Indicators or Price Action? In this episode, Scott Welsh from scottwelshstrategies.com joins me to answer this eternal question. Here are some of the topics we discuss: Strange things that have impacted the markets this year, The value of reviewing simple strategies, Expectations traders have of trading strategies, Choosing the right trading style for a market, How to determine which markets trend the most, Old trading strategies that continue to do very ...
3 amazing guests join us to discuss trading insights of the past year and how to prepare for a HUGE trading year ahead, including: Getting better as a strategy builder, Challenges building short index strategies, Switching between old and new strategies, Timeframes for short-term trading strategies, Scaling out in volatile sideways markets, When the next bear market will begin and the transition from Bull to Bear, Trend following over the last few months, "V" price movements in the markets, Stop...
Adrian Reid from Enlightened Stock Trading joins us to discuss systematic crypto trading, including: Why traders should consider the crypto markets right now, The mistakes most traders make with crypto, Choosing the best exchanges, data and software for crypto trading, Why buy and old is a bad approach to crypto and what you should do instead, The types of strategies that work in the crypto markets right now, The 3 types of risk in the crypto space (and how to reduce them), How to overcome limit...
David Stendahl from SignalTradingGroup joins us to discuss techniques traders can use to achieve more stable results, including: Why it's good to understand a systems logic and will simple systems continue to work, How to apply adaptive logic to simple systems, Mistakes traders make using seasonals, How "seasonal depth" can identify when a market is likely to make a big move, Using environmental overlays to adjust position sizing, Using VIX to switch strategies on/off, Plus, we discuss which is ...
Lawrence Chan from DayTradingBias joins us to discuss market bias and how to leverage structural bias to increase strategy performance, including: "Atomic strategies" and knowing when to NOT trade, The most toxic period to backtest a strategy, Why market behaviours are becoming so predictable, How some trading platforms are taking traders down the wrong path, Exploring biases caused by recurring events, Why traders should think in concepts first, Plus, leverage and volatility breakouts, chart pa...
Jason Shapiro from Crowded Market Report discusses a contrarian approach to trading profits, including: Why contrarian trading makes sense, How to identify crowded trades and why price is not a good contrarian signal, What the markets really are and why traders don't understand it, Risk management for contrarian trades, Why traders shouldn't care about being right or wrong, Plus, COT report, hedgers and speculators, fading the "experts", trading through news events and much more. Disclaimer: Tra...
Larry Tentarelli from Blue Chip Daily joins us to discuss techniques to buying pullbacks and avoiding bear markets, including: Determining the trend with price action and why price action is better than indicators, Using volatility and range expansion as warning signs, Impact of the index on individual stocks, Managing trades when markets are breaking down, Reliability of moving average crosses, Clues that indicate a pullback may be turning into a bear market, Using market internals to identify ...
Kris Longmore from RobotWealth joins us to discuss 4 key areas part-time traders need to take seriously to be successful, including: Why it's important to understanding market participants and why they're trading, 3 common things traders do that almost guarantee they will blow up, Setting realistic expectations for retail traders, The "edge pyramid" and where retail traders should target, The "backtest cycle of doom", why backtesting is not research, and a better approach to finding a trading ed...
Martyn Tinsley from TradeLikeAMachine joins us to discuss market noise, and how to leverage noise to improve trading strategies, including: Why it's important to understand market noise, The impact of market noise on trading strategies, Using noise to filter assets and timeframes, Example of impact of market noise on Mean Reversion strategies, The best strategies to trade in noisy markets, The difference between noise and volatility, Harmonic price patterns, instantaneous noise filtering, tradin...
Brian Blandin from Markets Science joins us to discuss how to find and trade statistical edges in the crypto markets, including: The things traders need to be aware of before trading crypto, Common factors and repeatable patterns that move the crypto markets, Software, programming language and exchange selection, How to screen cryptocurrencies to find those worth trading, Safety of funds at unregulated brokers, Crypto market correlation to stocks and index futures, Moving from discretionary to s...
Curtis White from Beyond Backtesting joins us to discuss 3 ways traders can build better trading models, including: The problem with trading models and why traders struggle to incorporate predictive factors into models, What drives the markets and using market cognition for better trading ideas, Identifying and trading different markets and datasets, Using statistical creativity in the strategy validation process, Problems with Walk Forward Optimization and the 'proven winner' solution, Testing ...
Kyle Schultz from Algorithmic Futures joins us to discuss how to leverage volatility in your trading strategies to improve risk/reward and outperform the market, including: Why volatility is a key component in trading strategies, 3 main ways to apply volatility in trading strategies,\ Types of volatility filters and when to use them in the strategy development process, Using VIX term structure as a regime filter, Adapting strategies to different volatility regimes, Mean reversion vs momentum in ...
Jeff Swanson from EasyLanguageMastery discusses how to avoid curve fitting your trading strategies using the "independent testing" technique, including: The things traders do that cause curvefitting, Is curvefitting a trading strategy really that bad? Independent testing and why you should use it when developing trading strategies, How to do independent testing of filters and using optimization to judge filter consistency, Testing combinations of filters and why you should look to remove Plus, t...
Algorithmic trader Cesar Alvarez from Alvarez Quant Trading joins us to discuss low effort trading strategies, including: An explanation of rotational trading and the benefits/challenges of using rotational strategies, Why rotational trading is a fantastic way to diversify time (and also get to "trade lazy"), How often to rebalance and the impacts of the day you choose to rebalance, Ranking methods and some of the most effective ways to find the best candidates, How to reduce the churn in rotati...
