Better System Trader

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,...

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,...

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 m...

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 psych...

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...

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 t...

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...

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 importan...

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, Wh...

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 timefr...

On this BST live show, Ivan from Ivanhoff Capital joins us to discuss "Short-term swing trading techniques". Here are some of the topics you'll discover in this episode: The 2 most important factors in swing trading, Why short-term trading is better than longer-term trading, Measuring market environment and detecting changes, How to find the hot sectors in the market, Shorting stocks and adapting...

On this BST live show, Rob Carver from systematicmoney.org joins us to discuss "3 ways traders kill trading strategies". Here are just some of the topics you'll discover in this episode: What can go wrong with strategies in live trading, The impact of model complexity on prediction error, (and are simple models really better than more complicated ones - the answer may surprise you!), The dangers o...

On this episode of BST Live, Doc Ahrens from Trendline Dynamics joins us to discuss "Effective techniques to identify trends", including: The Macro-trend Analyzer indicator and 3 ways to use moving averages for macro trend analysis, Why it's important to have simple trading solutions and what failures in aerospace can teach us about trading strategies,  Studies that conclude technical indicators d...

So, the verdict is in… Afrotechmods says: "I think this is the most informative guest you have ever had! Thank you both." What am I talking about? On this episode of BST Live, Stefan Friedrichowski from JFD Bank joined us to discuss "how to build Mean Reversion trading strategies", and it was an absolute cracker! Even if you're not a mean reversion trader, you have to see this one.  Here's a small...

Ever wondered how to turn $10k into $100k (or more) in just 2 years (or less)? Many traders have, especially early in their careers… But how do professional traders achieve superior returns while also protecting capital.  On this week's episode of BST Live, Laurent Bernut from Alpha Secure Capital joined us to discuss "Superior returns from superior risk management", and a new approach to risk man...

With 2020 coming to a close, we've got a great opportunity to stop for a breather (phew!), look at some of the craziness that has happened this year, and identify how we can use those insights to improve our trading even more in the future. On this episode of BST Live Mike Grech from Quantopolis.com joins us to discuss 2020 and how we can better deal with market uncertainty. Here are just some of...

"Randomness has the greatest negative impact on single entry trading strategies." – Brian Miller (Optimized Trading). In this new episode of BST Live, Brian Miller from Optimized Trading joins us to discuss "3 under-utilized techniques to build dramatically better trading strategies".  Brian shared some unique ideas for building (and improving) trading strategies. Here are just some of the tips yo...

"There are literally hundreds of statistically valid patterns in every market." – Scott Andrews (Investiquant). So, where are they hiding out, how can we find them and how can we determine the patterns are actually valid and not just random noise in the market? In this new episode of BST Live, Scott Andrews from Investiquant joins us to discuss how to find statistical edges to improve your trading...

Is the trend REALLY your friend? And if so, why do so many trend traders fail? Global futures trader Brent Penfold joins us to discuss trend trading tactics, including: • Why trend trading is so difficult for traders, • Why traders should be careful using indicators, • How to overcome challenging periods in trend trading, • The surprising robustness of really old strategies, • Why bright people st...

Quant Trader Alan Clement from Helix Trader discusses momentum trading & strategies, including: Why momentum trading is so popular and how it works, What makes a good trend indicator and the 4 best indicators to identify trends,  Why the moving average is not a good trend indicator, How to rank stocks by momentum and how many momentum stocks to hold in a portfolio, The danger of stops and using mo...

With the US elections just days away, traders are thinking about how the markets may react to whatever news the elections may bring. Will we see a big selloff, wild swings in price, and huge spikes in volatility? Or do the markets typically deliver something else around election time? In this episode of BST Live, Perry Kaufman from Kaufman Signals joins us to discuss how to survive market selloffs...

Ever had a strategy that looked like it was broken and wondered if you should stop trading it or not? Strategy failure (or periods of poor performance) are just a part of trading, but how you deal with it can have a HA-YUGE impact on your overall results… so how do you detect when a strategy is failing? How do you work out if you should stop trading it or just give it some more time? In this episo...

Are our roles as traders coming to an end soon? Is AI and ML (that's Machine Learning, not Money Laundering or Meat Loaf…) going to take over the trading world? Trading veteran Bob Pardo from Pardo Capital joins us to discuss these topics plus much more, including: How AI is missing common inputs used by human traders, Modeling the expertise of human traders using Expert Systems, The dangers of us...

DSP and Cycles expert John Ehlers, joins us to discuss all things optimization, including: Why optimization is a statistical process and how to assess the results properly (including what to look for at "the 50% line"), How much data you should REALLY use for reoptimization and why many traders use way too much data (and the impact it has on trading strategies), The 3 best fitness functions to use...

High-performance trading coach Steve Ward from TradeAtYourBest.com discusses: How to find the best opportunities during challenging times, Why shifting perspective is such a critical skill for high-performance, How to overcome internal resistance to become more adaptable, "Learning vs Earning" and how to improve your chances of longevity in trading, How to integrate being flexible with the "follow...