Chat With Traders

David Capablanca pursued architecture for a decade, culminating in studying under a Pritzker Prize winner at UCLA, before a life threatening brain tumor, massive medical debt, and student loans forced him to completely reevaluate his life. After starting from rock bottom and carrying the weight of massive debt, David developed an all-consuming, "burn the boats" pursuit of trading mastery that saw...

Jason Berry co-founded Positive Equity in 2008. Built alongside partners and traders who raised the bar, the firm operates trading floors in Ireland and Croatia. Over a 14-year stretch of verified clearing statements, his small losses, long career approach resulted in only five losing months. Most people think trading success comes from predicting markets. In reality, Jason's multi-decade longevit...

Jack Schwager and George Coyle team up to look at what it takes to master the markets, combining classic wisdom with how modern financial markets work today. After studying top fund managers and over 100 years of market history, Jack and George wrote Market Wizards: The Next Generation to showcase today's best traders. These elite performers range from everyday traders who turned small accounts in...

Peter Robbins is the author of The Trader’s Journey. He entered the financial markets 50 years ago with nothing but a dream, his friend, and a parental signature to trade the markets, surviving decades of tectonic shifts to navigate the transition from outcry trading to the digital age. After starting out at age 15 and carrying the weight of massive commission costs back in the 1970s, Peter develo...

Alex Temiz turned a $2,000 account into over $16 million in trading profits, starting from nothing as a part-time Starbucks barista. In this episode, he breaks down the real journey: the years of losing, how he transitioned from long breakouts to short selling, and the mechanical "guardrails" he used to survive long enough to succeed. After selling the rims off his car just to fund one last attemp...

Steve Kalayjian started his journey on the floor of the American Stock Exchange in 1983, a time when the noise of the pits was the only heartbeat of the market. Over the next four decades, he didn’t just witness the evolution of trading, he conquered it, trading nearly two billion shares of U.S. stocks and surviving every major market cycle. From the high-pressure floors of the NYSE and COMEX to t...

Eduardo Briceño came to America from Venezuela with nothing but a dream, survived years of trading under survival-mode pressure, and turned $1,900 into $2.9 million in profits. After starting with a micro account and carrying the weight of supporting his family, Eduardo developed a disciplined approach to the most volatile corner of the market: small caps. Today, his edge is built on experience an...

Stefan Stadie is a professional sports trader at Kero Sports whose work sits at the intersection of equities, sports betting, and prediction markets. After starting his trading journey in equities, Stefan evolved toward a more process-driven approach focused on price, liquidity, and market behavior. Today, his edge comes less from predicting outcomes and more from identifying mispricing, capturing...

Sam Gaer’s career spans several major shifts in market structure — from the open-outcry pits of COMEX to high-frequency trading and now crypto derivatives. Sam began his career as a teenage runner on the COMEX floor during the gold boom of the early 1980s before becoming a copper pit trader himself. While most traders relied purely on instinct, Sam was already experimenting with technology — build...

When Dave Mabe backtested his strategy, it outperformed his own discretionary trading — and changed how he approached everything. In this episode, we discuss gapping breakouts, expectancy, systematic trading, drawdowns, and the reality gap between backtests and live execution. A practical conversation for traders serious about building durable edge. In this episode, we explore: ·        How Dave g...

In this episode, Ian sits down with John Assaraf, entrepreneur, behavioral neuroscience educator, and founder of NeuroGym, for a conversation about the invisible forces that shape performance — long after planning, analysis, and good intentions are in place. John shares his personal journey from a turbulent upbringing to building multiple multimillion-dollar businesses, and the pivotal moment at a...

Over the years, we’ve recorded hundreds of conversations with traders across different markets, strategies, and generations. And while no two trading paths look the same, certain moments tend to repeat — not moments of big wins or dramatic calls, but quieter turning points. The moments where something shifts internally. Where progress depends less on the market… and more on how the trader evolves....

We’re joined by Jamaal Ghauri, a trader and fund manager who began his journey unusually early — first exposed to crypto markets as a teenager during Bitcoin’s early adoption phase, before moving into stocks and eventually options. Jamal walks through the full arc of his development as a trader: early overconfidence, aggressive options bets, a rapid run-up followed by a major drawdown, and the har...

