The AlphaMind Podcast - Jason Shapiro – Through Trader Hell and Back, to Market Wizard.

Jason Shapiro talks passionately about trading and his painful learning experiences over a 30 year 

career, which took him from early success, to flat broke, to eventually becoming an acclaimed Market Wizard.  

30 years of trading success brought Jason Shapiro to the attention of Jack Schwager, who was looking for new interview subjects for the latest instalment of his brilliant series of Market Wizards books ‘Unknown Market Wizard’. Shapiro’s chapter in the book is called ‘The Contrarian’, which tells you pretty much all you need to know about his approach and style. 

In this episode, Jason opens up with about his trading approach, his contrarian philosophy and a whole host of topics around the trading process which listeners will find fascinating. 

Jason talks passionately about trading and his work. Some of the themes Jason talks about include: Why he is a contrarian. How being a contrarian is not the same as being countertrend. Finding your edge. The importance of getting the process right. Being objective in your views. How market’s discount the news. Using the Commitment of Trader’s report. And a host of themes which will inspire and fascinate the listener.

Jason really opens up with great honesty about the realities of trading, of how he has been to hell and back more than once, the pain of losing, the learning experiences of becoming successful then losing it all, the journey and path to better process and practice, of how trading success is ‘the long game’.

This is one of those interviews which is full of nuggets and lessons from beginning to end. Do not switch this episode off early, because it just gets hotter is it goes along. 

Jason also talks about the Crowded Market Report, a Futures trading education website which focuses on and supports traders in developing a unique contrarian approach. Also full kudos to the Crowded Market Report, who donate a portion of their proceeds to the Charlestown Early Learning Center, a non-profit organization, to provide a high quality, affordable educational program for 3, 4, and 5 year old children in the local community. 

You can learn more Jason at the Crowded Market report here: https://www.crowdedmarketreport.com/about/

You can follow them on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/Crowded_Mkt_Rpt

And connect with them on Linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cmr-publishing/

Episode Links: 

🎧 Podcast:https://link.chtbl.com/Shapiro
📺 YouTube:https://youtu.be/5R6TWXAkhlo

 
The AlphaMind Podcast
The AlphaMind podcast is co-hosted by Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall, market veterans with over seven decades between them in the financial markets. To find out more visit the AlphaMind podcast website.

The AlphaMind Podcast is produced in partnership with 'The Society of Technical Analysts'.

Followers of the AlphaMind Podcast can gain an exclusive GBP 100 (or local currency equivalent) on the full cost of the Society of Technical Analysts world beating Home Study Course and Home Study Course and Diploma programme. Go to this link to find out more.

Sign-Up for the AlphaMind Newsletter
The AlphaMind Newsletter is a free bi-weekly email, that explores how people develop, cultivate and grow optimal mindsets, behaviours and attitude for better and more productive performance when engaged in risk taking activities in Financial Markets. Sign-up here.

AlphaMind Trader Coaching Programmes.
The AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching Programme
The AlphaMind Peak Performance Trading Programme

To find our more about the programmes email info@alpha-mind

AlphaMind Podcast Episode 59: Chris Camillo - Market Wizard: Finding Treasure in the Markets.

Our guest this week is Chris Camillo, a unique and quite astonishing trader. Chris was recently featured in the Jack Schwager’s new book, ‘Unknown Market Wizards’. The title chapter for Chris’s interview was ‘Neither’, and it referred to Chris’s approach to trading, which didn’t make use of neither Fundamental Analysis nor Technical Analysis.

Chris uses a unique approach to trading which he calls Social Arbitrage. It could best be described as ‘Observational Awareness’. Chris is also a big fan of the work of Peter Lynch, one of the legends of investing and author of one of the most influential books on trading and investing, ‘One up on Wall Street. Like Lynch, Chris seeks to find the long shots from which can produce "tenbaggers", trades or investments that have strong growth potential compared to the initial investment. However, unlike Lynch, Chris doesn’t crawl through company financial data, investigate the make-up of the board, or find opportunities within company accounts, instead he looks for information from the social environment that detects change early and then connects that change to investable opportunities.

Chris has achieved incredible success in trading by searching out for new trends, without needing to carry out any fundamental analysis or technical analysis. He looks for information imbalances which find cheap value and exits when he gets what he considers ‘information parity’.

In this interview Chris shares his passion with us, and talks about the challenges of trading, the advantages of being a retail investor, his love of the treasure hunt, and his dislike for trading using standard practices. He also tells us about the company he bought and sold ‘Ticker Tag’, which he would use to analyse twitter data for social arbitrage opportunities and identifying new trends hidden within the conversations on Twitter.

