269: Rob Hanna - Reducing Anxiety and Drawdowns through Quantifiable Edges

What you’re about to hear is a conversation I had with a short-term futures trader, Ben—whose last name we won’t mention only for privacy reasons, but he goes by @BLB_Capital on Twitter. Before entering the market, Ben previously ran a construction company until an injury put him out of action for a period of time, which is when a friend got him interested in trading. Developing his craft over recent years, the bulk of Ben’s trading now revolves around order flow and he’s most active in Oil, Gold and ES. Over the next 50-mins or so we discuss; what Ben learned and emulated from a large bond trader he was trained by, insight to his core trading strategies, how he utilizes automation, why traders should be aware of “right-to-left syndrome” and more. -- Sponsored by Darwinex.com: Darwinex back independent traders with talent who lack sufficient capital—scale your trading career from a side-hustle to a professional business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Loka 201655min

For this episode I spoke with fund manager, Dario Mofardin. Dario went from a finance degree, straight into a market analyst and then trader position at a private global macro hedge fund, during the early 90’s. He then went into investment banking for 13 years, working with mergers and acquisitions from various locations around the globe. And since 2008, Dario has been trading independently, but has recently begun trading external funds also. Some of the key points we chat about during this episode include; seeing the whole board as a global macro trader, how to build a body of evidence, why Dario went from short-term trading to higher timeframes, plus trade management and checklists too. -- Sponsored by Tradovate.com – Tradovate; a commission-free futures broker—trade as much as you like, and as many contracts as you like, for one flat monthly rate. Start a FREE 2-week demo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Syys 20161h 2min

Craig Scott is someone who has been trading and investing for most of his life, first starting in school when he participated in a year long stock picking competition. Once completing a double major in finance and accounting, Craig spent many years as an auditor and an accountant, and later on, the entrepreneur within had him start and grow several businesses (doing similar things) along the way. As Craig describes his style of trading and investing; it’s a hybrid of fundamentals, momentum, sentiment and instinct. He uses options for short-term positions and for mid/longer-term positions he uses stocks. And worth mentioning; Craig’s very adamant about the fact that he does not use charts! -- Sponsored by Tradovate.com: Tradovate is a commission-free futures brokerage. For a flat-rate monthly subscription you can now trade unlimited contracts—get a FREE 2-week demo! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Syys 20161h 6min

For this episode I’m joined by Michael Halls-Moore, who runs QuantStart.com—a site well-known by many algorithmic traders. Prior to trading, Michael studied computational fluid dynamics and was the co-founder of a tech startup, before getting involved a small equity fund as a quant developer—where his key role was cleansing data. Now, independently, Michael trades his own short-term algorithmic strategies, consults to hedge funds on machine learning and quant infrastructure, and also has a keen interest in space exploration. We discussed a whole range of topics, including; the need for quality data, thinking about risk from a portfolio level, trading multiple automated strategies, the role of common sense in parameter optimization, learning to program, and more. -- Sponsored by Tradovate.com – Commission-free futures trading has arrived. As a Tradovate customer, you’ll pay one flat monthly rate to trade unlimited contracts—starting from $39. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Syys 20161h 17min

Blake Morrow (otherwise known as @PipCzar on Twitter) started out as a stock broker in 1995, but this only lasted for a short period of time, before becoming a trader… A wealthy friend put up $50,000 in starting capital, which Blake lost about $30,000 of it within the first six months. Though, before wiping out, Blake was able to turn that remaining $20,000 into roughly $1.5M in the next few years that followed. He’s since been involved in various trading and technology firms, but today, Blake is the Chief Currency Strategist for WizeTrade, co-founder of Forex Analytix, and an independent forex trader. Over the course of this episode you’ll hear about Blake’s story in greater detail, how he navigates forex markets—using charts and technical analysis as well as economic drivers, some tips for beginning traders using leverage, and plenty more. -- Sponsored by Tradovate.com - Commission-free futures trading is finally here. Trade unlimited contracts for a flat price. Learn more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Syys 20161h 20min

Dave Lauer is a former-high frequency trader for firms such as Citadel and Allston Trading. He’s worked specifically in various areas of the HFT pipeline, including; research and modelling, building hardware, and programming and operating strategies—which are measured in millionths of a second (or microseconds). Following the Flash Crash, Dave left his role as a trader (for various reasons we discuss during this episode) and now, as a partner of KOR Group, consults to institutional managers on market structure and best execution. Dave was also featured in the VPRO documentary, The Wall Street Code, along with other Chat With Traders guests; Haim Bodek, Eric Hunsader, and Blair Hull. -- Sponsored by TechnicianApp.com: Chart, analyze, and trade from anywhere with Technician’s award-winning app—for mobile, tablet, and desktop. Learn more and sign up for free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Syys 20161h 3min

This week on the podcast, I spoke with Tom Sosnoff, who many of you will already know—he’s pretty close to a household name name in this industry. But if you don’t… Tom was a floor trader at the CBOE for 20 years, later going on to co-found thinkorswim—a widely popular online brokerage. In 2009, thinkorswim was sold to TD Ameritrade for approximately $606M, and Tom left the company shortly after to start financial news show, tastytrade. In this episode we hit on; the issue with being too risk adverse in markets and in life, Tom’s extensive trading career, plenty of talk about options, the value of intellectually challenging ourselves (with respect to finance), and more. -- Sponsored by TechnicianApp.com – Technician is a free-to-use charting and analysis platform, built for mobile, web and desktop. Visit TechnicianApp.com to sign up and try it out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

25 Elo 20161h 1min

Jared Tendler is an internationally recognized mental game coach. His clients include world champion poker players, the #1 ranked pool player in the world, professional golfers, and more recently, traders too. If Jared was to summarize exactly what he does (and what he specializes in), it would be; removing negative and excessive emotion from decision making. So naturally, this serves as the underlying theme throughout our conversation, but we also discuss higher-level topics like; variance, the major crossovers between high-stakes poker and trading, how psychology has been oversold and when it really matters, plus how to identify various types of “tilt.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

18 Elo 20161h 28min