A quiet, end-of-year reflection on the middle stage of trading — where progress is subtle, patterns are familiar, and the real work happens internally. Sponsor of Chat With Traders Podcast: ●       Trade The Pool:  ⁠⁠⁠http://www.tradethepool.com⁠⁠ Trading Disclaimer:  Trading in the financial markets involves a risk of loss. Podcast episodes and other content produced by Chat With Traders are for...

In this episode, we examine what actually happens when crypto markets break — how leverage builds beneath the surface, liquidity disappears, and liquidation cascades turn volatility into systemic failure. Doug Colkitt, a quantitative trader and DeFi builder whose experience spans both traditional finance and crypto market structure. Doug began his career on Wall Street at Citigroup before moving i...

Returning guest Vincent Bruzzese — trader, former statistics professor, poker player, and former Hollywood behavioral analyst — joins Tessa for a candid discussion about navigating one of the most narrative-driven markets in years. Known online as “Hari Seldon” in the Real Day Trading community, Vincent is recognized for posting his trades live and delivering multiple years of standout performance...

Christian Carreon returns to Chat With Traders nearly three years after his first appearance, where he shared his remarkable journey through stage-five kidney failure and the discipline it forged in him as a trader. Today, he brings an even deeper perspective—on markets, on patience, and on the Box Strategy that has become his signature. Christian is a breakout trend trader who waits for compressi...

Dr. Efrat t Levy is a cybersecurity expert with a PhD in Computer Science and AI from Ben-Gurion University—one of Israel’s top tech institutions. After years studying how to detect hackers through side-channel signals, she applied the same logic to trading. In this conversation, Dr. Levy explains how she uses machine learning to map non-repainting key levels that reveal the hidden order flow—the...

How a trader from Dallas built consistency—and a simple lifestyle of freedom in Southeast Asia—with a 30% win rate.  Diego Ivan Cortes Lopez grew up chasing perfection on the tennis court, where winning came naturally, but it was trading that taught him how to win by losing. After years of trial, error, and a six-figure setback, studying the methods taught by Oliver Velez, a prominent veteran prof...

We’re joined by Jack Schwager—author of the legendary Market Wizards series and co-founder of FundSeeder—along with his partner and fellow co-founder & CEO, Emanuel Balarie. Jack shares what it really takes to be considered for a Market Wizards book: not one formula, but a mix of standout performance, disciplined risk, and an almost obsessive commitment to process and adaptation. Along the way, we...

A former competitive gamer, Mario Dimitroff from Bulgaria got his start on a local trading floor before discovering that the U.S. premarket session best fit his skills. Now trading for a living and doing nothing else, his news-driven, event-based scalping focuses on low-liquidity movers. Leveraging gaming-honed speed and pattern recognition, he quickly decides whether to ride momentum or fade to m...

Online funding prop firms have captured the attention of traders in recent years. In this episode, the CEO of Trade The Pool, Michael Katz, joins the podcast to answer key questions and offer perspective from inside one of the leading firms. The conversation explores how these firms operate, what they mean for traders, and the common debates surrounding them.  The goal is not promotion of prop fir...

Growing up in Germany without a financial background, Julian Komar became fascinated by stocks as a teenager. He moved past complex German trading products to concentrate on U.S. equities. Specializing in momentum and growth stocks on the daily timeframe, he blends fundamentals, technicals, and story analysis to uncover opportunities that put him in the best position for high-potential setups and...

From academic struggles at SUNY Albany to holding the world record for the largest prop firm payouts—roughly $4.5 million in total, Kyle Ng a.k.a. JadeCap’s journey started out like many aspiring traders. Sparked by a childhood friend's success in forex about 14 years ago, he found his way into the financial markets.  Like many traders, he went through the pain, losses and sacrifices and struggles...

What happens when a teenager growing up without TV in rural Canada stumbles across CNBC in a college dorm and sees people making $100,000 in a day? For Chris Vermeulen, that moment changed everything—and kicked off a 25-year journey of trading triumphs, painful losses, and profound strategy shifts. In this episode, you'll meet a trader who’s lived through the tech bubble, the 2008 financial crisis...