We had a lot of fun with Chris on this great chat. As you will hear, Chris is full of passion for what he does in his work and in life in general. He also is involved increasingly in philanthropic causes and raising money for charity and plans to move his trading into a foundation to invest and make money for paediatric causes that are close to his heart.

You can find out more about Chris at the following resources:

Chris YouTube Channel
And their Twitter handle @DumbMoneyTV
Chris’s own Twitter handle is @chriscamillo

To hear a Soundbite of the Podcast, listen here:

Podcast Episode links: 

🎧Main Link

🎧‬iTunes

🎧‬Spotify

🎧‬YouTube

The AlphaMind Podcast 

The AlphaMind podcast is co-hosted by Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall, market veterans with over seven decades between them in the financial markets. The podcast delves into the lives and stories of extraordinary guests whose experiences provide a fresh and powerful lens through which to understand the mental, emotional, psychological and behavioural challenges people face when encountering risk and uncertainty in financial markets. To find out more visit the AlphaMind podcast website. 

The AlphaMind Podcast is produced in partnership with 'The Society of Technical Analysts'.

The Sign-Up for the AlphaMind Newsletter

The AlphaMind Newsletter is a free bi-weekly email, that explores how people develop, cultivate and grow optimal mindsets, behaviours and attitude for better and more productive performance when engaged in risk taking activities in Financial Markets.

Sign-up here.

The AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching Programme

Our powerful Trader Performance Coaching Programme focuses on helping people develop and improve the key risk skills, abilities and mindsets which contribute to trading performance mastery.

This programme makes use of our unique and powerful ‘Human Alpha Performance Model’ which helps illuminate the human aspects of the risk process as people navigate their way through the Financial Markets. The model helps people make sense of their behaviours when taking and managing risk in the financial markets, whilst the coaching helps people to make key changes and adjustments which drives growth in risk capability and personal performance.

This programme has been delivered over the past 10 years to people at many of the world’s leading trading and investment firms.

Click here to find our more about the programme, or email info@alpharcubed.com or steven.goldstein@alpharcubed.com.

AlphaMind is a collaborative project between Steven Goldstein of AlphaRCubed Ltd and Mark Randall of The Mark Randall Consultancy.

AlphaMind Podcast Episode 58: Marsten Parker - Market Wizard: The Spirit of Experimentation

Marsten Parker is one of the featured traders in Jack Schwager’s Unknown Market Wizards, the 5th book in the iconic Market Wizards series.

Marsten is the only truly systematic trader featured in Unknown Market Wizards. Marsten started off as a software engineer before he developed his interest in trading after his company IPO’s and he found himself with a considerable shareholding. After leaving his company, and ignited by a new interest in markets, Marsten started trading fulltime in 1998. He soon moved from discretionary trading to systematic trading and developed his own 100% mechanical/quantitative strategies. 

His track record and consistency have been exceptional and over 22 years his average annual return has been in excess of 20%, with only 2 losing years.

In addition to trading, Marsten has developed his own Multi-Strategy Portfolio-Level Backtesting Software called RealTest. This software is unique in being able to test out multiple strategies at the same time 

A key feature of Marsten’s success has been his curiosity and willingness to experiment and try new things, constantly looking to build upon and improve previous iterations and to constantly test out his ideas and assumptions. Marsten terms this his ‘Spirit of Experimentation’ a term which perhaps describes one of the key aspects of Marsten’s mindset and overall philosophy, which has been a key pillar of his success.

One of the Real Surprises of this interview was, as you will hear, Marsten’s admission that he doesn’t even like trading that much, his real passion is designing and testing computer software. Trading if anything is the vehicle which allows him to pursue that passion. And perhaps somewhere within there maybe the secret to his success in that it ensures he does not get too attached and hung-up on the day to day outcomes of his trading. 

Despite his admission by Marsten, he has achieved outstanding performance and consistency as a trader and also software designer. In addition, Marsten is also a classically trained violinist, who had his interest in software design and the series of events which followed not occurred, we may have heard of him achieving success in a very different field.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

You can find out more about Marsten and his RealTest product at:

https://mhptrading.com

You can follow Marsten on Twitter: @mars10p

To hear a Soundbite of the Podcast, listen here:

Podcast Episode links: 

🎧Main Link

🎧‬iTunes

🎧‬Spotify

🎧‬YouTube

The AlphaMind Podcast

The AlphaMind podcast is co-hosted by Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall, market veterans with over seven decades between them in the financial markets. The podcast delves into the lives and stories of extraordinary guests whose experiences provide a fresh and powerful lens through which to understand the mental, emotional, psychological and behavioural challenges people face when encountering risk and uncertainty in financial markets. To find out more visit the AlphaMind podcast website. 

