Rick Lane is the current CEO of Trading Technologies—a software provider that develop high-performance trading platforms which are used by; proprietary traders, hedge funds, CTAs, brokers and banks etc. The reason why I asked Rick to appear on this episode is because, as we know, not everyone is cut out to be a trader. And that’s fine! I’d like to highlight, there are many other roles in the world of trading where you can have a great impact by leveraging skills which you may have already attain...
Nov 17, 2017•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 151
Following on from Episode 149, here’s part two of the interview with Aaron Brown. To refresh your memory, Aaron is highly regarded as an authority on the subject of risk taking. For the past 30-years he’s worked as a dedicated risk manager, and for the past decade, Aaron was the risk manager for renown quant fund, AQR. Coming up on this episode, you’ll gain deeper insight to how you can better understand and manage risk for yourself—we go over: Questions traders should be asking themselves, how ...
Nov 09, 2017•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 150
Aaron Brown is highly regarded as an authority on the subject of risk management. Although he originally started out as a poker player and sports bettor (then a trader and portfolio manager), for the past 30-years Aaron’s been a dedicated risk manager. And for the past 10-years, he was the risk manager for quant fund, AQR. Aaron has also authored several books (ranging in topics from poker to finance and risk), contributes to Bloomberg View and writes a column for Wilmott Magazine. On this episo...
Nov 02, 2017•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 149
John Grady is an independent futures trader from Florida, who primarily trades Treasury bonds. His trading is purely discretionary, based upon his read of order flow. Essentially, he’s a scalper. Throughout this episode we talk all things order flow; the basics, the value of an order book, some of John’s trading methods, order types and managing positions, how to build skill at reading order flow, as well as, the impact of HFT and what’s commonly known as spoofing. Learn more about your ad choic...
Oct 26, 2017•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 148
Dr Thomas Starke is a Physics PhD who once designed microchips, worked as an engineer for Rolls Royce and lectured at University of Oxford, before applying his know-how of modelling to financial markets… As a trader, Thomas has contracted to various funds and up until recently, he was a Quantitative Developer at a well-regarded Sydney prop trading firm. Thomas was great to chat with—not only did we talk about things related to quant trading, strategy development and robustness, but also his infa...
Oct 19, 2017•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 147
On this episode, I’m joined by three traders from a data-driven, options trading, performance based fund, Blackpier Capital… Ryan Moffett, the Lead Investment Manager—and a prior guest on Episode 83. Tyler Michalove, who plays a key role in trade execution. And Wayne Klump, who heads up research and strategy development. We discuss mentoring, the benefits of working in a team, the upside to trading options, the unique edges which can be gained from the multiple dimensions inherent to options, an...
Oct 11, 2017•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 146
Here’s the first episode in the history of Chat With Traders podcast, where I don’t have a guest with me. That’s because, this episode is the recording of a talk I gave at Noosapalooza 2017—a trading conference hosted by Nick Radge, here in Australia. Throughout the talk I pull upon many lessons and snippets of wisdom which have been learned through conversations here on this podcast. So, I’ve appropriately titled the talk; Six Ways to Emulate Talented Traders… -- Sponsored by Scoop Markets: Use...
Oct 05, 2017•46 min•Ep. 145
Since 2013, Tim Steenstrup has been a cross-border arbitrage trader at Conventus Capital. Though markets have been a part of his life going back to 1994; Tim’s been part of a brokerage firm in Japan, a hedge fund—which was featured in The Big Short movie, and a prominent New York trading firm. As you’ll soon hear, we skim through Tim’s backstory and then spend a large part of this episode going into the mechanics of how a cross-border arbitrage strategy works. Tim does highlight, this strategy m...
Sep 29, 2017•53 min•Ep. 144
You’re about to hear a first-hand account from someone who’s been on a wild ride through the U.S. justice system. My guest is Michael Kimelman; a former prop trader and hedge fund manager who was convicted (and served time) for insider trading… You’ll hear about the series of events leading up to his arrest, details about the trial, revelations of a rogue judge and the dim reality of life while incarcerated. If you get through this episode and you’re curious to know more, then you might be pleas...
Sep 21, 2017•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 143
It was exactly 100-episodes ago when I first had Bert Mouler on the podcast. This week, I’m joined by him again for a second interview… Bert is an algorithmic trader with a serious focus on machine learning. His trading decisions are driven purely by data, and he goes to great lengths to remove human bias and flaws through the use of automation. So, coming up over the next 60-minutes or so, you'll hear about: Bert's increasing efforts to automate as many decisions as possible The attraction of m...