Trend following trader David Lundgren joins us to discuss how to improve trend following performance, including: The problem with momentum (and why momentum "doesn't work"), Why momentum isn't working today, Mixing momentum with trend following for better performance, The 4 conditions that must happen for a trend to occur, Modeling regime drivers and digging deeper to understand true market health, What to do when trading strategies are struggling, And much more. Disclaimer: Trading in the finan...
Trader, author and performance coach Dr Brett Steenbarger discusses how traders can get an edge by applying innovation to their trading, including: The 2 levels of improvements traders can make, Why traders resist innovation and how to address hesitation to change, How to innovate by looking at what we do well, Why NOT trading can be an innovation for traders, Impacts of lifestyle and mindset on innovation, Why you should "limit your search" when looking for edges, The 2 qualities most shared am...
Quant trader Ernie Chan from PredictNow.ai joins us to discuss how to predict the profitability of trades using machine learning, including: Unconditional probability and the problem with win% in backtest reports, Why "conditional probability" is much more useful for a trader and how to apply conditional probabilities to capital allocation, Why you should use Machine Learning for risk management and capital allocation only (and not for building trading strategies), Why feature selection and feat...
Richard Metzger from Quantsys.net joins us to discuss how to combine algos using state-based market design techniques for more consistent trading performance, including: Why it's important to be sceptical of your algos, The main causes of poor algo performance and how state-based market design can address these issues, How to define market states into "buckets" and why you should keep them simple, Combining state-based algos to create a system, plus Adjusting inputs for market states, combining ...
Mandi Pour Rafsendjani from High Performance Trading joins us to discuss tips and techniques to perform like a world champion, even under times of stress and uncertainty, including: The 2 types of fears that lead to stress in trading, Self-image and accelerating trading performance, The 3 different areas to look at when dealing with stress, "Protective Pessimism" and positive vs negative thinking, The "3M's" to check when a strategy stops working, The "Queens Gambit" strategy to performance impr...
David Bean from Capstone Trading Systems joins us to share tips and techniques to manage multiple trading strategies, including: When to start trading a strategy live (the answer may not be what you think!), Why you should learn to love "ugly equity curves", Watching the markets for trading ideas, Identifying patterns and cycles in portfolio drawdown, Why you should consider correlation based on methodology instead of typical correlation measurements, plus Patterns vs optimization, single idea s...
Adam Grimes from Talon Advisors discusses why trading can be so challenging and what to do about it, including: Why it can be so hard to learn from the markets, The dangers of doing stupid things in the markets that generate a good outcome, Random price movements and finding more predictable moments, Why having success outside of the markets doesn't guarantee you'll be a good trader, Trading psychology and interacting with randomness, Adapting to uncertainty and mispricing risk, Deliberate pract...
Algorithmic trader Kevin Davey discusses the sneaky tactics trading scammers use to trick people and how you can spot a fraud and protect yourself, including: How to check if testimonials are real, Some simple ways to tell if a trader really is trading live as they claim, How to spot fake trading strategies, Trading gurus who report unrealistic returns and flaunt fake wealth, Websites you can use to check if trading educators are scammers, Why teach if you can trade, Fake trendlines and cherry-p...
World Cup Trading Championship runner-up Scott Welsh joins us to discuss how "breaking the rules" and doing the opposite of "traditional" trading approaches can lead to higher returns, including: "Burning the ships" and how limiting beliefs are hurting traders, Why traders should "start from the end" and work backwards, Why it's good to see losing in your trading, The 80/20 rule and why "getting the star" beats diversification, How to achieve real-life trading that's better than the backtest, Se...
Numerical Computing specialist and author Timothy Masters joins us (in his only ever interview) to discuss trading strategy development and validation techniques, including: Why trading strategies fall apart in live trading, How luck impacts trading strategy results and the impact of selecting the 'best' trading system, Why trades in an out of sample dataset are NOT representative of future trades, 3 ways to use Monte Carlo Permutation tests in trading strategy development to avoid overfitting, ...
Breakout trading specialist and Hedge Fund manager Tomas Nesnidal joins us to discuss how to increase the returns of trading strategies using "Performance Qualifiers" while also managing risk, including: What is Dynamic Position Sizing (DPS) and how can it improve risk-adjusted returns, How Dynamic Position Sizing is different to classical position sizing (and why DPS is better), Why it's important for traders to connect position size with what's going on in the markets, instead of just their eq...
Unknown market wizard Marsten Parker joins us to share how he overcame broken strategies and adapted his trading to deliver a 20-year track record most traders would envy, including: Being featured in the "Unknown Market Wizards" book by Jack Schwager, The impacts of a 45% drawdown and how Marsten got back into trading, How to use a system stop to protect your trading account from large losses, Why it's important to understand why a strategy works, Mean Reversion short strategies, why they're da...
David Steets from Systematic Individual Investor joins us to discuss how to map market probabilities and identify high probability markets using "edge stacking" techniques, including: The importance of mapping market probabilities, How to identify if something really contains an edge, Blending return probabilities across buckets to create a probability map, Classifying markets over multiple timeframes, How to confirm which edges are currently relevant, Using both technical and fundamental in mod...
