The AlphaMind Podcast

There are a host of different factors which lead to great trading and investing performance, but at the end of the day, we live and die by the quality of the decisions, we make. It is ‘Where the Money Is!’. Our ability to make good quality decisions in financial markets is heavily compromised by our inability to be truly objective in the face of the extreme complexity, uncertainty and randomness....

This week we are delighted to have Dr Tara Swart on the Podcast. Tara is a qualified psychiatrist and neuroscientist. who left the world of medicine to set-up her own Neuroscience based leadership coaching consultancy and became a coach, working with leaders and increasingly with top traders in Hedge Funds. Tara also lectrues in Neuroscience at MIT, is an in demand speaker, and author of ‘The Sour...

This weeks guest was 'us'. In this episode Ralf and Moritz of the Tradeciety interviewed AlphaMind Podcast hosts Steve and Mark about their work helping traders to become more effective by tackling the psychological, mental and behavioural aspects of trading.    This interview covered a wide range of themes including:  Developing Resilience.  The importance of ‘Letting Go’ and overcoming...

'The Psychology of Money' is a new book written by former Motley Fool and Wall Street Journal finance columnist Morgan Housel. The book has been called " one of the best and most original finance books in years. " by the Wall Street Journal. You can tell the quality of a book by the people who have reviewed it. When you have an investing legend like Howard Marks comment on the...

Robin Bieber has been working in the Oil markets for the past 40 years. He has been a trader, broker and analysts, and is now considered one of the leading technical analysts in the trading industry.  There are few better qualified people who possess the depth of knowledge and insight about how to use and apply Technical Analysis than Robin. Robin joined the markets in 1982 after nine years in the...

Every Trader would love to be bullet proof. To be bulletproof is to be able to survive the mental shots taken at us each and every day in the financial markets. When these shots hit us, they disrupt our thinking, corrupt our decision-making and inflict major damage on our trading and investment performance.   In this episode Trader Performance Coach Steve Ward talks about his latest book, ‘Bulletp...

Our guest this is week is John Locke, an option trader at SMB Capital. John has achieved great success as a trader since starting about 15 years ago having previously worked as a ‘Success Coach’. As well as working as a trader himself, John coaches’ traders through this company ‘Locke in Your Success’.  John took the principles he applied to clients in his coaching and applied them to himself. Joh...

Geoff Trickey is one of the world’s leading experts on Risk Personality. Geoff says that ‘personality writes your biography’ and believes that knowing and understanding your risk personality, can provide an enormous edge in how you work and the quality of the decisions and choices you make. A few years ago Geoff and his team created a new tool for assessing risk personality called the Risk Type Co...

A young man amasses $70,000,000 in trading profits, is accused of causing one of the biggest Stock Market Crashes ever, is the subject of a major US govt investigation and a multimillion-dollar manhunt , and all from his upstairs bedroom, in his parent’s modest house, in an ordinary London suburb, without his family or friends having a clue.  This week’s guest, Liam Vaughan, wrote the book ‘Flash...

A winning mindset is at least as important to trading success as the strategies and tactics you deploy. But how much effort do put into developing a winning mindset? Having a robust system or method for finding value, an appropriate philosophy to risk, a strong risk management practice, a thorough understanding of markets are all prerequisites for success. However, it is the combination of these f...

Brian is a retail trader who placed his first trade in 1967. Brian still actively trades, is a mentor at the Bear Bull Traders community and is author of ‘How To Swing Trade: A Beginner’s Guide to Trading Tools, Money Management, Rules, Routines and Strategies of a Swing Trader’.  In this episode we had a rich conversation with Brian covering a wide range of themes including:  How Swing Trading en...

The very essence of the challenge of trading and investing is making great decisions, under time pressured situations, when faced with extreme uncertainty.  The very essence of the challenge of trading and investing is making great decisions, under time pressured situations, when faced with extreme uncertainty. Traders are making decisions in the moment, under-pressure, in the face of volatile and...

