172: Anthony Riley – Clawing Back a Six-Figure Loss

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Hey there, what's going on everyone? Welcome to episode 172. I hope you're doing good. Just before I introduce my guest of this episode, I'd like to share something with you. So The other month I hosted a live podcast event in Sydney with Mike Balfure from SMB Capital and two highly accomplished equities traders, Austin Mitchum and Bryce Edwards. So the event was filmed and the video has now been released. You can go ahead and watch that on the SMB YouTube channel. You'll find it there.

Uh though as you will hear we had some audio issues. The sound quality is quite poor, which is quite disappointing, because there was a lot of great information shared that night. However, for anyone who would prefer to get the information and not have to deal with poor sound quality, here's what I've done for you. I've taken the full audio of our conversation and I've turned it into a neatly formatted PDF document. It's available right now as an easy to read ebook.

It was quite a bit of effort to create this and I think you'll get a lot of value from it. So I've put it on the website for$10. To find out more and to get a copy for yourself, go to chatwithraders.com slash transcript. Okay, that link once more chatwithraders dot com slash transcript.

Okay. Now, with that being said, it's time to introduce my guest and also a really good friend of mine, Anthony Riley. Anthony is a proprietary futures trader from Sydney with 10 years market experience. He's active, particularly during the nighttime, in a range of products such as Australian and US bonds.

equity indices, currencies, and even a few commodities. While he's a click trader, Anthony is quite systematic with his processes and strategies, which are mostly trading spreads between correlated products. Naturally, we speak about many things during this episode, but I think one of the highlights was hearing about how Anthony got himself into a six-figure drawdown and was able to claw it back in just one month. We spent quite a bit of time breaking it down.

Also, I'm not sure if it matters, but I'll point out this episode was recorded in December, just before Christmas. And we did this episode in person too. So there is a video. If you'd prefer to watch rather than just listen, make your way over to the Chatwith Traders YouTube channel and again you'll find that video there. On with the show now, here is Anthony Riley.

All right, so the cameras are rolling. Okay, great. Sorry. Uh where do you want to start out? How's how's your week been in trading? Let's start there. Yeah, the week's been the week's been interesting. We had the rolls this week in the Aussie Bonds, so Do you trade the roles? Do you get involved in that? No, not the role itself. Most of my strategies into bonds, I only run a couple of trades. Like I don't run a lot of the stuff I trade because sometimes it can uh be

not ideal conditions. Sometimes the role can be quite one way. So you end up getting caught in these trades and stuff. So just the testing that I did in the past and past experiences just it's not really great. So I kind of almost take a step back. and have a bit of a quieter week. I used to take a holiday in rolls but I do some other trades now that are r running all the time, so

Yeah, okay. Have you traded roles in the past? Like is it something you used to trade like quite a bit and now you stay out of it or you just never really No, no, no. Nah, never really was. It's it's quite interesting because obviously I do a lot with the Aussie Tenyi bond and since that's gone to the uh quadratics now. It's does like that's ideal for how I trade. It is better, but just the flows a little bit different.

Quarter ticks, it's only quarter ticks during the rolls, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it is, yeah. Okay. Yeah, cool. And how about like the volatility in the US kind of equities and that? Has that had any sort of flow on effect to what you were trading?

It has, yeah,'cause I trade some equity index future spreads. Ah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. So um it has definitely had a an impact with them. The trade frequency has certainly gone up and I've found a lot of trades you're kinda you know, you'll be fading it because a lot of it's a mean reversion style trading and things will be disjointed a bit more. So there's actually more fat in the trades. Which is good, but

Uh, but at the same time too, sometimes you gotta modify or adjust your risk on the trades with obviously the expansion and the volatility and stuff like that. Right. And is there also you know, you said there's more fat, is there also more risk too? Yeah, to an extent, yeah. Um, what I found though is that the amount of fat actually on the trades, like, you know, if you were going for like a one to one risk award on the trade sort of a thing in the past.

you're probably getting like a four to one and a half. Sort of i if that kind of makes sense. So you're definitely getting a lot more on the upside and you're taking on a little bit more risk on the downside? Yeah. Yeah.

And are you gonna continue trading, like obviously we're coming into Christmas and that sort of thing? Um this episode will probably go out after Christmas, but um, you know, how do you change your trading during that time? Does it have Any effect at all? Not generally no. I mean I'll have off the main days.

over like the Christmas and New Year period. But I actually found over the last couple of years that you can get some quite good moves. Um, especially with the mean reversion style trading, as long as you're not trying to stand too close to the mean of the market. you can actually get some quite quite decent moves because everyone kind of has the idea that they want to just get what orders they need to do and, you know, sometimes you have

bigger players in the market that will just come in and just be like, All right, I need this done now. They'll just do it and that presents then good opportunities. Yeah, yeah. To you for you to jump on their coattails. Yeah, absolutely. Exactly, exactly. Okay, well maybe we should actually talk a bit about how you actually trade, what markets you're involved in, and that sort of thing. So maybe we'll start there, like what products do you trade?

Um primarily in the Aussie three and ten year bonds as well as the US ten, ultra ten, and the uh thirty ye. And then I do a bit in the the SPY ASX two hundred features, the E Mini S P five hundred, and then some of the uh Asian equities as well, Asian equity indexes. That's primarily. But I'll uh like then I run sort of like a different sort of strategies on the FX futures, which I trade similar to a um like I guess what retail traders would trade spot. I just

execute the trade to the futures. So it requires a little bit more messing around. And then I use the same sort of style trades on crude and gold and things like that too. But that's basically the Project. So I guess it's across a lot, but Yeah. Would you say that the majority of your trading is done in a select few of those products? Yeah, definitely. The majority of the size that I would use is definitely in the fixed income side of things. Okay. And

W you know, you described quite a few different products there. Are you trading those kind of individually or are you trading I know you trade um the SPY, so essentially like the ASX two hundred, the the share price index? Uh uh versus the is it the A Mini? So are you trading a lot of those things you mentioned there as kind of spreads against each other? Yeah, yeah. A lot of them. A lot a lot of them are spreads against each other, but then sometimes you have

outright views on them and things like that. So that can play into how you actually trade the spread. Okay. So will you sometimes just take a purely outright position? Uh Very rarely. Very rarely it'll be a straight outright precision. It might be a uh differently sort of weighted position. You know, say for example if you're using like a let's just say a one to one ratio on a um on a spread trade, maybe sometimes you might do like a four to three or a

that sort of a thing or three to two sort of a thing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So depending on your outright view, you might see, you know, a certain market rallying And then you might think, Okay, this has probably still got legs to continue on or there's more risk at the moment. If it sort of keeps going, you'll kind of change the weighting of the of the two products.

