Better System Trader

On this BST live show, Ivan from Ivanhoff Capital joins us to discuss “Short-term swing trading techniques”. Here are some of the topics you’ll discover in this episode: The 2 most important factors in swing trading, Why short-term trading is better than longer-term trading, Measuring market environment and detecting changes, How to find the hot sectors in the market, Shorting stocks and adapting to market corrections and downtrends, Swing trading in choppy markets, Stacking the odds in your favour, High conviction setups, breakouts vs dips, protecting profits, trailing stops, time stops, swing trading psychology and much more.   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All content produced by Better System Trader is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute trading or investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

On this BST live show, Rob Carver from systematicmoney.org joins us to discuss “3 ways traders kill trading strategies”. Here are just some of the topics you’ll discover in this episode: What can go wrong with strategies in live trading, The impact of model complexity on prediction error, (and are simple models really better than more complicated ones - the answer may surprise you!), The dangers of overstated backtest performance, The impact of historic costs on backtest results, The 3 types of overfitting, including 1 that most traders don’t even realise they’re doing, and how to reduce their impact on your trading models, Strategy robustness and letting data define complexity, The overfitting "levels of sin", Correcting for the "multiple testing problem", Fitting metrics, sample size, data quality, prediction error and much more.   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All content produced by Better System Trader is for informati

On this episode of BST Live, Doc Ahrens from Trendline Dynamics joins us to discuss “Effective techniques to identify trends”, including: The Macro-trend Analyzer indicator and 3 ways to use moving averages for macro trend analysis, Why it's important to have simple trading solutions and what failures in aerospace can teach us about trading strategies,  Studies that conclude technical indicators don't work, Using visual confirmation to understand indicator reaction to market scenarios, The 3 types of support and resistance,  How to draw trendlines properly, why it's impossible to “understand the market”, the importance of persistence in trading and loads more.   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All content produced by Better System Trader is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute trading or investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

So, the verdict is in… Afrotechmods says: “I think this is the most informative guest you have ever had! Thank you both.” What am I talking about? On this episode of BST Live, Stefan Friedrichowski from JFD Bank joined us to discuss “how to build Mean Reversion trading strategies”, and it was an absolute cracker! Even if you’re not a mean reversion trader, you have to see this one.  Here’s a small sample of the tips and insights you’ll discover: The "alarm signal" that got Stefan interested in Mean Reversion trading, How to determine if a market is good for Mean Reversion or not, How to reduce noise and increase the information content in trading charts,  The danger of using a Mean which moves too fast, How the distribution of 2 bar combinations gives clues about potential trading edges, Adjusting the Mean length based on the timeframe of the chart,  Stop-loss vs take profit size, trading without a stop loss, degrees of freedom, statistical significance, sample size, entries, exits, and loads more.   Discla

Ever wondered how to turn $10k into $100k (or more) in just 2 years (or less)? Many traders have, especially early in their careers… But how do professional traders achieve superior returns while also protecting capital.  On this week’s episode of BST Live, Laurent Bernut from Alpha Secure Capital joined us to discuss “Superior returns from superior risk management”, and a new approach to risk management where you can put risk appetite on autopilot, protect capital and achieve superior returns. Here are just some of the tips you’ll discover: How to turn 10k into 1 million (or more) in just 2 years..., How unrealistic trading expectations set you up for failure, What is "superior" risk management and why investors are like teenage girls, Concavity and Convexity Oscillators for dynamic risk management, Position sizing with small accounts, Why you should let the market dictate the risk for you, How to judge the tradability of a strategy, plus Emotional capital vs financial capital and which is more critical, Ri

With 2020 coming to a close, we’ve got a great opportunity to stop for a breather (phew!), look at some of the craziness that has happened this year, and identify how we can use those insights to improve our trading even more in the future. On this episode of BST Live Mike Grech from Quantopolis.com joins us to discuss 2020 and how we can better deal with market uncertainty. Here are just some of the tips you’ll discover: Why 2020 has produced 5 years of market action in 1 year, How this year has produced outsized returns for some trading styles and what could happen next, Understanding your strategy, how it reacts to markets and when to stop trading it, The future impacts of 2020 on backtesting, re-optimization and quant trading, What could crash an overvalues stockmarket if a global pandemic can't, Tail-risk hedging during volatility environments, The drawbacks and dangers of using indicators in trading, plus… The psychology of gains and losses, the information we don't see as traders, the best risk manage

