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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.
[inaudible] .
Steve:Hello and welcome to the Alpha mind podcast. We may Steven Goldstein and my cohost Mark Randall. The Alpha One podcast is the first podcast, which focuses on the mindset aspects of trading and investing performance. Now this week we've got a very special guest. His name is Adam Nash is, I think the term ledge could be used to describe. Adam is a very successful futures trader. It's been trading for over 20 years in the London markets . He used to be the floor trader in the late nineties on the life page in London, London international financial futures exchange. And then he transitioned to offload when the market went electronic and became a fantastically successful trader. And at one point was amongst the largest traders in Europe. I've also known Adam for many years. We worked together in the mid eighties , so very long time ago. And um, you know, it's been great seeing a transition to become a really successful and outstanding trader. So without further ado, please join myself and cohost Mt. Rando in welcoming Adam to this week's podcast.
Speaker 1:[inaudible]
Speaker 2:Hi Adam. Welcome to the a Alpha from podcast. I'm all right . Thank you very much. How are you? Fine, thank you. Good, good . It's been a while since we spoke.
Speaker 3:It has just been fantastic. We've had a very long time.
Speaker 2:Right. You're your price, your price in south despite now aren't you?
Speaker 3:Um, material resident. Uh, so I live in , um, I live with papa house in my bio and got placed in chip as well, but I'm imminently moving to Lisbon .
Speaker 2:Let's , let me choose you to me quickly . Mount Rancho ,
Mark R:when I stay us, my wife is Spanish, so. Okay. Your frustration in Spanish sheet, he probably thinks speak Spanish to me though. It depends on how much real corona at the drink. Right. And what'd He Salvadorian ? Not say much, I believe . Well, you don't know. My brother's in Lowe's . Wait . Okay, fair enough. And I've in solely Sonbria I'll pass five in the morning before going hunting. Okay. Click hunting . Didn't happen. It's just one big barbecue and drink up in the countryside very early. Very nice.
Speaker 2:So right for this podcast , no roles really. We're just going to ask you a couple of questions to prompt some , uh , discussions and uh , you know, I think we'll just see where it goes from there . So , um, and he can any concerns from you before we start?
Speaker 3:I'll try. I'll try not to throw too many exp in, but is there a rum ? Said I'll try. I'll try and keep this clean as possible. But is there a zero was just way
Speaker 2:no, it's fine. It's fine. I try it. Does it going to be listening mostly. So I think that'd be quite used to it.
Adam:Okay. I'll , I'll try and keep it straight down as little as possible. And we're , we're both affects life floor. So this a fairly significant of that.
Speaker 2:Before we start, is there any themes that you want to bring in or
Adam:thanks for everything? Uh , ends up being so busy. It's literally this morning. Nothing . Shit. I've not done any preparation , so I bet I've had a good look at this morning. I've got about an hour and an hour and a half . We've got quite a few pages of notes in front of me as well. I mean, I think some of the stuff, you know, you can't help a Jupiter case , some of the, some of the soap processes, et Cetera, because you know, what was a rules kind of thing and , and psychology, psychology. So I can't really think of anything else that that's not there. That doesn't encapsulate very much how it used to be a traitor and the psychological part of it also. Um , so no , I wouldn't add anything else to be quite honest, I think, or to look to him to bring it in. Any other same , I mean, there's a kind of things, I mean the, when you, when you asked the question about , um, what's , uh, what , what advice would you give to new traders or traders looking to gear up? I mean, I've actually thought about that question. I thought , well, you'd be honest. Your , they're two different types of people, so you wouldn't get the same advice that it's a , it's , it says, you know, someone who's already looked into gear up means they've already made insists on base camp of a , of the every or somebody else who's starting as an even, you know, sort of even step out of the village jacks or things, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Fantastic. So the first question I ask everyone and dummies, what three things that you now know at this stage of your career and you , you , you've been working as a trader 25 years, is that correct?
