The AlphaMind Podcast

Merritt Black is Head of Proprietary Trading at US firm SMB futures. In this deep and very poignant interview, Merritt shares his reflections and thoughts on a wide array of themes and aspects about the realities of trading and the painful journey which can so often delight, but at times can also rip the very life from you.Merritt does not hold back, he bares his soul in this interview, bringing up painful memories which were vital steps on his journey to trading success.  This interview is so full of wisdom and insight for traders of all levels. New traders will learn so much which will inspire and support them, and will hear some of the harsh realities about trading which they must start to internalise and embrace if they are going to overcome the odds and succeed. Seasoned and experienced traders will resonate with much of what Merritt shares and can use this to contrast their own journeys in the on-going battle with self, ego and markets.Some of the themes which arise include: The battle with self, developing your edge, looking at your successes to find your own source code, how true and deep confidence arise, recovering from failures, unrealistic expectations and misconceptions that there is a linear formulaic approach. The random nature of markets, being self-aware, developing self whilst also making it less about yourself and more about the markets. The pain of trading, how low and worthless trading can make you feel, recovering from those lows and growing stronger.  You will be amazed at how much wisdom is shared in just 45 minutes. You may want to have a pen ready to take down notes, because you will learn things from this interview that will enable you to be wiser and smarter.  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.

In this podcast, we explore the purpose of the AlphaMind project, which aims to help people from across the Financial Markets both new and seasoned to develop and cultivate mindsets for success in their work as traders and investment professionals. We also share out thoughts on some of the amazing interviews we have conducted in recent weeks with the following masters of the markets. Mark Hutchinson -Trading Success against the odds: An FX trader and mentor who has found his own way to success in currency markets and has excelled against the odds.  Garth Friesen - Lesson from a Hedge Fund master: One of the world’s leading Hedge Fund managers, who oversees a $6 billion fund, shares his lessons for traders from over 20 years at the cutting edge of markets.  Adam Nash - 3 Decades of Adaption & Success: Adam is one of the few to traders to successfully adapt from the futures floor of the 90s to screen-based trading and then to continue to outperform in the modern world of the algoes.  Dr Brett Steenbarger - Trading & Spirituality: Brett Steenbarger, the world leading expert on trading psychology explores the human battle between self and ego. Brett also discusses his new free online book for traders; ‘Radical Renewal’.Clive Lambert - A Technical Analysis Master: Clive shares strong opinions about how many people misuse and abuse technical analysis and how this undermines their trading performance. Mandi Pour Rafsenjani – Developing Traders from the Inside & working with a Market Wizard: Trader and coach, Mandi discusses trader development, errors and mistakes, working with Linda Raschke, and women in trading. 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.

Mandi is a Trader and Coach from Australia; she works with new and experienced traders helping them develop the inner mindset skills to achieve success and to progress to higher levels of performance. In this interview Mandi shares her journey into trading and how she came to work with traders as a coach. She talks about the classic mistakes and errors she has experienced in her own trading as well as amongst her clients. Also, some of the qualities she has witnesses amongst highly successful traders. We also explore Women in trading, some of the differences between female and male traders, and some of the hurdles they face in male dominated environments. She also tells of her time recently spent with Linda Raschke, one of the world’s leading women traders and an original ‘Market Wizard’. This is a fascinating interview which covers a wide range of topics including mindset, personality, structure, ego, emotions, gender, social network, identity, relationships, environment, routine and habits and how these come back to impact personal trading performance.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.

There are few more informed people in the world about the nexus of technical analysis and trader behaviour in the financial markets than Clive Lambert. Clive is one of the world’s leading Technical Analysts, he has a thorough understanding of the way markets work and how people work with them to achieve success. Clive's analysis can be found in trading rooms across the globe and is used by leading traders from the worlds of commodities, energy, FX, bonds, stock indices and more. Clive is also a leading figure in the Society of Technical Analysis and is a lecturer on their diploma programme which runs at the London School of Economics. In this interview, co-hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall have a lively and at times deeply engaging conversation with Clive about his work, and about how people use, misuse and abuse technical analysis. They also explore some of the how and why behind technical analysis and price action methods and how people use them effectively and productively. This interview is both extremely interesting and highly informative. 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.

In this episode Dr Brett Steenbarger shares his profound insights from a career working as a psychologist with traders at some of the world’s leading hedge funds and proprietary trading firms. Brett Steenbarger is one of the best minds in the field of trading and investment psychology. There are so many great insights in this episode that you may want to take notes, possibly re-listen and ultimately try to internalise some of the lessons into your own trading behaviours. Dr Steenbarger talks about the similarities between trading, the medical profession and the military specials forces where people are inundated with vast amounts of information and complex rapidly changing situations and environments. Dr Steenbarger also talks about his new project, an online book called ‘Radical Renewal’, which focuses on the spiritual aspects of trading and investment. This is a fascinating project which looks at how people can harness insights from spiritual fields to improve how they deal with the challenges posed by the clash between the ‘self’ and the 'ego'.This conversation expands into a profound discussion on the spiritual aspects of trading and touches on themes such as positive psychology, how to better yourself, how to focus on your strengths and how to use this to get into the zone where you can be at your most effective. 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.