“Randomness has the greatest negative impact on single entry trading strategies.” – Brian Miller (Optimized Trading). In this new episode of BST Live, Brian Miller from Optimized Trading joins us to discuss “3 under-utilized techniques to build dramatically better trading strategies”.  Brian shared some unique ideas for building (and improving) trading strategies. Here are just some of the tips you’ll discover: Basic market classifications most traders use (that miss the complete picture), Designing models for specific market classifications Managing trades as market classifications change, How to get started building multi-structured strategies, Matching the strategy style to the market, Multi-value, multi-entry strategies, and diversification, Adaptive money management using market classifications, plus… Trade frequency, trending vs mean reverting, intelligent allocation, and much more.   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All

“There are literally hundreds of statistically valid patterns in every market.” – Scott Andrews (Investiquant). So, where are they hiding out, how can we find them and how can we determine the patterns are actually valid and not just random noise in the market? In this new episode of BST Live, Scott Andrews from Investiquant joins us to discuss how to find statistical edges to improve your trading. Here are just some of the tips you’ll discover: How to find potential edges and which markets are best, Why it’s more important to spend time watching and studying the market than actually trading it, The "3 C's rule" to separate genuine signals from the noise, How long can pattern edges actually last and do dead edges ever recover? How to track the health of an edge using t-score, Using "traditional" indicators in patterns, How to deal with drawdowns (and possibly the trading quote of the year!), The "Speed Bump Rule" to manage drawdowns, plus… Allocating capital, edges in stocks, building pattern libraries, ense

Is the trend REALLY your friend? And if so, why do so many trend traders fail? Global futures trader Brent Penfold joins us to discuss trend trading tactics, including: • Why trend trading is so difficult for traders, • Why traders should be careful using indicators, • How to overcome challenging periods in trend trading, • The surprising robustness of really old strategies, • Why bright people struggle in the markets, • Drawdown, risk, position-sizing, volatility cycles, data mining, and much more.   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All content produced by Better System Trader is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute trading or investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

Quant Trader Alan Clement from Helix Trader discusses momentum trading & strategies, including: Why momentum trading is so popular and how it works, What makes a good trend indicator and the 4 best indicators to identify trends,  Why the moving average is not a good trend indicator, How to rank stocks by momentum and how many momentum stocks to hold in a portfolio, The danger of stops and using momentum for exits instead, How dual momentum protects during Bear markets and market crashes, Filtering out false signals in indicators, Plus, market regimes, shorting weak stocks, position sizing, and much more!   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All content produced by Better System Trader is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute trading or investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

With the US elections just days away, traders are thinking about how the markets may react to whatever news the elections may bring. Will we see a big selloff, wild swings in price, and huge spikes in volatility? Or do the markets typically deliver something else around election time? In this episode of BST Live, Perry Kaufman from Kaufman Signals joins us to discuss how to survive market selloffs, including: Historical returns around election days since 1924, The 2 types of prices shocks and the best approach to handling them,  The link between stock price and percentage change and why you should avoid trading low priced stocks, Should traders hedge to reduce risk, The dangers of Price Shocks on backtesting results (and how to avoid them), How to determine the volatility level where returns are no longer worth the risk, Plus, volatility parity, rebalancing, portfolio volatility, and much more!   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyon

Ever had a strategy that looked like it was broken and wondered if you should stop trading it or not? Strategy failure (or periods of poor performance) are just a part of trading, but how you deal with it can have a HA-YUGE impact on your overall results… so how do you detect when a strategy is failing? How do you work out if you should stop trading it or just give it some more time? In this episode of BST Live, trading champion Kevin Davey joins us to discuss how to detect when a strategy is failing, including: • Why looking at a single equity curve is not giving you the full picture, • How to determine the potential ranges of future strategy performance, • Using Statistical Process Control to monitor trading strategies and which metrics are best, • How Probability Cones can give traders a more informed view of strategy performance (and when a strategy could be broken), • What do to when a strategy over-performs (the answer may not be what you think!), • Should you turn a strategy back on if it recovers afte