Sep 14, 2017•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 142
Featuring on this episode is former software entrepreneur turned hedge fund manager, Erik Townsend. I’m sure some will already be quite familiar with Erik—in particular the macro investing crowd, as Erik also hosts the Macro Voices podcast. After selling his company in 1998, Erik made a few lifestyle and investing decisions which he soon began to question, but took ownership of his situation and the discovery of global macro set him sailing in a new direction… Major talking points we cross off, ...
Sep 06, 2017•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 141
My guest on this episode is Jimmy Soni—who, with his co-author Rob Goodman, recently wrote the biography of Claude Shannon, titled; A Mind at Play. Shannon was born in 1916 and became one of the foremost intellects of the twentieth century, before passing away in 2001. He was a mathematician, a scientist, an inventor and also, a stock market investor… Although he’s widely unknown by the general public, Shannon is responsible for Information Theory—a revolutionary method of measuring information ...
Aug 31, 2017•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 140
Bobby Cho is a cryptocurrency trader at Cumberland Mining—which is a company of DRW Trading. Ever since getting involved in financial markets, during 2008, he has gravitated towards mostly illiquid/difficult-to-trade products… So, in some ways, it was inevitable that Bobby would begin to explore Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This was around 2013, while Vice President at SecondMarket. In 2014, Bobby became Director at Bitcoin exchange, itBit, and then in 2016, joined Cumberland Mining—one o...
Aug 24, 2017•43 min•Ep. 139
During the 90’s, Kevin Muir was a proprietary derivatives trader for RBC Dominion Securities. In 2000, Kevin branched out to begin trading independently, and since 2014, he’s been writing a daily blog, The Macro Tourist. Kevin’s unique in the sense that he fits the bill of two largely different trading types; an intraday trader and a global macro trader. He also doesn’t specialize in one particular thing, or certainly not to the extent that many traders do… Kevin can be quoted as saying, “I neve...
Aug 17, 2017•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 138
Dr. William Ziemba’s an academic, a practitioner, gambler, trader and an author. He’s worked with and consulted to many well-respected names in the field, such as; Edward Thorp, Blair Hull and the very successful horse bettor, Bill Benter. In the beginning, horse betting was William’s field of expertise (he even published a book titled, Beat The Racetrack!) And in many ways, for William, horse betting worked as a gateway to trading financial markets—which he’s been doing since 1983. Now in curre...
Aug 10, 2017•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 137
I first interviewed Mike at CWTNYC, in May 2017. The 100-listeners (give or take) who attended, will already be very familiar with Mike and there may be a few moments of déjà vu throughout this episode. But for everyone else… Mike came into trading around 20-years ago, beginning at Chicago prop firm, TransMarket Group, where he ultimately spent 12-years of his career. Over the course of his time there, Mike became one of their largest 30-year Treasury basis traders, both in terms of volume and p...
Aug 03, 2017•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 136
Sheelah Kolhatkar is a writer at the The New Yorker, who was previously a journalist at Bloomberg Businessweek, and prior to that, a hedge fund analyst. She’s also the author of New York Times bestseller, Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street. Of course, the most wanted man being referred to, is the ultra-wealthy hedge fund legend, Steven Cohen of S.A.C. Capital Advisors—someone who Sheelah has become very familiar with, throug...
Jul 27, 2017•45 min•Ep. 135
On this episode, I have a returning guest—who first appeared on episode 53. His name is a mystery, but he goes by the handle: @BTCVIX Episode 53 was the first time I covered Bitcoin on this podcast, and that was at the very end of 2015. As you’re probably aware, the cryptocurrency markets have evolved a lot since then, so BTCVIX is here to fill us in on what’s been happening and, potentially, what lies ahead… We also cover how to acquire various cryptocurrencies, best practises for protecting yo...
Jul 20, 2017•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 134
Up until recently, James King was the Performance Director at a commodity trading firm in London, Mandara Capital. And it was here that he implemented scientific methods to stack probability in the favour of success—by using techniques he learned from his education in Applied Sports Science and Performance Psychology. Now, James is setting out on a new venture, Project Thor, which aims to support talented retail traders with extra capital and other beneficial resources—which we discuss briefly t...
Jul 13, 2017•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 133
Mark Gardner began working in the field at 17-years old, straight out of high school. Initially he began with back office duties, before broking on the floor of the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE). Then later he was picked up by a large Bank Bills trader to exclusively execute trades, and who he learned a great deal from. Around 2005, Mark started trading his own book. Over the 10-years that followed, Mark had only two losing months—and to date, he’s never encountered a losing year. Though in 2015...
