292 · Laurens Bensdorp - Running 55+ Systematic Trading Strategies Simultaneously

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 Aug 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 Aug 20161h 28min

Blair Hull has been labeled by Forbes as, “One of the most successful traders of the last 40 years,” and he was also profiled in Jack Schwager’s, The New Market Wizards. Prior to trading, Blair was a serious Blackjack player for 5-years during the 70’s. From there he took his winnings to the the Pacific Exchange to trade mispriced options, and in 1985, he founded one of the world’s premier market-making firms, Hull Trading. At its peak, Hull Trading was active on 28 exchanges in nine countries. Then in 1999, the firm was acquired by Goldman Sachs for $531 million dollars. Today, Blair is the founder of Hull Investments—the parent company of an actively managed ETF, Hull Trading Asset Allocation, and proprietary firm, Ketchum Trading. Listening to this interview, you’re going to hear more about Blair’s career and his observations as a trader, why he believes great things happen in teams, and why everything revolves around having an edge. - - Sponsored by TechnicianApp.com – For professional-grade charts and technical analysis tools everywhere you go, use Technician—it’s FREE! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Aug 201649min

This episode features Dr. Yves Hilpisch—the founder of The Python Quants. TPQ do a lot of good for those involved in quantitative finance, they; frequently host meet-ups and workshops, have developed platforms and analytics libraries, and often contract to exchanges, banks and hedge funds for custom Python development. Yves is also a three-time published author, with his most notable title probably being “Python for Finance” which was released through O’Reilly. He regularly gives presentations and speaks at events on the subject of quant finance, and lectures at Universities too. Over the next sixty minutes, you’ll hear us unpack many subjects related to being a quant and why programming in Python can be a useful skill to have in your toolbox. Note, some of the discussion in the later part may be a little heavy for non-programmers. So if there is something that doesn’t make sense or you’d like more context around, please just write in the comments at the bottom of this page and I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4 Aug 20161h 4min

The trader I interviewed for this episode is; Ryan Moffett from Blackpier Capital. Having been involved with markets for about 12 years now, Ryan has experience in trading, strategy design, portfolio construction and even alternative investments—all, while working for several firms (one of which, managed upwards of $2B). More recently though, Ryan’s ventured out to start a fund of his own, where he wears the badge of Lead Investment Manager. Some of the subjects we check off during this episode, include; the snapping point that lead Ryan to pursue trading and cold-call 50 fund managers for guidance. How he was able to form various mentoring relationships, the first steps of starting a fund and the unseen challenges. Plus we discuss options, strategies and research, but the highlight for myself was hearing Ryan’s insight on deliberate practice and mental discomfort. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Juli 20161h 6min

This week, for the second time on Chat With Traders, my guest is Morad or better known as; Futures Trader 71. As you could imagine, FT is a futures trader, he’s also very short-term and has been trading for about 16 years now. During this time, he was the founder of a successful prop firm and more recently, has started a brokerage; Stage 5 Trading. First time around (on episode 37) we spoke extensively about FT’s path of becoming a trader, market profile and volume profile, and creating a legacy. This time we spoke about all new topics… For example; how to learn a new skill, how to measure your progress besides PnL, how to remove attachment to the outcome, how FT uses a regressive risk management strategy, and plenty more too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

21 Juli 20161h 29min

Our guest this week is Alan Farley, who took his first trades in the late-80’s. Alan is an active swing trader, and most of his positions take place in the US equity market—although he occasionally trades index futures and currencies too. In 2001, Alan released his first book, The Master Swing Trader, which may be the best-selling book on the subject). He’s also a regular contributor to The Street and Investopedia, having written hundreds of articles over the years. Subjects you’ll hear about include; the unusual way in which Alan got a well-rounded education of financial markets. Some of the big lessons that shaped him into the trader he is now, in particular, the concept of convergence and divergence. Plus, we talk about the dynamics that generate price movement, and much more too. --- Sponsored by RealVisionTV.com, which is best described as the Netflix of finance. So quit watching lame TV—start watching the smartest minds in finance. Get a FREE 7-day trial here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Juli 20161h 10min

Anthony Crudele started at a very young age on the CME floor, and he has one really interesting story about coming up as a trader… It does involve some pretty drastic failures, burning through significant amounts of cash, and a whole lot of perseverance. But, he eventually broke through and went on to have years of making six and seven-figures, while heavily trading the E-Mini S&P 500 from it’s inception. In our chat, you’ll hear about Anthony’s multiple blowouts and comebacks, his turning point as a trader, his approach to trading futures today, and a healthy reminder to protect your downside. --- Sponsored by RealVisionTV.com – Real Vision TV is pretty much like Netflix, but purely for finance and investing—it’s a real treat! Get yourself a free 7-day trial to start streaming now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Juli 20161h 6min