Are our roles as traders coming to an end soon? Is AI and ML (that’s Machine Learning, not Money Laundering or Meat Loaf…) going to take over the trading world? Trading veteran Bob Pardo from Pardo Capital joins us to discuss these topics plus much more, including: How AI is missing common inputs used by human traders, Modeling the expertise of human traders using Expert Systems, The dangers of using computers to blindly create strategies, Retail edges vs Institutional edges and how private traders can compete, The lifespans of edges (are they getting shorter?), The Dynamic Statistical Profile of strategies and taking strategies offline, Correlations (and how correlation can be a 2-edge sword), Objective functions and when it doesn't matter which one you choose, Using performance feedback and indicators on equity curves, Adaptive trading systems, fitting your process to your objective and much more!   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for ev

DSP and Cycles expert John Ehlers, joins us to discuss all things optimization, including: Why optimization is a statistical process and how to assess the results properly (including what to look for at “the 50% line”), How much data you should REALLY use for reoptimization and why many traders use way too much data (and the impact it has on trading strategies), The 3 best fitness functions to use in reoptimization and the dangers of a popular metric that can lead to over trading, What the speed of optimization results can potentially tell you about strategy robustness, The only 2 things that count when assessing a strategy (yup, just 2!), Plus, much more. Also, if you want to discover more of John’s Cycles and DSP techniques, John is running his annual workshop for the very last time this year (he’s retiring to go fishing and build model aeroplanes). The workshop is run over 4 evenings (US time – Oct 19-23) and it’s 100% online so no travel or quarantine required. For more info, visit: http://bettersystemt

High-performance trading coach Steve Ward from TradeAtYourBest.com discusses: How to find the best opportunities during challenging times, Why shifting perspective is such a critical skill for high-performance, How to overcome internal resistance to become more adaptable, “Learning vs Earning” and how to improve your chances of longevity in trading, How to integrate being flexible with the “follow the system” approach of algo/systematic trading to be better prepared for whatever the market may hold, Key actions traders should be doing right now to prepare for an unknown future in the markets, Plus, many more practical tips to improve trading performance. And if you want even more practical tips on high-performance trading, you should check this one out: For the first time ever, Steve is running the 6-week "Trade At Your Best Trading Psychology Course" to teach private traders (he usually only works with institutional clients) the mindset and mental skills required to succeed in the markets, and close the ga

Nick Radge from TheChartist.com.au discusses how to achieve consistent equity growth using multiple layers of diversification. For more details about The Empowered Trader monthly newsletter, visit http://theempoweredtrader.com   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All content produced by Better System Trader is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute trading or investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.  

Cesar Alvarez from AlvarezQuantTrading.com discusses effective Market Regime techniques to improve strategy performance and reduce risk by only trading in the best market conditions.   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All content produced by Better System Trader is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute trading or investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

Details about what's next for BST and the special event being hosted this weekend.   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All content produced by Better System Trader is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute trading or investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

As I'm sure you've realised, I've taken a break from podcasting for the last year or so. I've been focusing on some other trading projects so I haven't released any new episodes for quite a while, but over that time I've received a lot of messages from traders hungry for more podcast episodes. Has Better System Trader finished? Is it coming back? I have some interesting news to share - take a listen.   Disclaimer: Trading in the financial markets involves a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. All content produced by Better System Trader is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute trading or investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

This podcast episode made me think back to the very first computer I bought in my high school days. We’re talking about the mid-1980, when computers were still relatively new. Actually, my first computer was a commodore 64 (how good were they!), which my parents bought me, but the first computer I actually bought myself was a pretty serious computer at the time. It cost about 3 or 4 thousand dollars, which back then was quite a bit of money. And this computer only had a fraction of the power that we have in our mobile phones these days, but back then it was one of the fastest you could get. Anyway, this computer had a special switch on the front of the case, it was called the 'Turbo' switch. I’m not exactly sure how it worked, but when some programs were running slow, I could flick the turbo switch on and it would accelerate the performance of the computer. And I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great if we could have a ‘Turbo’ switch for trading, where we could just flick the switch and instantly boost our perfo