The AlphaMind Podcast is produced in partnership with 'The Society of Technical Analysts'.

The AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching Programme

Our powerful Trader Performance Coaching Programme focuses on helping people develop and improve the key risk skills, abilities and mindsets which contribute to trading performance mastery.

This programme makes use of our unique and powerful ‘Human Alpha Performance Model’ which helps illuminate the human aspects of the risk process as people navigate their way through the Financial Markets. The model helps people make sense of their behaviours when taking and managing risk in the financial markets, whilst the coaching helps people to make key changes and adjustments which drives growth in risk capability and personal performance.

This programme has been delivered over the past 10 years to people at many of the world’s leading trading and investment firms.

Click here to find our more about the programme, or email info@alpharcubed.com or steven.goldstein@alpharcubed.com.

AlphaMind is a collaborative project between Steven Goldstein of AlphaRCubed Ltd and Mark Randall of The Mark Randall Consultancy. 

STA Jack Schwager Fireside Chat - Nov 2020

Thank you to the Society of Technical Analysts for hosting last nights Live Webinar with myself and Jack Schwager. The audience asked some fantastic questions and my only regret was that we didn't have enough time to ask and answer everyone's questions. 

To view video of this live webinar - Click Here

The Webinar was timed to coincide with the launch of Jack Schwager's new book 'Unknown Market Wizards'. You can also hear our AlphaMind Podcast interview with Jack Schwager from last week at this link. or view it in our YouTube channel at this link. 

AlphaMind is a collaborative project between Steven Goldstein of AlphaRCubed Ltd and Mark Randall of The Mark Randall Consultancy 

The AlphaMind Newsletter

Why not sign up for the AlphaMind Newsletter? 

The AlphaMind Newsletter is a free bi-weekly email, that explores how people develop, cultivate and grow optimal mindsets, behaviours and attitude for better and more productive performance when engaged in risk taking activities in Financial Markets.

Sign-Up Here

The AlphaMind Podcast

The AlphaMind podcast is co-hosted by Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall, market veterans with over seven decades between them in the financial markets. The podcast delves into the lives and stories of extraordinary guests whose experiences provide a fresh and powerful lens through which to understand the mental, emotional, psychological and behavioural challenges people face when encountering risk and uncertainty in financial markets. To find out more visit the AlphaMind podcast website. 

The AlphaMind Podcast is produced in partnership with 'The Society of Technical Analysts'.

Trader Performance Coaching Programme

Our powerful Trader Performance Coaching Programme focuses on helping people develop and improve the key risk skills, abilities and mindsets which contribute to trading performance mastery.

This programme makes use of our unique and powerful ‘Human Alpha Performance Model’ which helps illuminate the human aspects of the risk process as people navigate their way through the Financial Markets. The model helps people make sense of their behaviours when taking and managing risk in the financial markets, whilst the coaching helps people to make key changes and adjustments which drives growth in risk capability and personal performance.

This programme has been delivered over the past 10 years to people at many of the world’s leading trading and investment firms.

Click here to find our more about the programme, or email 

info@alpharcubed.com or steven.goldstein@alpharcubed.com.

AlphaMind Podcast Episode 57: Jack Schwager: Unknown Market Wizards

Jack Schwager, author of the legendary Market Wizards series of books, talks about his latest book, Unknown Market Wizards, more than 3 decades after the publication of the original Market Wizard’s book.

This is the podcast interview we have been waiting to do all year. We have been huge fans of the Market Wizards series of books since the first one landed with a splash in 1989. That was a time when trading had first exploded beyond the confines of the old-fashioned stock and commodity exchanges. There were new futures floors, new instruments, and rapid expansion of trading activities buoyed by the growth of futures and derivatives contracts and juiced up by the early computerised trading systems.

Through a series of interviews for the book Jack Schwager introduced the world to trading legends, until then relatively unknown outside their small corner of the world. Traders such as Michael Marcus, who busted time after time after time, before finally growing $30,000 into $80,000,000 over a 10-year period. We learned of the wisdom of Ed Seykota, the feats of Paul Tudor-jones, and the skills of Richard Dennis. Jack introduced us to the Trading Turtles, and to many quotes which even now people repeat over and over again as inspirations. 

Schwager followed up the original book with 3 more outstanding versions, the New Market Wizards, Stock Market Wizards, and Hedge Fund Wizards, and now he has done it again, taking us in one sense back to the beginning and in another sense into the 2020s, with Unknown Market Wizards.