From a small town in Canada, to a trading role at Merrill Lynch to the CEO of a $6 billion hedge fund and a member of NY Federal Reserve Investor Advisory Committee, Garth Friesen has had a unique journey to the top table of Financial markets.Being a successful trader, Garth shares his insights and perspectives on what it he believes it takes to succeed in the Financial Markets and shares his journey into financial markets. Garth also talks about his book ‘Bite the Ass Off a Bear’, which recounts his journey into trading, his experiences working on trading desks and his time sitting with some of the world’s greatest traders and investors at the NY Federal Reserve Investor Advisory Committee. This interview is full of great lessons and wisdom for traders at all levels of experience, from the novice just starting out to the experienced investment professional at the top of his or her game.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.

In this episode co-hosts Steven and Mark talk to Futures Trader Adam Nash.   Adam has achieved extraordinary success in a trading career lasting almost 3 decades. At one-point Adam was the 3rd largest Euribor trader by volume on the London Futures markets.   In this excellent interview Adam discusses his journey from working in a bank middle-office in the 1980s, to becoming a bank trader, to moving to trade futures on the LIFFE (London International Financial Futures Exchange) floor, and finally moving to screen-based trading.   Adam shares his experiences, his up and downs, and the lessons he has learned along the way. He also talks about some of the learnings he picked up backing and mentoring young traders and some of the mistakes he sees them consistently make.   This is an interview has so much richness and learning for traders of all types and levels of experience and age. Adam is someone who has been there, had the knocks, bounced back, and gone on to achieve extraordinary success, all whilst remaining humble and grounded.   Please enjoy this lively hour-long episode.     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.

Mark Hutchinson is an outstanding FX Trader who has achieved great success over the past few years.  In this excellent interview, Mark shares his journey into trading with AlphaMind co-hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall.Mark talks about the struggle of the early years, the trial and error processes, his dyslexia, and the learning process he went through over 4 ½ years before finally starting to succeed.Mark’s passion for trading shines through in this interview, a passion he has also turned into a very successful mentoring and training business, Falcon FX, with over a thousand members across the world. This interview is a great discussion on topics to vital to trading success, including: The importance of having a great process. Minimising the impact of money and how money creates limiting beliefs.The importance of forecasting and scenario planning around these forecasts.How Mark's engineering background and mindset support his trading. The role of randomness in trading and managing within sequential randomness. Walking away from bad situations and resetting.  Characteristic of those who become successful.The importance of having the right mindset.The error of rushing to make money too quickly.How ego can kill performance. Learning to see trading as a probability game. How Growth Mindset plays out in trading. The importance of Self-Management. Dealing with losses and setback. Retail trading versus institutional trading, and analyst v trader. Developing a bulletproof mindset.The role of the subconscious in trading. 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 week’s episode of the AlphaMind Podcast sees co-host Steven Goldstein musing over a webinar he gave to a group of Students from some of China’s Top universities. The students are preparing their applications for US graduate programmes and were keen to explore more about the world of Interest Rate Trading, Originally, we were aiming to record the webinar and release it directly as a podcast. Unfortunately, the sound quality was not strong enough. Instead in this episode, Steven shares his responses to the questions from the students. These covered a wide range of topics which will be of interest to new as well as seasoned traders.Questions asked include: What is the difference between a Market-Maker and a Proprietary Trader? Do traders at hedge funds also do Market-Making?Do Market-Makers just make Bid-Offer spread, or do they also take risk?What is the role of a Salesperson? Why can’t Market-Makers act as Salespeople? What criteria do clients consider, before deciding to trade with a Bank?If clients get good prices from traders, does that mean they will find it harder to make money?What are the different Trading styles used by traders?Is being in an analyst or research role dull?Is there too much Maths in investment banks?How do traders stay within the rules needed to execute effectively?What is the career path like for traders? Do you have any advice to students going for interviews?Thank you to Jing Liu for arranging the webinar. Jing coaches college students in china through the graduate application process. 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.

Steven Goldstein, one of the world’s leading trader performance coaches is interviewed by the podcast Co-Host Mark RandallIn this podcast Steven shares his journey from his early days Trading Rates and FX in a Japanese banks in London in the mid-80s, to his time working on the proprietary trading desk at Credit Suisse and later Commerzbank and American Express, before opting to start a career as a Performance coach working with Traders and Investment Professionals.Steven shares his philosophy on how he helps traders to break past the self-imposed barriers we put which hold us back. In this interview Steven discusses: How coaching had helped him make a mid-career leap in trading performance. What is ‘Inner Game’ performance coaching.How does it differ from conventional forms of coaching? How Non-Directive coaching powers performance. Working with teamsHow the more successful traders are more likely to ask for coaching. Coaching as a tool to develop Growth Mindset.  Understanding the Systemic context of traders. The limits of learning trading Psychology, versus working in your own personal Psychology. How he helped traders recover from negative mindsets.  How Relationships, Belonging, Ego. Why Mindset is everything and developing and Mindset for Alpha is vital. Lessons from sports. – British cycling and micro improvements. Embracing the complex.To know more contact Steven – steven.goldstein@alpharcubed.com 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.