Can you talk a little bit about how you would actually trade the spread? Let's say the um let's say the spy. So when I say the spy, I'm talking about the share price index, uh, the Australian uh futures. index. Um not S P Y, the ETF. Uh so if you're trying to spy against

Uh is it the e mini contract you trade against? Yeah, I mean sometimes it's the mini. I mean you can like I've I've also done it like against, you know, the Dax and the Nikai and things like that. Because obviously there's the broad idea that these particular things like obviously they don't always move the same, but there's a tendency for equity markets to be correlated across the world. So what sort of things would you look for, like what would drive a a trading decision to trade that spread?

Um basically a lot of it's done in the in the testing. So I'm pretty massive on the testive side of things and I've found that the best sort of trades, I guess, that suit me are ones which I have a an edge that I've, you know, seen on paper. I'm like, okay, there's definitely opportunity here for me to I guess be able to get something out of the market and then that will

kind of be translated I guess into the trade. Um so for example with with Spy Mini and with, you know, Spy against Nikkei and FTSE and Dax and all these sort of a things. Um, you're generally looking for certain standard deviations away from the mean. So when you're testing or or originally come up with the idea, you generally go back and test

you know, you you'll find a mean first, which can be could be anything really, I guess. And then you work standard deviations back and then I guess then you work out how much of that you actually wanna take, whether you wanna fade it back to the mean, or you sort of just take a small profit or

Have you when you talk about testing these types of ideas, now you're for the most part, I would I'd say you're probably a discretionary trader. Is that fairly accurate? Um I'd like to actually think of it more now as it's Like I have systematic processes. So even though it's all executed a lot of it's executed manually, it's all systematic processes but with the discretionary edge of sizing and times of when to actually execute the trades.

Okay. Okay. So with that sort of thing you can actually go back and it's it's I don't know if easy's maybe the wrong word, but you can actually go back and test it. Because there are rules to how you trade it. Yeah, yeah. You can you can you can definitely go back and say I would have taken that trade as opposed to it being like a oh yeah, I've looks like something I would have done and then you kind of build a strategy on like what ifs rather than actual hard sort of facts. Mm-hmm.

So how would you decide how much size you're gonna trade uh each um side of the spread? So before you were saying you might trade, you know, three contracts of the SPY and then maybe four of the E Mini. Like how would you sort of think about So generally what I'll do is I'll get data. So either daily

hourly or whichever sort of time frame you're looking at. So in my case I mainly do hours, thirty minutes, and then I'll get like one minute or five minute data and um just chuck it in Excel and then you do sort of, you know, slope. So you work out it's um you do aggression on it to see w the relationship of one to the other and that will basically be your standard beater.

So obviously that does relate to the the relationship between one and the other. And then that will generally give you the chart. So then I've got spreadsheets and stuff that I look at too where you can work out one percent. So for example, we'll use spy and mini for example. You work out one percent move in that, then one percent move in that, then work out the dollar value of each

And then, you know, if one's ten thousand and one's five thousand, then that would be two to one sort of a ratio, or one to two, sorry. So that the same move is the same in each. Given that the relationship that you think they share is that. And what about your trading in the uh the Aussie three year and ten year bonds? What sort of things are you doing there? Are you trading the threes against the tens or Yeah, generally so generally curve related stuff, yeah. So that's

I most of the trades around that still center around mean reversion. Um, though I trade it a little bit differently because the behaviour of it can be a bit different, especially now that three years have gone from full ticks to half ticks. I felt that, you know, in the past you could kind of get in and out for, you know, a tick and it was, I guess, um

efficient on the brokerage side of things to be doing that because there was a lot of fat in the three years for a point. But now I think you kind of have to go for a bit more moves. So the way I've traded that has definitely changed over time. But I think the um it does share the same trade sort of style as well I do across the other products. Okay. So how has your trading changed from the um drop to half ticks? Because I know a lot of uh ASX traders are ups were upset over that.

Yeah. When it came into play. When was that? Um Um could have been probably about six months ago. I think it was twelve this time last year actually. Twelve months. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it would be close. Yeah. So how is your how have you had to change your trading to sort of still make that a worthwhile product for you to trade? So I think for me, generally what I've been able to do is because a lot of my trades are actually more suited to

holding positions a little bit longer and getting a bit more fat. So it's actually Better. my trading on those particular products because the cost of like the slippage I guess in a way. is now less. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, for example, before like you might have been getting in the three years and then the market starts to move and you get filled on the ten years and then you have to go to market in the threes. And now you're

That point now is halved, so there's almost more on that sort of side of the trade, in a way. Um but I guess I guess overall I probably I'd probably trade a a little bit less now, but I'm a bit more specific and a bit more um I feel there's better risk award on the trades now. Than what there was before. Yeah. I mean that that thing you mentioned where the slippage is certainly a lot less, that's that's definitely gotta be helpful.

You know, if you've got to stop out on a trade, you can stop out on half a tick instead of a full tick. Yeah. Which has its disadvantage too when you are, you know, front of the queue on it and you could have easily got a full point. Right. Now you only get a half tick. So but I think how I sort of try to look at it is like longer term, you know, you wanna be making your money off ideas that you can replicate day in, day out night.

the cue of it. I mean it adds to it, you know, and it's always good to get, but I wouldn't want it to be my sort of bread and butter as a trader.

Um, now you haven't always traded these products, I presume, because you weren't always a prop trader. I don't actually know too much, you know, I know you fairly well, but I don't actually know too much about how you actually got into trading, so Um this is gonna be interesting because I'm gonna be learning something as well. Um I know you started in trading around about two thousand eight, was that right? Yeah, yeah, that is very So where did you start out? Like how did you

you know, get involved. Yeah. So back then I was kind of always interested in making money, as most people are, brings us to trading. And um W during that sort of a period, I started looking at Aussie stocks and things like that and I was sort of dabbling in them. And then um two thousand eight came along and I was at uni at the time and I thought, Okay, I'm gonna go do some travelling.

So I went and travelled after I traded some stocks and I randomly met some when he was a trader. I think it was for Credit Suisse. It was like somewhere in Europe. But I remember it would have been probably around August or September while everything was starting to kick off. And um I remember he was like sitting next to me in a hostel looking at like charts on the screen and I was like, Oh yeah, this is like stocks and stuff again, this stuff's cool.

So anyway, I ended up coming back to Australia and during that time the accounting company that I was like working with as like a cadet chip made me redundant. So I was like, Oh I okay, what do we do now? And I was like, Maybe I should do this stock stuff and give give this a go, why not? It's a good opportunity. And um it actually turned out that a friend of mine from school was actually doing some trading.

And this was all in um it was like momentum trading with like the E Mini and Gold and UAUSD and those sort of things. And um he was kinda going to some seminars and learning and doing all that sort of a thing. And I was like, Yeah, I'll come along, why not? So that was really where I started to first I guess get more involved with it. From there we ended up going halves in a trading account.

Which is uh always an interesting interesting thing to do. Um so we put three K in each and um I can't remember how long it took. It took a it took while like I mean we didn't blow it all. I mean, but we ended up taking out think it was like two thousand six hundred to like thirteen hundred bucks each. Okay. And then we kinda like walked away and we were like, all right, what do we do here? And I kept trading because the strategy was actually primarily suited to trading at night.