AlphaMind podcast host Steven Goldstein worked for almost 25 years as a professional trader at Investment Banks in both Market-Making and Proprietary Trading roles. In his battle to succeed, Steven was always looking to improve and find the secrets to success. To help him on this journey, Steven developed his own set of guiding principles which were personal to him. Over time these principles form...

Bitcoin, and the world of cryptocurrency, divides opinion. At one end of the scale you’ll find the cynics and sceptics, at the other end those who are fascinated by all things crypto, and in between is everyone else, by varying degrees.  The needle is however moving on this scale: Many cynics are becoming less cynical and more curious, and some of the more curious are starting to dabble in crypto...

This week’s guest is Dr Brian Keating, Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego. In this podcast, we interview Dr Keating about some of the connections which bind trading, investing and science. Dr Keating talks about how scientists, despite being held on some sort of an intellectual pedestal, are human, and are just as prone to the foibles and behavioural erro...

Andrew Aziz is a Retail Trader, Founder of the Bear Bull Community of Traders and is author of Amazon top-selling book, ‘How to Day Trade for a Living: Tools, Tactics, Money Management, Discipline and Trading Psychology’.  Andrew talks about his journey into trading after completing a PhD in Chemical Engineering, then abandoning a career in that field to focus on becoming a trader.  In this excell...

Mark Randall is Co-Host of the AlphaMind Podcast, but this week he becomes the interview guest.  Mark is one of the world’s leaders in the delivery of Performance-Based Mindfulness. He works primarily with corporates, including board-level leaders and people in senior management roles, as well as with traders and investors.  Mark’s outlook and perspectives with regard to mindfulness have evolved f...

The last few weeks have seen traumatic times in the financial markets. Trading conditions in all markets have seen unparalleled volatility and liquidity levels in excess of the worst of 2008 and which few have ever experienced.  In this special one-off episode we hear from 4 'Masters of the Markets, who each have been previous guests on the AlphaMind podcast and who have agreed to share their...

Denise Shull is one of the world’s leading performance coaches. As well as being a former trader herself, Denise focuses on the positive contribution feelings and emotion makes in high-pressure decision-making situations. Denise uses neuroeconomics and modern psychoanalysis in her work with traders and investment professionals, and also works with professional athletes, helping them break past the...

Mindfulness and meditation can be enormously powerful when engaged in financial markets. These practices have the ability to weaponize the mind for optimal performance whilst creating a robust and resilient suit of armour against the doubts and uncertainties induced by volatile and uncertain financial markets.  In this conversation, the show hosts Steve Goldstein and Mark Randall explore these act...

In this second interview with David Tait, David talks about fear in trading and how best to cope and manage with the extreme fear which is part of terrain of trading. When it comes to fear, and fear in trading, there are few people better qualified in the world to talk about this subject than David.  David has sat at the top table of the financial markets for near 4 decades. He was formerly head o...

David Tait had a fearlessness which made him one of the world’s top traders. This edge helped establish him as one of the leading figures in trading in the financial markets. David success led to him becoming Global Head of FX Trading at Goldman Sachs and he went on to hold other major trading and leadership roles at investment banks Credit Suisse and UBS and was an original partner at Hedge Fund...

25 years ago this week, Barings Bank, founded in 1763, was brought down by the calamitous and illegal trading activities of one of its futures traders, Nick Leeson. Working from their Singapore office, Lesson’s accumulated trading losses amounted to over £800 billion or close to $1.4 billion at the time.  Leeson had been hiding trading losses for the previous 2 1/2 years in a false account he had...

Anthony Crudele started as a trader on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in the late 1990s. He was one of the youngest members of the CME, originally trading the S&P e-mini futures. Anthony was surrounded by some of the most influential traders and brokers in the financial markets and gained huge knowledge, experience and know-how which helped him develop his own successful tr...

Don't let the title of this episode de-motivate you. The more you know about your brain and how it functions, the greater the likelihood you can make positive adjustments which can drive superior trading and investment performance.  In this week’s episode we are in conversation with Dr Daniel Crosby. Daniel is a Behavioural Finance author who has written several best-selling books and is one...