Episodes

In this second interview with David Tait, David talks about fear in trading and how best to cope and manage with the extreme fear which is part of terrain of trading. When it comes to fear, and fear in trading, there are few people better qualified in the world to talk about this subject than David. David has sat at the top table of the financial markets for near 4 decades. He was formerly head of FX and Proprietary trading at Goldman Sachs. He has also been Global Head of Macro trading at UBS ...

David Tait had a fearlessness which made him one of the world’s top traders. This edge helped establish him as one of the leading figures in trading in the financial markets. David success led to him becoming Global Head of FX Trading at Goldman Sachs and he went on to hold other major trading and leadership roles at investment banks Credit Suisse and UBS and was an original partner at Hedge Fund Bluecrest Capital. David is now the CEO of the World Gold Council and is an Independent Member of th...

25 years ago this week, Barings Bank, founded in 1763, was brought down by the calamitous and illegal trading activities of one of its futures traders, Nick Leeson. Working from their Singapore office, Lesson’s accumulated trading losses amounted to over £800 billion or close to $1.4 billion at the time. Leeson had been hiding trading losses for the previous 2 1/2 years in a false account he had created, the now infamous 88888 account. For a while these losses were of a size that was concealable...

Anthony Crudele started as a trader on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in the late 1990s. He was one of the youngest members of the CME, originally trading the S&P e-mini futures. Anthony was surrounded by some of the most influential traders and brokers in the financial markets and gained huge knowledge, experience and know-how which helped him develop his own successful trading processes which he then adapted to screen based electronic trading. Having struggled and then fina...

Don't let the title of this episode de-motivate you. The more you know about your brain and how it functions, the greater the likelihood you can make positive adjustments which can drive superior trading and investment performance. In this week’s episode we are in conversation with Dr Daniel Crosby. Daniel is a Behavioural Finance author who has written several best-selling books and is one of the leading authorities on the practical application of Behavioural Finance in the Financial Market's w...

In this week’s episode we are in conversation with Paul Wallace. Paul is a private UK based trader, who taught himself trading after getting attracted to internet stocks in the early 2000s. Prior to that Paul was a fighter controller in the Royal Air Force, and today, as well as working as a trader, and training and coaching other traders, Paul also runs a programme called The Veterans’ Trader Project (VTP) which provides introductory training for ex-forces personnel looking to move into a new c...

In this week’s episode we are in conversation with David Keller. This is an episode we can only describe as 'Rich': Rich in insight, rich in wisdom, rich in depth, and rich in meaningful dialogue and discussion. David is someone who comes with a huge dose of wisdom, knowhow, knowledge and experience about how markets work, and how people in markets function and think. David came to markets from an alternative route to many having studied as a classically trained musician and student of psycholog...

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 place...

Jim Simons is the most successful trader of the last 3 decades by a country mile. Simons founded the Renaissance Technologies the secretive Hedge Fund which employs some of the world’s most brilliant mathematical geniuses. Their flagship Medallion fund has returned a staggering 66% annually, before fees, since 1988. In November 2019, Wall Street journalist and author Greg Zuckerman published his book which lifted the veil on Jim Simons and Renaissance. ‘ The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Si...

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...

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 fin...

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 t...

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 talk...

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 w...

Dana Cavalea was Strength, Conditioning and Performance Coach for the New York Yankees when they won the world series in 2009. Today he coaches leaders, executives, traders and investors in how to be in peak physical and mental condition to work in optimal states. As much as trading and investment relies on intellect and knowledge, they also rely massively on emotional intelligence and it could be said that they are performance activities arguably more so than they are intellectual activities. I...

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 lea...

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 wo...

James Brodie has been in and around trading for almost 3 decades. Starting in the early 90s, James worked on trading desks at leading investment banks, started his own hedge fund, built trading systems, taught people and educated himself about technical analysis, behavioural finance, coding, and currently creates and writes algorithmic trading systems for a hedge fund, whilst still trading for himself. This conversation covers a broad range of topics and themes about trading, markets, human beha...

In this episode of the AlphaMind podcast we interview veteran retail trader Greg Gossett. Greg is well into his third decade of retail trading, proving that it can be done, and can be done well. In this excellent interview Greg shares with Steven and Mark his thoughts on the 3 key things he wished he had known when he started trading that he knows now. These 3 aspects are cornerstones to his trading method and his reflections on them are powerful insights in trading which carry important lessons...

This is the second part of the interview Mark and Steve conducted with retail trader JJ aka vwaptrader1. In the first part of this interview JJ shared stories of his time as a Penny Stocks MarketMaker in a world immortalised in the movie ‘Wolf of Wall Street’. JJ talked about his rise and fall in that world and some of the scandalous behaviours and practices which were part of that world. He also detailed his move into retail trading, his initial struggles and the shock to the system being ‘on t...

Former Penny Stocks Market-Maker, turned Retail Trader, Trader Educator and host of the superb ‘Confessions of a Market-Maker’ podcast JJ aka 'vwaptrader1' talks to Steven and Mark about his colourful career, his time as a stock manipulator, how he helped take companies private, his rise and fall, and his new career retail trading. JJ spent 2 decades working in the mad and crazy world of market-making in penny stocks which was immortalised in the classic film ‘Wolf of Wall Street’. In that time ...

Mark and Steve talk with Australian Trader Chris Tate. Chris joined the markets in the 1980s forging a long and very successful career in the Financial Markets. Chris now works with some colleague in a business called ‘the Trading Game’ which focus on educating and training traders in the Psychology of Trading and Behavioural Finance. In this very in-depth interview, we explore a range of themes which at the core explore how people can bring the best of themselves to their work. At the beginning...

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 f...

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 i...