So even back then I was still trading through the night, which was which is interesting. And um so I ended up continue on trading and working with him, um,'cause he didn't fully ditch the idea. Uh and so we ended up modifying what we'd learnt and we kind of like, I guess, broke that strategy apart and sort of rebuilt it back. And that was when I think things started to get a little bit better.

Um, I mean, well, this was probably like two thousand nine, two thousand ten that this this this was happening and then yeah, two thousand eleven was when it started to get somewhat consistent. Okay. Can I just jump in there? Yeah. So you said you got made redundant. What year was that? Two thousand and eight. Would have been right at the end of two thousand eight when I got back from Europe. Okay. So did you go get another job somewhere else? Um, so that was

That was kinda like the l well, it was s sort of like a full time job, but it was like a cadet ship. So like I would do full time uni work at night and then the second semester I'd work full time at the uni at night. Um but after that it was like I had actually had a part time job at Tui's at the brewery. out of Lycum, but then that was that was the uh which worked well'cause of the'cause that's open twenty four hours so I could work it around my schedule.

Okay. So you just had a part time job to keep some money coming in the doors? Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Like I was still living at home at the time and stuff back then, so It was it kind of fitted everything. It worked around my unischedule, worked around trading and it was It was actually pr some pretty good money for like like it was like what, mid thirties an hour working at like a warehouse. So back then it was it was good'cause you could work less and Yeah. Yeah. And did you have the

the goal this whole time, you know, during those few years that you would become a full time trader, that eventually you'd be able to make enough money from trading that you could give your job the flick? Or this part time job the flick. Yeah, definitely, definitely. It was. I think I was a little bit naive in how I went about a lot of it. Um, I think at the beginning the work I was putting in.

wasn't the right work. And I think that's something I've learnt a lot over the years is that just because you're putting in, you know, six hours a day doesn't mean it's a good six hours of work.

You know, so it's actually gonna be on totally the wrong stuff. And I think I spent too much time working on the actual strategy and every time it would have a couple of losses I'd be like retesting it and re-optimizing it and all this and I'd lose sort of sight of the big picture in a way and I wasn't working as much on the mindset and on myself as probably as much as what I should have.

Okay. So if you Hmm, how do I want to ask this question? If you would ad what were some of the mistakes that you uh I know you'd kind of outlined some of them just there, but Fanine also might be starting out, might be very kind of new to this. Uh maybe some of the things they're thinking at the moment are a little bit naive and maybe they don't actually realise that.

Well, I think one thing that I probably did at the beginning, I guess, is the I was probably using too large a of a percentage of my trading account per trade per as risk. Um, that was one thing'cause that obviously caused the the drawdown as big as it did.'Cause if you think about it, like even if you are very active, it will take you a little bit of time to get through fifty percent of an account if you risk, you know, one or two percent per trade or something like that.

Um, that was probably one of the things. But I think the other thing too was that I wasn't always willing to be wrong. Which was something that took me a while to kind of get over, I guess. Um, I was always seeking and searching for like the perfect strategy, the perfect system, and that's just a battle you're never gonna win. Um, rather than just finding something that's

good and then working with it. And I think I probably tried to eliminate too many what I saw as errors or like problems with a strategy when it was really just that was part of the reason where it would work in a way, if that makes sense. Like I was trying to eliminate one of the variables that actually cause the strategy to be profitable, but that's what also caused it to lose money. Yeah. Okay. Can you share what maybe that variable was? Like do you remember?

Um, so it was more along the lines of like the management of the trade. So I would try to run stops too close when it got into profit. But by having the like The trades back then were that I was doing was like momentum sort of breakout sort of strategies. And then when it would hit a certain amount of um, you know, ticks in profit, you would you would sort of trade your stop. And sometimes I would be very

keen just to like get the training in like don't want to lose money, don't lose money and you would end up getting taken out on the first pullback and it would just trend all night. Right. Okay, yeah, I get you. That makes sense. And I mean I've it's been interesting like doing a bit of algorithmic training and testing and that sort of thing. You can certainly see how um putting stops and and sort of the impact of

stops affects your P and L. It's very interesting to test that kind of thing. Yeah, it is. It is. Um, it can make an absolutely huge difference. Um and, you know stops in the wrong places can cause you to have a a lot more losing trades and effectively effectively kill a strategy. Yeah. And the the the interesting part is the premise and the idea behind the strategy can actually be right. It's just amazing how much

you know, smart stop placement, as a lot of people call it, can alter that end outcome. Yeah. Yeah. Are you ready to get serious about trading? Then join Tasty Trade, Investopedia's best platform for options trading in twenty twenty six. Stocks, options, futures, and more. Tasty Trade has everything you trade all in one platform. Get low commissions, including zero commission on stocks.

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So, um, I cut you off before, but you had kind of walked us through your journey up to about two thousand eleven. Yep. Where where were you at that point in time and and when did you start to Get into prop trading? So yeah, throughout 2011 was really like the last year I was working sort of part-time with two-years, I ended up

just sort of giving that away after I went and did some travelling over in the States and I came back and was like, Oh, I gotta gotta really focus more because I was never getting the traction that I wanted to. It was like, yeah, like moving along, but it wasn't like

It wasn't helping me take it to the next level. So it would have been like mid two thousand and twelve. I was in in the city one night and I was on George Street at the Maccas and um there was two guys in front of me and this is this is this is how I found out about prop trading and they had these jumpers on, these hoodies and um

There's like a little chart sort of thing on the back of them. And I'm like standing behind them in line. I'm like, What's this about here? Like I was like Googling it on my phone and I was like, Oh wow, these guys are traders. Like, what's this all about? And um That was really I was like, oh wow, these places exist. And I remember going home and I did a lot of research and stuff like that. But I was a bit hesitant to pull the trigger and go and actually like pursue it.

And it was interesting'cause I had a number of people who were like, Oh man, I want to get into trading and I was like, Go apply at these prop firms, man, they seem pretty good. But I didn't do it myself. So it was like took me till probably like late Took me a good like maybe four, six months until I actually So how come? Like what was holding you back? Um uh I kinda thought I knew it all. Okay. At the time, I think. I kinda thought

Oh, what could they do for me? But then I think I um I had a chat with some good friends and they were like, Man, maybe this is gonna be a good opportunity, you know, like Going as a trainee. see what they've got to offer. I mean, it can only build on what you know. And

you know, it was probably like when I first sort of applied and went through the online sim processes and all that. I can't even remember how I did, but I remember when I went for the actual interview. It was probably the most relaxed I went. Into an interview?

How come? Because you thought you knew it all? I did. I did. And then within the first period of starting it, I just realized how much I actually knew, which was nothing at all. Um so it was complete opposite. Like it kind of really humbled me a lot. when I found out later about the guys who I'd interviewed and like their background and a bit of their story, I was like, Ooh, gee. So what

What were some of the things that made you realise you didn't know as much as you thought you did? Like what were some of the realisations or the misconceptions you had uh going into, you know, starting at a prop firm, some of the things you realised which you thought were true in the past? you know, maybe weren't as true as you thought they were. I guess for me it was more

the the scalability side of trading. Um, like I've always like I've always believed you can you could scale it. And I think a lot of people think that it's just add another zero. And like to an extent it is.

