The AlphaMind Podcast

This podcast episode will fascinate all those who work in trading and investing roles. In this excellent interview with co-hosts Steve and Mark, their guest Simon Garcia bares his soul, describes his experience, and shares his views about trading, dealing with the mental and emotional challenges of trading and describing some of the pressures the job entails. This podcast episode will also be of interest to those curious about mental health in the workplace. It highlights how the pressures placed on people in traumatic workplace environments can lead to detachment from family and loved ones, as well as to one's core values. It also emphasises how this can in turn impact well-being and lead to impaired mental health, with serious consequences for the individual and heightened business risks for the firm.    The guest, Simon Garcia, is someone who has won, lost, and won again, the mental battle of trading. Simon has experienced the highs, the big highs, the lows, the deepest of all lows, and then come back to win again. By the early 2000s, Simon achieved great success as a bond trader working at Natwest Markets and Deutsche Bank, before moving to Lehman Brothers where he was running a Convertible Bond trading team. Then one day the strains and stresses of trading hit him and hit him hard. For Simon, the lights went out. Simon had suffered a mental breakdown.  At this point in his life, Simon was achieving great success, was earning big money, had a good marriage and a wonderful young family. To the outside world Simon had everything. But inside, he felt like he had nothing. He was at the point where life had become so painful and traumatic that he was contemplating ending it.In the financial markets this is an all to familiar story. Simon was fortunate however. The firm, through their HR team, came through for him. He got the support and the help he needed and made a full recovery.  Simon was able to continue as a trader after a break and went to achieve great success for another decade at Nomura and then Societe Generale. Simon's story didn't end there though. Following his experience, and whilst working as a trader, Simon started studying to be a psychotherapist. To get his hours of practice and training, Simon spent his evenings and weekends, working in hospitals and for local charities. Last year, after almost 3 decades, Simon left the markets to set-up his own private therapy practice.  He is now helping others. I hope listening to this episode will give people pause to think about how they approach their work and how they can ensure they create the psychological safety which ensures they care for themselves, and those around them. _______________________________________________________________________You can find out more about the AlphaMind podcast and the show’s co-hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall on the AlphaMind podcast website https://alpha-mind.net.You can also follow them on twitter https://twitter.com/AlphaMind101 or visit their blog page https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/If you are interested in AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching you can find out more at  https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/p/the-alphamind-privateAlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global MarketsAlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Greg Zuckerman, a Wall Street Journal special writer, shares insights from his book about Jim Simons, the legendary figure behind Renaissance Technologies. The conversation reveals how Simons combined mathematics and finance to revolutionize trading. They discuss the importance of team culture, unique trading strategies, and the relentless pursuit of innovation. Zuckerman also sheds light on the challenges of quantitative trading and the personal influences that shaped Renaissance's success. Dive into the fascinating journey of redefining market strategies!

In the first AlphaMind podcast of 2020 co-hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall share their Top Tips for how to be more effective, more productive, more successful as Traders and Investment Professionals in 2020.Mark and Steve between them have over 70 years working in Financial Markets and now work with leading traders, investment professionals, manager and leaders in the Financial Markets industry as coaches and consultants. Their work in the field of performance development has helped many traders and investment professionals to power significant improvement as takers and managers of risk. In this special New Year episode Steven and Mark share 3 key insights each which they feel will help people improve how they are when they work as Traders. Mark’s focus in the first part of the interview is geared towards physical wellbeing, whilst Steven’s focuses in the second half of this podcast is on mental attitudes and mindsets which people can adopt to help them improve how they are in the daily battle with markets.  You can find out more about Steven and Mark and the AlphaMind podcast on their website https://alpha-mind.net.You can also follow them on twitter https://twitter.com/AlphaMind101 or visit their blog page https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/If you are interested in AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching you can find out more at  https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/p/the-alphamind-private-trader.htmlAlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global MarketsAlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Chris Cain spent a decade working as a Market Maker in Fixed Income products before moving on to work privately as a trader and producing some outstanding performance in a very short space of time.Chris is also co-author of a new book, “The Alpha Formula; High Powered Strategies to Beat The Market With Less Risk”. The book is written jointly with Larry Connors who has over 30 years of experience working in financial markets and is widely regarded today as one of the leading educators in the financial markets industry.The central theme of this interview is the nexus of:-Understanding how markets behave.-Understanding ourselves and our behavioural biases.-Finding approaches which enable people to generate Alpha against this background and context.-Creating quantitative systems and methods which enable successful monetisation of these. This is a great interview which echoes some of the underlying themes of Chris's book: The bringing together of behavioural finance with trading practices in a conceptual away which can help create systematic approaches which drive success in financial markets. This was a fascinating interview where Chris shared his philosophy and thoughts to finding value and generating Alpha in financial markets. He also shared his experiences as a Market-Maker, shining a light on how it is in the inside of a trading firm, and what are some of the advantages and challenges for people on the inside. AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global MarketsAlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Beat Nussbaumer started trading FX in 1984 for UBS in Zurich. Over the next 35 years Beat worked for a who’s who of Investment Banks including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Commerzbank as a market-maker, proprietary trader and Head of FX. Over the past few years Beat has been trading for himself, tutoring retail traders and providing investment bank research. In this interview Beat shares powerful insights on the challenge’s new traders face, talks about the realities needed to succeed in the challenging world of Foreign Exchange markets, and explores how the markets have changed in recent years. This is a great opportunity to hear from a trader who has worked at the very centre of Foreign Exchange markets, who understands what is needed to succeed, and has been there, seen it, done it. This interview covers so many themes that it is hard to list them all here, there is something for everyone including: Trading techniques. Trading your own money. Exploring trading strategies. Playing in volatile markets. How to manage yourself in the markets.The changing nature of the Foreign Exchange markets. Learning to be adaptable.Intuition in trading. The rollercoaster of trading. Coping with setbacks.The true character of a good trader. AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global MarketsAlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This interview is really in two parts. The first 15 minutes of the interview Nick tells about himself and his new venture, and talks about the comparison between trading and sports-betting. Nick sees sports-betting as still in the early stage of maturity compared to the very mature financial markets. For this reason, it is ripe for exploration and provides an exciting opportunity for those who struggling to find an edge in the very mature financial markets. The second part of this interview talks more directly about trading and Nick’s experiences as a trader on the inside of the FX market in a Market-Making role. Nick worked at major investment banks Goldman Sachs and Citibank where he was active in market-making roles and was close to the flow as anyone will ever be. Citibank themselves have historically been one of the top 2 or 3 banks in the world in FX markets. This is a great chance for the podcast audience to listen to and hear the views of someone who has traded as close to the inside as one can be and did so in the new market environment of the recent years. Nick’s views may surprise many. There is a common belief that being on the inside provides a major advantage, whilst there will always be an edge on the inside, his views may surprise many.  If anyone is keen to know more about Nick’s new sport-betting venture, the company is called Sportsstack. Their website is https://www.sportstack.com/ and you can follow them on twitter at @SportStackHQAlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global MarketsAlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This episode was sparked by an overwhelming response to a tweet posted this week by podcast host Steven Goldstein on the AlphaMind twitter handle  https://twitter.com/AlphaMind101.The Tweet:________________________________________________________________________For almost 25 years I earned my living as a professional trader, it was a fascinating job that I loved. But there were times too when it wrenched the very living soul and every ounce of self-esteem from me. - The advertisers and gurus won’t tell you that. 🤔🤔🤔_________________________________________________________________________In the space of 23 hours this tweet received over 1000 likes, over a hundred retweets, many comments and several Direct Messages, making it by far the most responded tweet on the Alphamind101 handle by a huge magnitude, let alone in the space of 24 hours. This tweet touched a raw nerve with many who trade and invest actively in the markets, whether private, retail or professional. Trading is a highly traumatic activity which challenges each and every person who tries their hand at it, in ways they never anticipate or expect. The trauma of trading is a topic rarely talked about or discussed, yet it gets to the very core of trading success and the human toll it takes on each and every trader. In this podcast episode, show hosts Steven and Mark discuss this rarely addressed issue, reflecting on their own careers in Financial Markets, as professional traders and brokers for leading Investment banks. To know about Mark and Steven and the AlphaMind project visit https://alpha-mind.net.AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global MarketsAlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