Jul 06, 2017•57 min•Ep. 132
Morgan’s career as a trader and portfolio manager began 20-years back, and since then he’s worked at many prominent firms and funds—to name just a few; Millburn Ridgefield, Merrill Lynch, Citadel and Allston Trading. He’s currently the CEO of CloudQuant, a cloud-based algo development platform and fund. During our conversation, Morgan explains why he feels as though the ‘common’ approach to strategy development can be counter intuitive, and he gives an alternative 3-step formula. We also spend t...
Jun 29, 2017•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 131
Ben Mallah is a trader of a different kind—he doesn’t trade stocks and bonds, he trades in real estate. You could probably call him a property developer, although he doesn’t build from scratch; he buys distressed apartment buildings, hotels and shopping centers, fixes them up, and then sells to make a profit. He grew up in one of the roughest areas of New York and had a very tough upbringing, but Ben is the true definition of a ‘rags to riches’ story… During his early 20’s, as a side hustle whil...
Jun 22, 2017•53 min•Ep. 130
Victor Haghani began his career at Salomon Brothers in 1984, starting out in a research role before joining their prop trading desk. In 1992, Victor left Salomon to become one of the founding partners of Long Term Capital Management… LTCM was an incredibly successful hedge fund, up until 1998, when it failed in a spectacular fashion. Causing the Federal Reserve to step in and organize a bailout, in order to prevent the possibility of a collapse in the global financial system. Victor took a ten y...
Jun 15, 2017•44 min•Ep. 129
Andy has been an active stock trader since the early 90’s, and in 2001 he founded Kershner Trading Group—a proprietary trading and technology firm in Austin (Texas) and, through a partnership with SMB Capital, Kershner Trading have a second office in Midtown (Manhattan) too. So, what did we talk about? Andy's ability to take pain on adverse positions, whether or not this has been a key ingredient to his trading success, and do traders with higher risk tolerances make more money. Andy also shares...
Jun 08, 2017•51 min•Ep. 128
Though not a trader herself, Nell Sloane has been in and around markets and exchanges for roughly 30-years, mostly working in roles that assisted commodity traders and brokers in one way or another. Then since 2006, Nell has been the Principal of Capital Trading Group—a Chicago investment firm, which she co-founded with Patrick Lafferty. And this is the reason why I asked Nell to come on the podcast; because the role of CTG is to support traders who wish to expand their operation by managing mon...
Jun 02, 2017•1 hr•Ep. 127
Matthew Hoyle was once a trader, or more specifically, an options market maker. And he started at a very young age, on the exchange floor in Amsterdam. But since 2003, he’s been in the headhunting (or recruiting) business. His firm, Matthew Hoyle Financial Markets. Essentially, Matthew finds the best candidates for hard to fill roles. He’s contracted by banks, hedge funds and all sorts of trading firms—for example; Tibra, Optiver, Tower Research, Citadel, Millennium Partners, amongst many others...
May 18, 2017•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 125
Max got into trading about six years ago, after a co-worker pulled up in a brand new Lotus Elise—paid for with gains from trading BP stock. Working as an engineer at the time, with average pay, it wasn’t long before Max opened his first trading account and got to work… Having now developed a unique style of his own, which he describes as a scalping method—focusing on NASDAQ listed stocks, Max has become very consistent and profitable. (If you’re interested, max regularly posts PnL on his Twitter...
May 11, 2017•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 124
Darren Reed (@LiftTheOffer) has been a stock broker, the head trader at a $300M hedge fund, and an active prop trader at Australian firms, Propex, Aliom and Gensis. At the later two, he also mentored traders as part of his role in trader development. But this year (2017), Darren has returned to Perth—on the west coast of Australia, to establish a new proprietary trading firm with a few partners; Cygnet Trading. The main focus of this episode can be summarized with just a few words; grit, hustle ...
May 04, 2017•1 hr 48 min•Ep. 123
Doug Cifu is the co-founder and CEO of Virtu Financial, one of the largest electronic market making firms in the world. Around the clock, Virtu are trading in 12,000 instruments, across 235 markets and 36 countries, with only 140 staff. Virtu often trade more than 4.5 million times a day, and prior to their IPO in 2015, Virtu reported the firm had made a profit 1,277 out of 1,278 days—losing money just one day between 2009 and 2014. And in recent news, Virtu made headlines 20th April (2017), aft...
Apr 27, 2017•40 min•Ep. 122
Michael Mauboussin is a Managing Director and Head of Global Financial Strategies at Credit Suisse. He’s also a professor of finance at Columbia Business School, and the author of several books, such as; The Success Equation and More Than You Know. Michael is widely-recognized as a thought leader on the subject of decision making, as well as thinking about things in the way of process over outcome, and skill vs luck. And it’s these three things which are the over-arching theme of this episode. S...
Apr 20, 2017•58 min•Ep. 121