But at the same time too, people don't realise that depending on the market you trade, there's like liquidity issues and There's things around this which can't just like sometimes you actually need to change the way you execute a trade, which then can impact how you manage and stop out of a trade and where you take profit.

Or from the liquidity side of things. Mm-hmm. Um, so like even in like the the spy, for example, I mean, you can't just trade it with like two hundred lots because, you know, day or night, like you're gonna get taken out over a couple of prices. Um, so that was really one of the things and I guess

A lot of it around the the b probably the biggest thing for me, and this is where a lot of the mental journey sort of started, was that I just sort of realized how important the mindset was to it. And I think my mindset was there was like confidence and self belief, but it was from more of a like an arrogance side of it rather than like I'm doing the work, I I've you know, seen some results and

you know, I'm gonna I guess push on and do it. So it was a a bit more um bit more maybe of an ego driven sort of a thing beforehand as to where it was when I started at the prop firm.

Yeah. What about the strategy side of it? Like you kinda said you were trading these like breakout momentum types of strategies. Uh I know obviously in the prop world they trade a whole lot of other strategies, I'm sure many which you at the time you had no idea even existed. when you started trading uh here, were you trading different sorts of strategies?

Like you didn't come in with trading the same way that you had done, you know, as a retail guy. I attempted it and it didn't go too great because obviously bonds move a lot slower than what I was used to. And I was it probably took me a couple of weeks Maybe even a month and a maybe about probably about six six to eight weeks, I think it was in the beginning of um me just still trying to do what I was doing. Like I I went through the training and I learnt all their stuff, but I was like, hmm

This like spreading stuff and these markets move slower. I was like, man, I wanna trade stuff that's moving, you know, stuff that's active. And it kinda got to a point where I probably I wasn't making money and I had a chat with the mentor at the time and he was sort of like, man, you gotta like up your game. And that was really when I was like, ugh, all right, let's let's give this spread trading stuff like a crack. And then

And um yeah, it kind of went from there. Like my results changed significantly because I just found that. It kind of clicked when I started to actually test it. I was like, Hold up, I actually see what's going on here. Like I see how this there's potential in this strategy. It was it was quite different than what I was used to. I mean, I was the trading breakouts and the next minute I'm like getting things that move not a lot and I'm trying to fade them.

So and you know, your risk reward on spread sort of trading Isn't it? what people would see as being great. You know, sometimes you're you're sort of risking ten ticks to make like one or two. It's a lot like the the insurance policy kind of a kind of a game. Yeah.

Um, I wanna go back to something you said a little earlier. Uh you spoke about, you know, I was putting in a bit of work earlier on. Like sometimes I'd sit down for like six hours and I'd be working on my trading. But now you kind of realize that those six hours that you were putting in work you weren't really spending um most it wasn't really an efficient use of time.

How would you say like what sort of things were you focused on then, which you probably should have been focusing on more? Like maybe you were focusing on the some of the wrong things? I don't I'm not sure. Yeah, so I was always focusing a lot on getting the best entries. Um and making sure that Yeah, the ent the entries was the main thing that I do remember. And I remember going back and back testing like all these entries and, you know, how whether they hit the targets that I had or not.

instead of kinda looking at the bigger picture of the trade. I think like for example now if I was to go back and do it, you know, I'd probably be putting a lot more emphasis, you know, what does that move actually do? Like

as a I guess the next few hours of the move as opposed to me getting in and out in like fifteen minutes. Um so I think my thinking was very micro in the scheme of things and I was focusing too much on things that to me I think were were well, at the time they were obviously very important, but I guess were a bit less important overall if that sort of Yeah, that makes sense. And what would you say?

How would you dis how would you say that you're testing? Like I I heard you say Excel before. Is that how you're doing most of your testing? Uh now or um yeah, let's talk about now. It's probably more relevant. Yeah how you how you actually testing your ideas'cause you

You don't do any coding or programming. No. No, I don't. It's something that's on the to do list next year. But um yeah, most of my stuff is done through through Excel. Uh I'm probably a bit old school in the way where a lot of my initial ideas come from me visually seeing the chart. and just watching the ladders in the market and You pick up nuances and characteristics and I've got some spreadsheets where I will note down like certain things I've seen or

patterns or things like that that happening in the market. And then that ends up being like, I guess, a um a foundation of what I look for when I'm looking to add new things to my strategy or change things and stuff like that. So generally then I'll I'll get those ideas and then I'll run back over the charts visually and look at it and see if I feel this anything any sort of substance to it, I guess. And then from there I will go and

collect the data and that's generally all done in Excel. Well you know, get all the trade data and manipulate it and do all like, you know, the Monte Carlo and all these sort of things and chop and change it around, forward testing, back testing, all that sort of sort of a thing on it to um to just see how viable it is. Okay. That's interesting to hear you say, and I think this is maybe something that uh someone listening to this should um sort of take note of, and what you said there is that

A lot of the ideas and things you're testing come from your actual observations in the market. I understood that correctly. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I think uh this might be a good point to get into talking about um sort of the hole you clawed yourself out of just recently. Um I I think this is this is gonna be like sort of the meat of this interview. Um, I I think it's it's gonna be very interesting to hear about do you wanna just kind of explain what happened? Um, like when did you

How long have you been trading for now? Big almost ten years, right? Yeah. How how long and prop? Five and a half in prop. Just over five and a half in prop. Okay. So recently you've you know, come out of bit of a fairly significant drawdown, fairly significant for you. Yep. Um, when did things start going wrong? Or did things start going wrong? Because obviously you can lose money without doing anything wrong per se. Um when did sort of

things start to turn south. So it was the August, September sort of a period. Um was the first sort of six figure drawdown that I've had. I've had other drawdowns which I've battled back from before, but this was a little bit

A little bit larger. Um and you just interesting thing was was a lot of it was driven by so I'm always trying to scale trades up and slowly push them up and things like that and I got to a point where All the trades were decently sized and It was a period of probably six weeks where every trade had like a drawdown together. So on paper it looked like a big amount. You're like, oh geez, you know, like what's going on here? But breaking them down, none of the strategies were really out there

Uh, what do I like to call it? I guess it's kind of like a critical point in a way. So like in the testing, you're like, okay, the average drawdown is, you know, three stops on a trade, and they were maybe down one to one and a half stops on a trade. But just the dollar value had increased probably quicker than what I um, I guess, had grew myself, maybe. This is the tricky part with scaling up, isn't it? Because you build your count up, you build it up, build it up on

Uh you know, trading smaller size than what you're about to trade when you scale up. So as soon as you start scaling up, it it sort of reverses those profits a lot quicker uh if you start going into a drawdown or if you start uh you know losing a few trades. you erode a lot of the profits that you've built up trading smaller size. So then as you s as soon as you start clipping up, um, you know Yeah. You naturally have that drawdown from

When you've just increased your size so much. Because obviously it's a it's a thing where after you've done good, you want to kind of reward yourself for the next time you do good. But you know, everything's in waves and like You're generally upping your size at the top of the wave. Yeah. So, um, I don't know if you're comfortable talking about actual numbers, but How long did it take you to get to sort of the lowest point of the the drawdown? Um, it was probably about Five weeks? Okay.

