040: Bryan Wiener – Reflects on His Years as a Pit Trader, and Takes Us to School on the Subject of Options

Jorge Soltero began as a floor trader in Chicago, where he was an options market maker. A few years into his career, he landed a position at Hull Trading Company (the renowned firm of legendary trader, Blair Hull). After Hull Trading was bought by Goldman Sachs in 1999, Jorge became more of an institutional trader—not only working at Goldman, but later, UBS and Merrill Lynch too, where he specialized in options and ETFs. Listening to this episode you’re going to hear about; the culture of trading pits, exactly what it was like to be a trader at Hull Trading Co., the transition to electronic trading, what makes ETFs an attractive product, and more… -- Sponsored by Gemini.com: The first fully regulated Bitcoin exchange, for traders and investors. Register for one-month of FREE trading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Helmi 20171h 12min

Returning to Chat With Traders for a second time is David Bush—first on episode 23. David began as a discretionary trader, more than 20-years ago, but over time he’s developed into a quant trader. And he’s exceptionally good at what he does; David’s been the first place winner of two (real money) trading competitions in recent years. Last time David was on we spoke fairly extensively about his path as a trader and a high-level overview of his process. This time around we covered plenty of new ground—exploring David’s process in greater depth. Also, I particularly liked David’s comments towards the end about, “Intensity, not time.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

9 Helmi 20171h 19min

On this episode, I’m joined by George—who goes by @RollyTrader on Twitter. George is an Australian equities trader, with a momentum/swing trading type of approach. In the past, George has held a few finance-related positions, but since late-2009 he’s mostly traded independently. During the interview, George and I got speaking about; lessons he learned early on, the effect that coaching and mentoring has had on his trading, specifics about the setups George trades, and also, his involvement with venture capital. -- Sponsored by Gemini.com – The world’s first fully regulated and fully licensed Bitcoin exchange—for traders, investors & institutions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2 Helmi 20171h 9min

I’m not sure how to best say this, but Edward Thorp, is kind of a big deal… Not only in the world of financial markets, but he’s also a household name amongst the gambling scene. He’s the man who beat the dealer, and later, beat the market. It was during the late-50’s and early-60’s, when Ed, a math genius and professor at MIT, took on the challenge of discovering a way to get an edge playing gambling games such as blackjack, roulette and baccarat. Long story short; Ed won—and he’s now considered the father of card counting. From there, the next obvious move for Ed was to take on financial markets—which he also did with a great degree of success. His first hedge fund, Princeton Newport Partners, achieved an annualized return of 19.1% (before fees) over a 19-year period, with 227 of 230 months being profitable—the worst monthly loss being less than 1%. Ed’s most recent book, A Man For All Markets, is now available on Amazon. -- Sponsored by TradeStation.com – The online broker for professional market monitoring tools, an award-winning platform and low trading costs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Tammi 20171h 4min

Throughout this series, which has been a window into the workflow of professional quant trading firms, we’ve encouraged you to submit questions and requests for further clarification. So, in this episode, being the final installment, Delaney answers as many of these questions as possible (within 80-mins). -- Sponsored by DataCamp.com – Once you commit to learning how to program—specifically for data science and quant research, your next best step: Visit DataCamp to start any course, free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Tammi 20171h 15min

John Netto, a former U.S. marine, describes himself as a high velocity, cross-asset class trader. He connects the ability to be versatile, adaptable, and interpret large amounts of information to be his greatest edge—for making lucrative returns. These are all things we cover during the interview, which includes discussion about; process, research, strategy, macro, and market regimes. We also talk about the benefits of stepping outside of your comfort zone, why there’s a need to embrace growing pains, and when emotion can be an ally. -- Sponsored by TradeStation.com: Trade stocks, ETFs, futures and options with competitive commissions (using an award-winning platform!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

19 Tammi 201754min

For the great, Anthony Saliba, his initial 13-years in the field were spent as a market maker on the CBOE floor, where he made approximately $9,000,000 before 30 years old (and that was during the 80’s). At which point, he was one of the traders featured in Jack Schwager’s first Market Wizards’ book. Since then, Anthony’s continued to scale up—making major moves, both, through trading and through various business ventures. We spoke for close to two hours; about his experience on the floor, a trader education company which he founded, some of the non-cliché traits of great traders, longevity, and how he’s grown wealth as a parallel entrepreneur, amongst other topics. Anthony has also authored a new book for options traders; Managing Expectations. -- Sponsored by TradeStation.com – TradeStation won Barrons’ award for the online broker “Best for Frequent Traders” in 2016! Check ’em out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

12 Tammi 20171h 49min

Turney Duff was a hedge fund trader on Wall Street who lead a truly excessive lifestyle. In 2013 he released a book about his experiences—titled, The Buy Side. And currently, Turney is a consultant on the Showtime TV series, Billions. On this episode we cover everything, from what it was like to trade more than one billion dollars at Galleon Group—which was the hedge fund run by Raj Rajaratnam, currently serving an 11-year prison sentence for partaking in one of the largest insider trading rings in U.S. history. Following on from this, we discuss Turney’s relationships with the sell-side and the extreme measures they’d take to win his business. Which leads into the shenanigans which took place after-hours—the cocktail of drugs, alcohol, sex, money and power. We finish up with Turney’s fall from the top, some of the greatest realizations he’s come to, and the life he leads today… Enjoy! -- Sponsored by TradeStation.com – TradeStation connect traders with all the bell’s n whistles to better monitor and participate in markets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Tammi 20171h 16min