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah, I think the first trade I ever made was about 1990 so that's for banks . That's probably what verse 29 years. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Rasa . Yeah . So , yes . So nearly 30 years. So what, three things that you now know as an experienced and very successful trader, which you do you wish you had known giddy 30 years ago when you started?
Speaker 3:Okay. Um , so not in any particular order. Um, but I think the first one , uh, is , uh, I've got my notes written down. It's don't fight the market. Um, and by that I mean, you know, the market, the market always tends to have one , uh , providing narrative. Um, and you know, you find yourself as to try to do an a in a position of an awful lot of the time where you don't agree with that narrative. Um, but you know, the problem is, is that the market has been driven by that narrative. And if you try to go against it too soon , um, you're going to end up on the wrong side of them or on the wrong side of the market and you integrate it . So stopped out or putting on a product or a hefty loss, which obviously brings into play a whole different level of psychology that you've got to sort of , um , you know, Ho hold your position even when you're making losses. So, you know, the markets that I feel, they always very, they've , they're very myopic, diverse shorts , the , you know, they can only deal with one narrative for anyone . So , I'm sorry , timing is everything in terms of when you put your trade on, when you don't believe in that narrative or when you can see what's to the next and now it's coming behind it. Um, so I don't have , I've learned, I've VA's many times , uh , you know, you know, you can, if you try to pull out the narrative too soon , you're going to be stuck on the end of losses or actually taking losses. And , um, and so that's the first thing I would say to myself as , as is , you know, timing's everything. Don't get in. So I try to soon, even when you , you feel like you're a hundred percent certain that the narrative is wrong, you've just got to , you know, you've got to wait until, until the market seems to come to , comes, comes into line with your view on that sort of thing. Yeah , that'd be the first thing. I think the second thing , um, and this is actually obviously I've been trading for a very long time and, and you'd grow as a person as well as a trader and, and you change as a person and you change the trade , you should get older as well. Um, which I suppose when you get to my age, which is 48, you kind of feel like you've ever done it . So when you , you know, you always feel like you've seen it all up in there and say it done it, but you never have because there's always other things that throw up in different circumstances and what have you. But the second thing I would, would tell myself and you know, got back and, and , and for the younger trader , uh , which also ties as for the first point is the value of patients . Um, I actually looked up deserve the adjective impetuous this morning and it said it was characterized by sudden or rash action or emotion. And you know, you, when, when, whenever is, when the markets are flying around and there's , and there's, and there's news come out. It can knock you off your plan. Um, and you know, and you can end up getting sucked into trades you cause you didn't plan on doing in the first place. And you know, and, and, and it also ties into the thing with now with timing, every time we get everything. And when you're younger and you have an a , I suppose some of the traders will be listening to this today will be younger guys and you know, we all, we've all been there when we're younger guys, you know, you know, you can't help but be impulsive and , uh , um, and it's a very difficult thing to learn when you , when , especially if that's what, if that's the nature of your character as well. But , um, it's always best to works with plan and, and, and, and, you know, she just expects oversized patients as much as you possibly can because if you go into soon, as I said before, you go into, so , um , you're going to have to deal with the psychology of having a position that's got this gone off site . So that would be my second point. Um, my third one, I guess, you know, I mean there's not just two or three things I tell myself I'd sit myself down at by younger self in a , in a room , and I probably spend about 12 hours going through things, but , um, I'm probably putting yourself around the head a few times. Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah, totally . But I think that third point , um , is , um, I, it's eight though , I guess. I mean, you know, we , everyone has an ego and , and you, and , and the slot , the character, the , uh , the , you have to be, oh, you, oh , the sub couch that's attracted to the job of training . Um, you have to be very, very mentally strong. And so with that mental toughness, I, I , you know, everyone's got an ego and it's about really, that's sort of taming the ego and, and you know, and staying in the game, I've , I've, I've actually gotten staying in the game as , as written down. And that's , you know, if you want just sort of , um , sporting analogies, you know, whether it's, if you're, if you're a cricketer, yeah. Don't try your wicked away, you know, understand the value. You're wicked . If you're a golfer, dude , I don't smash a ball . You know, if you're playing against the Poland , don't smash your drive out of balance because you're just giving the guy a hole . And in football, don't dive in on a tackle. You know, it's, it's, it's about basically staying in the game, knowing when to retreat, knowing when to stand your ground. Um, and, and you know, and also, you know, sometimes you know, when you're wrong, you're wrong and you've just got to accept that as big as , as being, you know, as, as, as part and parcel of what we do for a living. And , um, and so, yeah, he , you should gotta do you gotta tenure , Ego and , and not let your ego get in the way of making, you know , decent decisions, which is not easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's great. That's brilliant. I mean , the three great points, you know, I want to come back to some of those in a minute. I actually thought , you know what? We've never, we've never put these questions to our Sarah was , I mean, it must be, I mean, it's nearly 40 years since you started in this business. Have you thought about the three things that you would have told yourself if you,
Speaker 4:if I look back, I mean, haven't you poorly, if you reflect back to the life floor and thinking about the people that's made a real success of it, they, they were balanced, you know, that they've been coached, the little John Sussex of the world, you know, they, a balanced people that deliver the calmness about what they did buy . You very rarely saw them flustered and yet they were dealing with , uh , I don't remember the client dealing with a lot of the market spread stuff. So the more complex side of pricing, you know, in a pet environment and , um , you know , learning is not get too carried away with yourself. You know, the , um, you can get Larry pretty quickly on a floor and learning how to control that and , and that sense of, it's a journey of learning. Um, and the fact that, you know, the market is broader than you think , uh, and the tuning into the market and being aware of the market and as broader sense as possible , uh, is a very useful way to start rather than having tunnel vision and just think that the market's the bid and the offer, which you all tend to start off with. That sort of focus of just staring at something and hoping it moves. But, so the breadth of awareness to something that , uh , and I know now is something that one needs to really pay much more attention to, but also manage yourself better. You know, even how you sleep, how you get up, how you engaged with work, how you socialize across a market because those social connections are invaluable. I don't know, don't want to , you can reflect on some of those haven't come from that type of environment as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a rim having clarity is still, I mean, are you just highlighting a David Titan , John Sussex ? I mean, for example, when I worked in the PR and um, you know, I'm a spreadsheet. I've, I've always been a spread trader . Um, and so I'd have, I know you see your legging in and out spread, so you got one side of that leg done and then you're late . You're looking at , um, so I remember once I was looking at Gillespie Samwol who had a load of offer offers in , um, quite, quite low volume in red CEP and, and , and the pitch going absolutely crazy. And My , my , and I just zeroed in on Andy at Sandbar and there's like, you know, that offer , you know , you can , you cannot miss that offer. That's yours . You've got to buy it. And so let's say there's already, you know, this screaming, shouting and, you know, in 400 people going absolutely crackers, but Andy and Samwell was my only focus. Um, and , and, and it's similar now, you know, you know, when you're , when you trade now you get a lot , you know, there's an awful lot of white noise. Um, especially when it's really busy and, but you just got to focus in on the one thing that is important to you and such just trying to block out all the other, what I call white noise. It's fundamental to , to, you know, decide its base basically. Clarity of thought .
Speaker 4:Yeah. Like is there some sort of filters of applying a sort of market filter, isn't it sort of hearing the things that are important and blocking out the things that are just, you know, a distraction. And I guess managing distractions becomes part of our process as well, isn't it ? Because you know, turning down stuff that's invaluable, but turning up the stuff is this sort of critical to that decision and you know, sort of as soon as you are from a pit environment, guess howling and homing in on the Chi that uh , they've got the other side of the trade and the cost that the spread stuff, I mean, especially stuff that you were involved with , um, I mean spreads sounds easier to price, but when you start going negative on spreads and things like that and uh, you know, you need some real pure thought and some quite fluid intelligence just to manage that. Well, not the easiest, the world to manage was it?