So you'd say you lost six figures in about f a five week period? Yeah, yeah, would have been, yeah. Yeah, definitely would have been. Yeah. Okay. And what did you do at that point? Like was there a point where you're like, I just need to get out of all these trades? Um not really. Um, in a way it was more so I generally would always trade from the office. And um it's something that I've done through the whole time I've been at Prop. But um for the first time in a while I was sort of like

Okay, I kind of I need a break but I need to trade still. And I was like, all right, I'm gonna go and trade from home and um I remember there was a couple of nights in here where I had a lot of trades on and everything was like going against me and I was like, Oh, geez, like this is This is pretty full on but like gotta keep my keep my composure and keep executing. But it would just be like it wasn't even like oo one or two just big down days. It was like slow bleeding consistently. So it like

Really can take its toll after a while. Um, but I guess for me, the thing really that kept me sort of going and made me not change it was that these particular strategies are always slower middle of the year. Um seems to be something around this daylight savings sort of a thing. It might be like some conspiracy theory or something.

Things do sort of change in these particular markets. I think when flow comes in and if flow comes in later on at night, because you find that some of these trades you just end up being trapped all night. And then there's no flows late in the US session to sort of bring things back into line. So what were you trading at at the time? Like what were you most focused on? Most of it was bond spreads.

Which is where most of the the um the drawdown came from. Okay. Were you trading um like currency futures as well at the time? I was, yeah. Yeah. They were I had a little bit of a drawdown in that period, but it was as a proportion percentage of the P and L that was drew down, it wasn't as much as what it was through the bonds.

So how did you deal with this like psychologically? Like you obviously were able to sort of pull out of it. How did you how did you maintain enough confidence? I mean, obviously, you know, you're in this situation, you ha you have no choice but to deal with it. But like where were you at like

Um mentally, like how are you how are you ho how is your confidence holding up? Man, it was like it's probably been the most difficult period I've had in trading mentally. Um I guess you always think of doubt creeping in, but it was more just like In my mind it was just like, How long do I have to just stick this out for?

And that took its toll just because, you know, you end up thinking like, you know, when you're sitting in these bad positions off side, you're like, Oh, jeeze, like, when am I ever gonna get paid again? And all this sort of a thing and To me, the main thing I guess that helped me push was that I I kind of ended up making up some spreadsheets about like my my uh equity sort of curve on what I've made through my time at the prop firm. And then that drawdown is then put into perspective.

And I was like, you know what, like this is the most I've been down, but I'm at the furthest point so far in my journey. So like Almost in a way like this is what should be happening. Like obviously it's not ideal. But you'd rather be on the progression to be making more, losing more than just like, you know,

making the same but losing more, making the same, but losing even more again. Yeah. It's like a part of your growth in some ways. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that was something that kind of help me stick through it. And then I just did a lot of um like the one thing I don't like to do is try to change the strategies in these sort of periods. But what I do like to do is go back and

Just r review them. Like I have a lot of screenshots of like good trades and a lot of the data from good trades and good periods and that helps just gives you reassurance that You're not broken, the strategy's not broken, this is just a drawdown. You know what I mean?'Cause there's a big difference between going through a period where your strategy is actually just completely fucked and you need to trade something else. And it just being a natural drawdown.

you're just at a um a point where maybe in your mind you think I don't want to be taking a drawdown or you've just increased all your size. So you're like, I want to get paid, but now it's not paying you. So it's more of a I guess a b internal battle and you've gotta separate the two, you know what I mean, because Yeah, it can it can really cloud your judgment. Like one thing I guess that I was just good at through the process was just coming in each day and like

We just gotta do it again. Like have a shit night. You leave the office. You're like, we'll just do it we'll just come back tomorrow and fight again. And that was kinda like, I guess, what got me through because taking those small incremental steps of even though it's just the next day, the next day. you know, if you feel you're at your lowest point, then how much lower can you go? You know, like in your head. Yeah. You said uh something interesting, uh which I'd like to pick up on, is that

You know, here you were sitting in these losing trades or these uh you know, these trades which weren't going so well. That's interesting because I'd like to ask you why didn't you cut those trades? Like, is it because you wanted to follow the rules of your strategy that you had laid out? Yeah. So basically a lot of my trades are aren't ever on at the same time. So a lot of the bonds trades, because some of them are fading things at different um

standard deviations away from the mean, some of them aren't all on. So in these particular days, the market had moved more. So I ended up having more trades on. So there was more risk on. The P and L swings were bigger and Yeah, then it's like you the way in which you execute those trades changes too. Because then you go from trading size which if you've got, you know, w one or two or three trades on in these markets, especially in the Aussie bonds.

you can get in and out pretty okay. But then when you have all of them on and it's getting late in the US session you can sometimes end up be taking out a price or a price and a half. Like you can pay a lot of slippage as well. Mm-hmm. So then that comes into your mind when it's getting later and you've got to make sure that that you know, you're almost afraid of the outcome, but at the same time, you kind of like want it to be over. So sometimes you can

you know, exit a bit prematurely because you're like, what if this doesn't do what you want it to do? But really at the end of the day, like I always just think like when I'm testing'em, like this this shit is not in the test. So like Yeah, your discretion, you bet. Yeah, yeah. With with some of these, yeah. And so when I'm thinking like that, I'm like, well, why is it here now? Like I need to like I need to get rid of that because if I start messing around with all these discretion of

you know, how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking at the time or whatever it may be, then everything that I've done in testing is useless. That's kinda how I see it. You know, like I'm just I'm changing everything. So like I put all this time in, what's the point?

Correct, yeah. Um, and what about the firm like that you're trading for? Were they ever uh you know, did they ever sit down and have a chat with you about how much money you were down or like they weren't too phased by it? They didn't want to put any pressure on you, like

I wouldn't say they like they weren't too fazed by it. I think I've had a drawdown, not as severe last year, but um and we had a chat after the drawdown last year about what worked well and um It was interesting because I was always like, when the drawdown happened the previous year, I was always like, oh, I wish they would like, you know.

talk to me more or something like that. And then I was like, you know what? It's it was better for me that I was sort of left to just do what I gotta do. And that's what was done this time. Um obviously you know there's people sort of monitoring what you're doing and stuff like that. But

For me, it's better to just sort of be in my own world and execute. And then there was a point I think Um, would have been just before it started to turn where we sat down and I like explained the breakdown and I actually remember them them saying like It's like, what are you worried about? Like it's like

you've lost like you run like so many different things, you're just drawing down on them all. Like it's not like you've been taking on too much risk and doing all this other stuff. So that was sort of gave me a bit of like Yeah, they're right. Like, even though you know that yourself, Sometimes I guess getting that

Reassurance from someone else. Yeah. Especially when you're in this partnership with a prop firm. You know what I mean? Like it's it's not just it's not just you at home on your own and like when you value the the opportunity And where it can take you, you know, you do want to do right by both sides. So it's good that they don't see the drawdown as you being reckless. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Like looking back on this, was there anything which you did, or sorry, maybe not looking back on it, in the in the moment uh as this was unfolding? Was there anything you did to kind of reduce the severity of the drawdown? Like did you start trading smaller? I mean, obviously that's sort of a fairly common thing that people talk about when they go into bad periods. Was that something you did or?

