Better System Trader

The discovery of DNA as well as the understanding of its function and structure may be one of the most important discoveries of the last century. As researchers continue to unlock its secrets, the applications to the scientific, medical, agricultural and forensics fields has been enormous. From enabling the breeding of animals and crops that are better resistant to disease, to being able to accura...

The idea for this podcast episode has its roots in a trip I made to the States last year. I was at a conference and one of the speakers was 1993 Karate World Champion Ricardo Teixeira. Ricardo was explaining how he came about becoming World Karate Champion and he shared his #1 secret to achieving this success, any ideas what it was? It was something that sounds incredibly boring, but it produces b...

We have a really interesting one here for you today, one that may challenge your existing thoughts on trading models. I know this episode has certainly made me think about it from a different angle, so I hope you enjoy this. Our guest for this episode is Kevin Saunders from Tribelet Capital. Kevin is a specialist in electronic trading across many international exchanges, co-founding Non Correlated...

In this podcast episode we're going to be talking about something that can have a huge impact on the markets and on trading strategies. It's something that can happen very quickly and cause a lot of damage, and that is spikes in volatility. And our special guest to discuss volatility spikes today is Andrew Thrasher, who published a research paper called 'Forecasting a Volatility Tsunami', which wo...

Welcome to the first podcast episode for 2018, happy new year! I hope that you had a great Christmas or holiday season and all the best for 2018. In this podcast episode we're talking about the impacts that large institutions can have on the markets, especially on stocks, and how certain institutional behaviours can indicate potentially big moves in prices. Our special guest is Jason Bodner from M...

Well here we are, another year gone (and so fast too!). I'm glad you could join me for this final episode for 2017, where we'll be reviewing all of the special guests we had on the show this year, the topics and insights they've shared plus their top trading lessons. I think this is a great way to look back, to be reminded of some of the key points, and all of the amazing knowledge our guests have...

Our guest for this podcast episode, Dimitri Speck, first became interested in the markets as a child when he found gold while diving at the beach. And even though trading isn't usually as easy as just picking up gold off the ground, Dimitri has spent years diving deep into the markets and uncovering hidden and consistent anomalies that traders and investors of all styles can profit from. In this e...

A few weeks ago we organised a family holiday for December. We booked a luxury villa in Port Douglas and we're all really excited to get there and start enjoying the holiday. Last year the Huffington Post published an article about vacations, and shared a study in a journal claiming that just planning or anticipating your trip can make you happier than actually taking it. I'm not sure if anticipat...

I can't believe it's only 4 weeks until Christmas! We've got the Christmas ads running on the TV here already... The local grocery store has the Christmas decorations up... And they're even playing Christmas carols - can you believe that? At home my 5-year-old daughter is already priming me for what she wants from Santa this year, which by the way is pretty much everything on TV right now! 2017 ha...

The Petronas towers in Malaysia are the tallest twin towers in the world at 452m (1483 ft) tall. Because of the ground underneath the building site, they had to put in some deep foundations, up to 114m (374 ft) deep. Without these deep foundations, the building would run into problems. In fact, during construction, at around the 72 nd floor, they discovered that tower 2 was leaning 25 mm (0.98in)...

And we're back for the final episode in this 3-part series on building Mean Reversion strategies with Cesar Alvarez from Alvarez Quant Trading. In the 1st episode we discussed the goal of Mean Reversion trading, how to select a trading universe, a number of effective techniques to measuring Mean Reversion and how to combine indicators to identify better quality trades. In the 2nd episode we discus...

A few weeks ago I got the fright of my life. I found myself in a situation where I could potentially be crushed by a car, or perhaps even a bus or truck. Find out what happens and how it applies to tracking the performance degradation of trading strategies (before they kill your account).   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for eve...