Strength, Conditioning and Performance Coach for the New York Yankees, Dana Cavalea, shares insights into high performance and habits of champions, applicable in various domains. Topics include mindset, player assessment, mindfulness, discipline, visualization, and preparation.

Benis is a partner and behavioural scientist with 'Final Mile', the world’s leading Behavioural Architecture Consultancy. Behavioural Architecture seeks to solve complex issues and problems where conventional approaches fall short. It does this by exploring issues through the lens of Cognitive Neuroscience, Behavioural Economics, and Design Concepts. Benis heads Final Mile's Financial Market arm which seeks to help businesses and people engaged in financial markets to make improvements which lead to improved decision-making and stronger performance. In this fascinating interview Benis tells us about Final Mile's philosophy and approach to problem solving around human performance in financial markets. We explore key behavioural findings that have emerged in their work, how we as human are impacted by biases, and how we largely absolve and avoid trying to understand and correct these.  This interview moves beyond the normal discussions on biases, emotions and systematic behavioural limitations to explore at a much deeper level how these impact trading and investing performance and how people can start to address these.You can find out more about Final Mile's outstanding and highly impactful work in many fields on their website at https://finalmile.inAlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global MarketsAlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This week’s guest is Carol Harmer. Carol started as a trader working for Midland Bank markets (which later became HSBC Markets), in the early 1980s on the LIFFE (London International Financial Futures Exchange) in London.  She started using charts, at a time when few people were using technical analysis, to help her with her trading.  Over a lifetime in the markets, Carol worked for Midland Banks, Nomura Banks, Credit Suisse, and her own business, Charmer Trading.  AlphaMind podcast host Steven worked with Carol in the 1990s in the trading room at Credit Suisse in London. By then, as well as trading Carol was providing analysis and advisory based on her technical analysis work. Carol was never afraid to make a big call and had a fantastic eye for markets. Her work and philosophy about markets and price action were to have a big influence on Steven's work and career as a trader. Carol now produces an outstanding technical analysis advisory service on many markets to thousands of subscribers around the world including; Banks, Hedge Funds, Asset Management Firms as well as to Private and Retail Traders. In addition, Carol trains and mentors’ traders and continues to trade for herself. In this interview Carol talks about being a Technical Trader, her passion for markets and how she uses technical analysis as a tool to find value in markets. Carol also talks about the way the industry treats, serves, markets to and in many cases rips-off retail traders.Carol has a unique style and is extremely outspoken and forthright in her opinions. In this podcast she doesn’t hold back, firing from the hip and at those who mislead retail traders. This is a great interview which will educate and enthral traders and analysts at all levels, across all markets. To know more about Carol and her work: Her website is: http://charmertrading.co.uk/Her YouTube Channel is in collaboration with Markets.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQDjlcwUhOk Her Twitter Handle is @charmertradingShe can be also be found on FX Street https://www.fxstreet.com/author/carol-harmer AlphaMind: Powering Performance in Global MarketsAlphaMind brings powerful change, growth and development to people and businesses within global markets.Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.