Was there anything you did or you just kinda kept pushing forward each day at a time? The interesting thing actually was that when I ended up going over and working and just Creating that, you know, reassuring myself that the strategies and stuff were right. I actually ended up noticing certain patterns in trades where some trades would be a lot more profitable than others and some trades carried more risk.

Because I still want to execute all the trades that I should be executing, what I would do then is I would just slightly alter the pin uh the um the sizing on some of the trades, ones that I feel fall into the category of containing more risk. So that was really the only thing that I did in that period.

Okay. So you did kinda uh decrease your size a little bit on trades you deemed to be more risky. Yeah, which was probably twenty five percent of the trades that I would take. I was it they would probably fell into that sort of a category. So how did you climb out of this hole? Like was there anything that changed or was it purely just a a matter of your strategies uh now performing better in the current market environment?

I think it's a combination of both. Um, interestingly enough, the big turn was the the week after the daylight savings shift at the beginning of October. I know that sounds conspiracy theory as anything, but that was seemed to be when um you know equity markets started flying around and there was a bit more movement in the bonds as well. So that was really the turning point for the PNL. And I think to um well, the end of the end of September wasn't Too bad either, but it was more um

There wasn't a lot of opportunity, but it was it was almost enough to build confidence, which was interesting. And that was when I started to trade from home. So I think that in itself had a lot of a an impact on it because interestingly enough, like when I'm in the office, I'm always under the impression like, okay, I'm here to work. Let's work.

But at home I was I was almost like afraid of trading from home because I was like, Oh, I'm afraid to be lazy. What if I miss trades? What if I'm, you know, cooking dinner or doing something stupid when I should be watching tr watching the markets. And um interestingly enough, training from home now, I'm probably even more disciplined and patient than I was in the office.

Because I think I've I've gotten to the point now where over the years, like, this is a business, this is how I make money, this is what I want to do long term. So you make sure nothing fucks with that. And I think at home too Just sort of like, I guess, having the ability to step back a bit, but still be on it. which can sound a bit counterintuitive in a way, but I find that that was probably one of the things that helped me execute the best. Because during the period where I like

really started to claw it back in October. A lot of the trades I was taking required me to use Like this is what we were talking about earlier in terms of like they were running further on the upside.

than what I'd ever taken profit on some of these trades before. So it got me out of my comfort zone too, because it was like all of a sudden, you know, you used to taking, say, let's just say for example, ten points on the trade and all of a sudden now you're taking thirty. Mm. And You gotta have the balls to hold that.

And it's quite fascinating because it would have been just as easy to come into that period and say, I need to, you know, take time off or I need to reduce size or anything like that. But then all these trades occur that are your strategy, have more profit potential and were more frequent, it was like a um it was like a real test of I guess how

sort of strong you are and how strong I guess you can stick to your plan. Mm. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean it sounds as though you did a really good job of sticking to your plan and following your strategies throughout this whole period. And You know, I really think that now that you've gone through this and you've come back from it, like that's um yeah, it says a lot about you as a trader and it's gonna help you, I think, a lot moving forward as well.

like knowing that if sometime this occurs again, you've been through it before, you can bounce back from it, like you've kind of um I can't think of a great analogy, but like it's You know, you've been through a downturn of this much.

You c you know you've done it before, you can bounce back from it. It's not it's not all over. True. I think it's it's quite interesting because I know back in the day when I first started at the prop firm, you hear about people having drawdowns, you're like, Oh wow, how can you battle back from that? But the battle is what makes you almost. Do you know what I mean? Like the amount of stuff now that I've learnt from going through that.

You know, just in terms of how in it like when it is your sole income, how you have to manage your own personal money for longer drawdown periods, you know, how you need to manage your own emotions. And one interesting thing was just like Sometimes you do need a change of environment. Like sometimes

Training from a different space or a different place for even a short amount of time can reset you a little bit, I feel. Yeah, just like a different environment. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think sometimes breaking the mould.

Yeah, yeah. Like the office for me, as good as it was, it was almost like over consuming me. Like I just felt like I was like You know, it's almost like you live and breathe it, and it's everything, and then it's not performing, and you can become in this spiral almost of like. almost negativity, I guess, in a way where it can be a challenge to get out of. And I think Going home and being a little bit more like I could put the trades on and like they're always on, I'm always still watching but

you know, I kind of spent a bit more time going through some Udemy courses and like reading some books and doing things like that. And that was really what helped me just focus on the process. You know what I mean? Like I I let it Just kinda like let it happen. I didn't check the P and L actually either through that whole period. I only really started to check it towards the end of the month'cause I was like

This month's gone all right. Like I think Yeah, you just knew. Yeah. I um but I did sabotage myself from hitting the hundred K unfortunately because I um I remember I had trades on on the last day of of the month and I reduced the size because I didn't want to take on too much risk. Right. And this was something I didn't do throughout the whole month.

And then um yeah, it turned out that it I should have just kept the trades on at normal size and when we say sabotage, you you came short of a hundred K month by like what? Five hundred bucks. Yeah. So We can round up. I think that's that's that's acceptable. No man, congrats. That's that's really awesome. I've just got one other note here on this particular subject. I mean, have you done anything to

You know, of course this is gonna happen again at some point in your trading career if you continue with this long enough, which I'm sure you have every intention of. Have you done anything kind of as a preventative measure of

Uh I d that's not even the right word because like we said, this is probably gonna happen again. Yeah. At some point. But Is there anything you would do differently if you went into a period like this or is there anything you've done which might reduce the severity of it or For me I guess it's more just I had a lot of sort of things outside the trading that I was like doing with money and all this and I was probably tying up too much money in things that I couldn't get quick access to.

Um, and that'cause I'm all I'm of the thinking where like no matter how much money you've got, unless you're sort of making some sort of income, it's gonna go to zero at some point. And like if that's the case, then you're you've always got to be a bit cautious on that. And that kind of like that probably messed with my head a little bit. So I think it's more I need to probably work on things that are

removing my need to make consistent income, if that's okay. If that's kind of like the right thing, which is strange because obviously you trade to make money, but um at the same time too, if you're relying on withdrawing every month you can become dependent, which then changes your decisions. So that's something I think probably the own

Like I mean, I manage my money reasonably well, but there's always ways I can do it better. I can always have a bigger contingency fund for for things and stuff like that. I probably got a little bit too emotional. Like hard not to though, right? Yeah, it didn't impact my journe my actual trading, but I think in terms of a impact it had on me and on my body and on Just maybe other people maybe around me. That kind of maybe is something that I Have to look to change for the future.

