Chat With Traders

I first interviewed Mike at CWTNYC, in May 2017. The 100-listeners (give or take) who attended, will already be very familiar with Mike and there may be a few moments of déjà vu throughout this episode. But for everyone else… Mike came into trading around 20-years ago, beginning at Chicago prop firm, TransMarket Group, where he ultimately spent 12-years of his career. Over the course of his time there, Mike became one of their largest 30-year Treasury basis traders, both in terms of volume and performance. Now days, Mike is trading a relative value strategy through his own book, and building out a track record with the aim to launch a hedge fund in the coming years… But you’ll hear more about all of this, the things which have helped Mike get to where he is now, and how he trades bonds using a relative value strategy during this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Aug 20171h 17min

Sheelah Kolhatkar is a writer at the The New Yorker, who was previously a journalist at Bloomberg Businessweek, and prior to that, a hedge fund analyst. She’s also the author of New York Times bestseller, Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street. Of course, the most wanted man being referred to, is the ultra-wealthy hedge fund legend, Steven Cohen of S.A.C. Capital Advisors—someone who Sheelah has become very familiar with, through much of her own tireless and strenuous research… During our conversation, Sheelah gives color to; where Steven started out in life and how he became an ultra-wealthy multi-billionaire—with, might I add, an elaborate art collection, how S.A.C. became the target of one of histories greatest insider trading investigations, and ultimately, how it all played out... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Jul 201743min

On this episode, I have a returning guest—who first appeared on episode 53. His name is a mystery, but he goes by the handle: @BTCVIX Episode 53 was the first time I covered Bitcoin on this podcast, and that was at the very end of 2015. As you’re probably aware, the cryptocurrency markets have evolved a lot since then, so BTCVIX is here to fill us in on what’s been happening and, potentially, what lies ahead… We also cover how to acquire various cryptocurrencies, best practises for protecting your coins, is Bitcoin in a bubble, the frenzy surrounding ICO's, and much much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Jul 20171h 16min

Up until recently, James King was the Performance Director at a commodity trading firm in London, Mandara Capital. And it was here that he implemented scientific methods to stack probability in the favour of success—by using techniques he learned from his education in Applied Sports Science and Performance Psychology. Now, James is setting out on a new venture, Project Thor, which aims to support talented retail traders with extra capital and other beneficial resources—which we discuss briefly towards the end of the episode. But for the most part, we discuss; principals for success, testing for resilience, ensuring you’re motivated and focusing on the right things, how ‘stretch goals’ can be used to massively multiply results, routines and heaps more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Jul 20171h 9min

Mark Gardner began working in the field at 17-years old, straight out of high school. Initially he began with back office duties, before broking on the floor of the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE). Then later he was picked up by a large Bank Bills trader to exclusively execute trades, and who he learned a great deal from. Around 2005, Mark started trading his own book. Over the 10-years that followed, Mark had only two losing months—and to date, he’s never encountered a losing year. Though in 2015 he did suffer a substantial blow, losing months and months worth of gains in the space of just a few short hours. Today, Mark is also a partner and the chairman of Genesis Trading (one of the larger prop firms in Australia). He’s also leading a new venture, 42Trading, as a foray into quantitative trading. And to top it off, Mark is the president of the Australian Securities Traders Association too. Throughout this episode we speak about Mark's insane work ethic (and no, that's not exaggeration!) We also get into lessons from his past, why he sees a future in quantitative trading and more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Jul 201756min

Morgan’s career as a trader and portfolio manager began 20-years back, and since then he’s worked at many prominent firms and funds—to name just a few; Millburn Ridgefield, Merrill Lynch, Citadel and Allston Trading. He’s currently the CEO of CloudQuant, a cloud-based algo development platform and fund. During our conversation, Morgan explains why he feels as though the ‘common’ approach to strategy development can be counter intuitive, and he gives an alternative 3-step formula. We also spend time discussing how machine learning fits into a traders toolbox Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Jun 20171h 9min

Ben Mallah is a trader of a different kind—he doesn’t trade stocks and bonds, he trades in real estate. You could probably call him a property developer, although he doesn’t build from scratch; he buys distressed apartment buildings, hotels and shopping centers, fixes them up, and then sells to make a profit. He grew up in one of the roughest areas of New York and had a very tough upbringing, but Ben is the true definition of a ‘rags to riches’ story… During his early 20’s, as a side hustle while working in the military, Ben began getting into real estate. Thirty years have since passed, and in that time, he’s built up a real estate empire worth (approximately) $200,000,000. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Jun 201752min

Victor Haghani began his career at Salomon Brothers in 1984, starting out in a research role before joining their prop trading desk. In 1992, Victor left Salomon to become one of the founding partners of Long Term Capital Management… LTCM was an incredibly successful hedge fund, up until 1998, when it failed in a spectacular fashion. Causing the Federal Reserve to step in and organize a bailout, in order to prevent the possibility of a collapse in the global financial system. Victor took a ten year sabbatical after the dust settled, and in 2010 he founded an active index investing fund, Elm Partners. For this episode, much of our discussion is in reference to an experiment Victor carried out (with some involvement from Edward Thorp), on the patterns of how 61 participants would bet on a biased coin. -- Sponsored by TradeStation: Very few online brokers offer the services, the tools and the technology (all-in-one!) – for active traders – like TradeStation do. Learn more and get started here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Jun 201742min