We were delighted to have a chance to talk with chat, and for once Jack the interviewer, become Jack the interviewee. You can hear the fantastic insights Jack shares with us in his own words from years of talking to and working with the best around.
It was a pleasure for us to this interview, and we are sure you will get something from it, whether you are new to the scene, or like us, have been around the markets for decades. 

To hear a Soundbite of the Podcast, listen here:

You can find out more about Jack Schwager at his website https://jackschwager.com/

Jack is also a partner of Fundseeder, a financial data and analytics company which provides a free trader platform that provides performance analytics, data tracking, and monetization opportunities for promising traders. You can find out more about Fundseeder at https://fundseeder.com

Podcast Episode links: 

🎧Main Link

🎧‬iTunes

🎧‬Spotify

The AlphaMind Podcast

The AlphaMind podcast is co-hosted by Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall, market veterans with over seven decades between them in the financial markets. The podcast delves into the lives and stories of extraordinary guests whose experiences provide a fresh and powerful lens through which to understand the mental, emotional, psychological and behavioural challenges people face when encountering risk and uncertainty in financial markets. To find out more visit the AlphaMind podcast website. 

The AlphaMind Podcast is produced in partnership with 'The Society of Technical Analysts'.

The AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching Programme

Our powerful Trader Performance Coaching Programme focuses on helping people develop and improve the key risk skills, abilities and mindsets which contribute to trading performance mastery.

This programme makes use of our unique and powerful ‘Human Alpha Performance Model’ which helps illuminate the human aspects of the risk process as people navigate their way through the Financial Markets. The model helps people make sense of their behaviours when taking and managing risk in the financial markets, whilst the coaching helps people to make key changes and adjustments which drives growth in risk capability and personal performance.

This programme has been delivered over the past 10 years to people at many of the world’s leading trading and investment firms.

Click here to find our more about the programme, or email info@alpharcubed.com or steven.goldstein@alpharcubed.com.

AlphaMind is a collaborative project between Steven Goldstein of AlphaRCubed Ltd and Mark Randall of The Mark Randall Consultancy. 

Mastering Psychological and Emotional aspects is critical in trading.

With conditions very quiet yesterday, (though this morning seems a touch more spicey) I thought I would break from my usual analysis and instead comment on one of my favourite subjects 'Trader Psychology'.

Understanding and appreciating the psychological and emotional aspects of trading, is in my opinion probably the most important part of trading, if one is to truly be successful over the long term. A trader could possess the best trading system/method, the optimum risk and money management techniques, and a deep knowledge of markets, however if this is not underscored by the correct mental attitude it could all count for nothing. Plenty has been written on this subject over many decades, yet achieving and mastering the psychological aspects of trading is something that still eludes the majority of traders. In ‘One-Way Pockets’, a book written in 1917 by Don Guron, which looked into the activities of the most active traders at a brokerage firm, Guron wrote ‘The fact that impressed me most forcibly was the trading methods… ………..may be classed with a number of psychological phenomena that cause the great majority of speculators to do the opposite of what they ought to do’. Later in the book Guyon says, ‘The man who applies this or that method successfully must be able to exercise patience and self-control to withstand all forms of mental temptation, to ignore the dictates of fear and greed.’ Jesse L.Livermore touches on it too in ‘Reminiscences of a Stock Operator’ published in 1923. ‘The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, or for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.’

In the acclaimed classic trading book Market Wizards published in 1989, Jack D.Schwager conducted a series of interview with successful traders. In the preface to the book Schwager asks ‘What sets these traders apart?’ He answers this by saying that ‘Most people think that winning in the markets has something to do with finding the secret formula. The truth is that any common denominator among the traders I interviewed had more to do with attitude than approach’. In the sequel ‘The New Market Wizards’, Schwager says ‘The secret to success in the market lies not in discovery of some incredible indicator or elaborate theory; rather it lies within each individual’. I could go on but I think I would be labouring the point.


The factors I mentioned earlier; trading system/method, money/risk management, and knowledge of markets, are the essential pillars of a successful trading approach. Yet there is nothing is more crucial than to understand oneself and the psychological aspects of trading if one is to overcome the many self-induced obstacles that contribute to trader underperformance.

I will paraphrase Bruce Lee* here, 'To know oneself is to study oneself in action with the markets'.

*Bruce Lee is of course better known as the great martial arts exponent and actor of the early 70s, however he was also an accomplished student and great advocate of philosophy. His core belief was to 'Know Yourself', and the quote I paraphrased originally went ' To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person'.