But yeah, that's probably the two Two sort of main things I think. The like with any with any sort of business, you know, the businesses stay in business. The longest of the ones who have cash flow or cash reserves. You know, why why are traders no different? You know, we need to make sure we can sit out a draw down. If you believe in yourself and you back yourself, you gotta make sure you're there for the next cycle.

regardless of how tough it is. Because we d we never know what time, you know, we could start a new strategy now and we don't know if we're starting in a drawdown. But can you survive six months? This could be the best strategy in six months' time, but can you survive? You know, and I think that's something that's Very, very important if you love it long term. You've got to be there every day. You have to put yourself in the position where nothing can

Externally can stop you from sort of like being there ready to to trade and put the trades on. Yeah. I mean that's like a that that's very relevant for me just this way. Um, there was a day during the week I was trading and I'd I'd barely traded during the morning and it was a very seemed like a very quiet day and not much was moving and I I had a few other things I needed to get done and I was like, you know, tossing up whether I should just throw it in for the day.

And anyway I had an awesome trade come I think I sort of got into it a bit after lunchtime and held through mostly till the pretty close to the close. And, you know, it was a brilliant trade and it was my actually my best trade of the week. Um, but had I not been there, had I, you know, given it up for the day, then I would have missed that. So absolutely you've got to be there'cause you never know when these opportunities are gonna There's just so many things. Something might hit the wires.

Yeah, exactly. So many things are always trying to pull for our attention. You know, half the half the battle is like being able to resist and be like, this is the set times or to have, I guess, build um What what would you call it? Sort of like build things around your trading where like if you're not there or if you have to do something for half an hour or an hour or something that

you can still take advantage of some form of opportunity, however that may be. But yeah. Now I know you speak with a few other traders who are, you know, a bit less experienced.

Um so maybe we can just speak about that a little bit. I've got a question here. Wha what skills are most important for new traders to develop in your opinion? Like someone who's very green to this, sort of starting out You know, in the past six months, twelve months. do you use most days that you think are most beneficial for any new trader to to learn? I think discipline is certainly a main thing. Um and I think that's generally built through

other things that people have done in the past, whether it be sport or whether it be just being quite disciplined in their diet or eating habits or something like that. Um, that's certainly the first one. I think Something that I think is interesting, but it can be m misinterpreted as perfection is um

Attention to detail. That's the word. So yeah. Attention to detail because people can look of that as being perfection. But attention to detail in your journaling, in your just searching for trade ideas. Um, that to me is very, very important because I think it's it's easy to find someone to teach you a strategy that will work today. But it's attention to detail of thoroughly understanding that strategy and learning about the market that's gonna help you adapt for tomorrow.

And that's something that I found has helped me a lot. And then I guess, you know, the There's the cliche ideas of, you know, people have just they've got to be focused and they've got to want it. You know, like everyone wants the money, but Do people actually want it? Will you put in the hard work to do it? You know, like is this something that is is just uh

shiny bossing joint for somebody or is this something they actually generally generally want to do? And I think that's something that a lot of people maybe get into trading for the wrong reasons. Um there's a good book actually out there called The Values Factor by John Di Martini. Not sure if you've read it. No, no, no. Really good in terms of breaking down what you actually want. And when you know what you want, then it's it's easy to do it with Like one hundred percent of yourself.

And I think that is is very, very important. Okay. So it's a book you'd obviously recommend. Yeah, definitely. Who's it by? Uh John D. Martini. Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. Might have to might have to check that out. Yeah, check it out. Check it out. I need to get back into the habit of reading. I used to be like read every day. Like just for a little bit in the morning, like, you know, twenty minutes or something, and I just I don't know. I've got in Yeah, the audible like I for me I always

Always get everything on audible and then if it's good enough, I'll be like, all right, I better buy the book. Like um there's actually another one I'm listening to at the moment called the Chimp Paradox.

Have you heard of that one before? I feel like I've heard the title. I that's like a title. I can't actually remember who it's by, but it's it's a quite an interesting book. Another one sort of on the mindset side of things, which I guess I guess a trader for somebody who's who's new, they have to want to um become very interested, I guess, in this self development journey because sometimes the soft develop the journey of soft development is gonna outweigh the P and L journey.

Like so there's gonna be a period where you lose money but you've grown so much and you need to be able to recognise that that's the P and L, not necessarily the dollar P and L. Yeah. Having another way to measure your sort of uh progress besides P and L. As you were talking there, you kind of reminded me of something I wanted to ask you about. And that was um how you actually kind of review your trading.

Uh,'cause I I think that's something you put quite a bit of time and energy into. Yeah. So how do you actually go about reviewing your trades and Throughout the week I'm generally recording all my trades. I generally screenshot beginning of day, end of day on the markets that I'm doing or entries and exits with like the currency trades and all that sort of a thing. And come the end of the week I will generally go through all my more systematic trades and I do like a tested versus actual.

So what I've actually executed and the results that I've got compare to what I've tested. And I have certain percentages of Well I've tested that uh Like, you know, I generally work it out to if my strategy pays ten points or whatever it may be, I generally work around the ratio of about eighty percent. If I'm achieving eighty percent of that, I know that that's profitable because I've worked that out in the testing as well.

Analysis two, so that's done each week. At the end of each month too, I have an overall monthly review. Where I'll also look back on previous years, similar months. This is probably more applicable to bonds. Um and I've done this for a while now because there's You sometimes find changes in markets in the months, different periods. Like seasonality. Yeah. Yeah. Things move. There's

more tendency for reversions at certain times. There's more tendencies for flows. And by looking back over the previous months or previous years, you're just bringing anything that might be

important to your attention. You know, maybe eleven o'clock is not a good time to be stepping into the market because, you know, it's showing that there's generally flows. Or maybe you might step in but step in with half size. So things like that can not not fully change a lot of what you do, I guess, but can kind of add that extra edge, that extra element that

you know, other people might not be looking at. Yeah. It it gives you just some something extra to be thinking about. Yeah, definitely. Before you put this trade on, yeah, there's a couple other things running through your mind that you want to give some consideration to. Yeah, absolutely. And then there's um with a lot of it too, and I've started to do this more in the FX side of things, more so than the bonds, a lot of around just

analyzing where it is, but then looking at the types of trades I might get that week. So I'm all about sort of wanting to be prepared. And I think um by doing a lot of work on the weekends

that will help me so much easier during the week, be able to manage multiple strategies and things like that. Like you really just know what you gotta look for. Um, that to me are the they're the sort of key things, you know. And then as well, like when you're When you're recording all your data and you're doing these weekly reviews and then you're doing your monthly reviews. When market conditions and things do change

you will see it through the data. With like you probably will see it yourself first, but you'll see it starting to change through the data. And that way you kind of have your pulse on the market a bit more so that you can alter or change or it might even just be just the awareness of it.