I've just arrived back home from a few weeks in the States, I had a great time there but it's also good to be home. I'm a bit jet-lagged today so let's hope what I share today actually makes sense! A few weeks ago I had the honour of speaking at the ATAA members meeting here in Melbourne. I presented for about an hour and the topic of my presentation was '7 practical tips to reducing drawdown'. In...

And we're back for the 2nd episode in this 3-part series on building Mean Reversion strategies with Cesar Alvarez from Alvarez Quant Trading. In the first episode we discussed the goal of Mean Reversion trading, how to select a trading universe, a number of effective techniques to measuring Mean Reversion and how to combine indicators to identify better quality trades. If you haven't listened to t...

Have you ever wondered: Why the word "abbreviate" is so long? Why are wise men and wise guys opposites? Why is it called quicksand if it takes you down slowly? Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?" Why is it that when we transport something by car it's called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship it's called cargo? I'm sure there are reasons for all of these, but on t...

As you probably know, we're currently focusing on Mean Reversion trading strategies. In episode 127, Cesar Alvarez shared a number of techniques to measuring Mean Reversion and identifying setups. There was probably close to 10, maybe 12 different ideas Cesar shared with us, so there are lots of ways to measure Mean Reversion when looking for trade setups. Are any techniques better than others? In...

We've got something special organised for you here... This is the 1st episode in a special 2-part series on building Mean Reversion trading strategies. And to discuss Mean Reversion we have a special guest, someone who has been on the podcast a couple of times already - Cesar Alvarez from Alvarez Quant Trading. Those of you who know Cesars work would be aware that he is a Mean Reversion specialist...

It seems from the emails I've been getting lately that more and more traders are becoming concerned about the state of the markets, especially the stock markets, which is understandable. And the concern is really around what's going to happen when the stockmarkets start falling. What could happen to their strategies and accounts and how can they prepare for it now? How can they protect their portf...

In this weeks 'Trading thought' we're going to discuss an issue that all traders have to face... How do you know when to stop trading a strategy? A common approach is to wait for a strategy to reach the maximum historical drawdown and then either stop trading the system or look at modifying it or optimizing it, but... There are a couple of problems with that approach: Once the strategy has hit tha...

Trade management is a critical component of a trading strategy. It can often be the difference between a profitable trade and a loss... However many traders focus on the entry only and leave trade management as an afterthought. In episode 49 of the podcast , Linda Raschke, said "trade management is probably the most neglected area of system development". In that episode we focused on Linda's appro...

In this weeks Thursday Trading Thought we're going to discuss a market pattern that was identified over 80 years ago, perhaps even longer, that could indicate what happens in the markets for the rest of 2017. Now, I can imagine some traders are probably thinking, "who cares about some old, dusty trading rule from the 1900's, surely that has no relevance to the markets today?" Well, that's what we'...

With the explosion of computing power, more and more resources are being deployed to analyse the markets. Edges that used to work are being eroded away or destroyed as traders from all around the world get to work analysing the same sets of price data. Add to that mix the sophisticated machine learning algorithms and the rooms full of PhDs, how do we even compete with that? If everyone is looking...

In this episode we're going to explore a topic we don't cover much on this podcast and that is options trading. 2 of the mains reasons we don't discuss options trading much, is firstly because I don't trade options myself and have limited knowledge of how to use them, but also because there are some challenges with testing options strategies which makes it difficult to backtest them systematically...

In this weeks Thursday Trading Thought we're going to inject some inspiration into the podcast. Trading is a really tough business and sometimes as traders we can get into a bit of a funk, no matter what level of trading we're at. But we're only human and we're all trying to get better, so in this episode I've pulled together 3 of my favourite stories or motivations from the podcast. We've had a l...

Fear, Hope and Greed are 3 dangers that traders of all levels need to watch out for. They can have sometimes have a dramatic impact on our trading results, and even cause traders to quit trading or to blow up their accounts. And even if you think you've got them covered things can change pretty quickly, and even seasoned pros that are often as cool as ice can turn into a quivering mess in the corn...