For, you know, further down the track. Because it's not always a case of like something changes and you change it. But maybe something changes and you just wait another month to like almost like the confirmation of the change before you actually change things. For example, I've had to do that with stops on trades. You know, I've noticed trades are getting triggered out at certain levels.

And I think, okay, this is something that has happened a bit too frequently now. Maybe I need to alter things. So then, you know, I've monitored that for the next month. And then try to build a bit of a case around why this is happening. Is this something that's going to continue into the future? And if it is, then I'll adapt my strategy to it. So it kinda helps you just be on it more, which I think is just so important'cause you think of like

The amount of people and people that have people working with them. Like you're against these people. Like if you're not doing smart work, because as an individual we can only do we can't do everything. But we can do smart work and that I think is probably the most important thing with the whole

journaling and weekly reviews and monthly reviews side of things. No, it's really cool to get a bit a bit of insight into how you you do all that'cause I know it's something that you do take very seriously. Yeah, I I probably love that side of trading the most. The sort of like the analysis of results and the data. And I think that's why I do so much of it, because I'm always so fascinated by the outcomes of it.

Um is there anything else you want to chat about? I think we should chat about your podcast, actually. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I mean you're not one dimensional, you do other things outside of trading. Yep. How long have you been doing your podcast for now? When did you start that? Um well the ID sort of started probably about a year ago. Right. Um didn't really get going for about six months. But it's um It's very similar to this, but in the motorsport space.

And um it's called Minds of Motorsport and basically It's cool because I go to a lot of VH supercar and motorsport races as a fan and I find there's a lot of similarities to motorsport to trading. So that was kind of where the the motivation and the drive for it came from. Um and I really love the mindset side of things. So being able to sit down and chat with people who are like professionals on top in their game in motorsport, which I'm interested in.

Talk about mindset like that to me was like, okay, this is pretty this is a cool idea. This is something cool to do. Yeah. It's funny how you said it took you like six months to get started. I think I was worse. I think I had the idea for chat with traders about a year at least before I Finally got around to you know, doing my first interview and my first podcast. It it took me a while.

And then as soon as I started it, I was like, Man, I should have started this when I first had the idea. What was I waiting for? I presume it would be the same. Yeah, like when you do when you do sort of start, I guess there's a lot of um You're a bit hesitant. Cause I think it's like for me it was like I was a bit, I guess, um What was it?

You c I'm not worried about people's opinions or what they think, maybe the guests or like how to approach people to get them on to make it not sound sketchy or something like that. Especially when you don't have anything to show them, like when you're just starting out and you don't have a back catalogue or body of work, et cetera. Yeah. You sort of just gotta try and win their trust without any of

Any of that. Yeah. Mm. But it was um that was interesting because going to some of the races, obviously I'd gotten to know some people around the paddock and it made it a little bit easier because I was able just to hit up a lot of people that I'd already known somewhat.

And then it's it's cool because then you get to have a conversation where with these people who generally like at a race weekend and things like that, it can be quite hard to have a chat about this particular stuff because it's kinda like in their They're at work. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well in this it's like a neutral environment. So sort of like it's like both people are equal. And then you're talking about a mutually equal sort of subject. So

It's cool. I've been able to gain a lot out of it. Just it's interesting hearing how people in other industries, especially professional athletes, deal with the same and similar setbacks to what we have in trading. Because When you think about it, there's not a lot of sports out there who have the amount of third party influences. like what we can have in trading. So like You know, you look at like rugby, like the ground, yeah, it can have an impact, but there's no real other

Third party influences. Like obviously in racing there's the competitor, which is the same as like the competitor in the normal sport, but then you got like mechanical failures. And like things breaking on the car. Like you could have the best car and you could be the quickest and you could still lose.

You know, like in trading you could be the most prepared, have the best trading plan and still lose. Man, this this reminds me of something I had a when I had the conversation with Jack Ma. He said All in trading, all it takes in in some situations is just for one big player with a lot of volume to do to destroy your entire trading plan, your entire trade idea and your entire like thesis for the actual trade.

So yeah, he's like uh he was talking about risk management at the time, but um I was like that's so true. Yeah, it is. It's it's exactly like that, especially in bonds where like someone can just come in and be like, you know, a central bank and we've There's been times actually when I've when I've seen that happen and been on the wrong side of it. And um that was back in the day, I guess, where in these

particular spread trades where you just keep averaging until you stopped out, you know. Wh where um yeah, th it wouldn't always be fun. But yeah, if a central bank wants to sell today, like and you don't pick up that they're selling You can get very, very ran over and then it's a case of how much you're gonna lose. Like how quick can you

Hit your stop and get out when you need to. Yeah. So have you ever thought about getting into motorsport yourself? Like how come you wound up in trading and not in in motorsport? Obviously it's been a a passion of yours for some time. Yeah, like I've always I've always been interested in motorsport, like As a kid, like I would go with my dad to the races back at like Owen Park and stuff like that. And um I think that's a good thing.

probably f I don't know I probably used to doubt myself physically to be able to play a lot of professional sport and do things like that and it never really interested me to actually do it. Like I've I've always wanted to do something to like to make money. But now I think I would like I'm I'm even still tossing up these days of whether I'd want to get involved as a driving or whether I'd want to sort of like go down the path of like the goal long term would be to have a my own racing team.

And whether I'd rather go in that sort of side of it. Because I think like for me it's like, yeah, I get to enjoy the the driving side myself, but I kind of feel I would have more to give and share by working with people, especially like on the mindset side of things and really helping develop somebody. I think that's probably where my passion would lie in it down the line. Yeah. Well I mean a podcast is certainly a a good

you know, lead way into that. Yeah, absolutely. That's the cool thing about a podcast is it can lead to so many different things. Like there's you know, you're sort of creating this platform and there's a lot of different directions you can take it or things you can different ways you can go. Yeah, the the connections and the way the ch the people that you meet

is like it's very hard to to do that in other ways. Yeah. You know. It's such a non um non aggressive confronting sort of a way to have a chat with people who you admire or you know want to learn from and yeah it's a good way it's it's a good two way street for them to use as like To get their name out there. So like

That's what I found with a lot of drivers. Like People want to go on because they want to share their story, which helps people try and understand them at a deeper level, which, you know, if you've got the right person listening to who's got money, there's a sponsor. Yeah. And all of a sudden you are going racing next year. So yeah, that's where it can be um can be kind of cool. Yeah.

Um, cool. All right, man. Well I appreciate you doing this. Um and we should try and do it again sometime. No, I was. That's good. Good fun. Yeah. Cool man. Appreciate it. We'll call it a wrap. Thanks, mate. Have a good one. You've reached the end of this episode of Chat with Traders, but rest assured there are more episodes. I'd love it if you'd leave a Chat with Trader.