Speaker 3:No, it wasn't available. Obviously. You know, when we started to go into negative interest rates in Europe , um, a few years back it was like, well , you know, I've got, I've got my head around the whole price, good risk . Uh , you know, and , and when it's , I'm in a situation where sometimes the market is moving very quickly, you know, you've got to be careful. You don't make mistakes because you know, the product , the pricing is somewhat different. When it's negative to when it's positive. Um, so yeah, you know, that's that , you know, there's always , I mean there's always, there's always new challenges. There'll be , doesn't matter how long you've been doing it , uh , there's always something for it comes along as that's something you haven't seen. Even when you get to become a dinosaur like me. Yeah. Stop you and stop learning and to learn, you need to become, because you were , if you're under stress, you can't run , the brain gets calm , like , correct. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the one thing that I've , I've, for whatever reason I've always been very good at is, you know, working with clarity on the pressure, whether it was a rum , you know, free, free trading days when you win the ice. Or actually it's quite enjoy doing exams at school bizarrely, because I didn't, you know, I just enjoyed the , that kind of pressure. And you know, you have to stay calm. I mean, you know, all times you need to maintain as much clarity of thought as you can do. And , and , um, and especially when you get , I mean, in the old days when we worked in the pet and you'd have the fast market would come in and it would just be Carney , you know, but you still, you still needed to keep clarity of thought. Um, and you know that , I mean these days it's not , you know, on, on the , on the screens when, when he gets really busy, sometimes you get the kind of, you know, most of the pricing can't catch up really. The screen can't catch up with how the market's going. And that's extremely off with him . Um,
Speaker 2:that's a great point you made about that working with clarity under pressure, what you said about exams, you know, it's probably partly the challenge in the Miller kit is that so often it's this , it's so quiet. I mean, I, when I was a cheerleader , I was great under pressure. That's why I loved it. That's what I came to Mike . You know, that's what I was my best when we had these crazy false smoke kits or, you know, there was so much going on in life. I think back to, you know, I'm going to even know to dinosaur it in you.
Speaker 3:Yeah .
Speaker 2:You know, I , I'm , I , I think I was, I dyed out quite a few years ago, but you know, if I go back to my early days, which was like, you know, black Monday, the bomb market, bad crash, those times, that's when I absolutely throw lift . And now you just set a payout , you know, exams at school . You know, I never ever worried about an exam at school when I took the , you know, I was completely comb . But the problem for me was a lot of times the markets weren't like that. And that's what I got myself into trouble, you know ?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Because that's , that's another thing as well, especially for young toasters . But if he ever got really good points , Steve , is that, you know, you'll get , um , when you get quite markets, we'll call them board and trades , you know, you've sat there and there's nothing going on. Um, and you know, and then especially, and this is a real point I think for younger traders is on, you got to try. You tried, as you said , you know, you're trying to not trying to force something, you know, if the market sat there all day and you sat there and for hours on end and the market's not moving and then you and you get frustrated and you , you know , um, and it's not about, it's about, you know , it's about quality trades , not quantity of trades and , and so if , so there's nothing to do, don't do anything, finish that . And that's the hardest point in night at the hardest part. And it , and it's actually also learning the, in circumstances like that it is boring and there's nothing going on. Just get up and go to the gym, you know, we'll go for a walk or , or , or do something else because the longer you sit there and the more frustrated you get, especially when you read, you know, you as a younger child , you want to make money over obviously as much as possible, you know, you're going to get sucked into doing a daf trade because you just bought and, and you're frustrated. And so you're absolutely right. So I call it this . There's so many levels of psychology in trading, but none of this , you know , one of the big ones is to know when you actually just traded for the sake of trading, when you know what you should be doing is you know, pretty free up margin telling you or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's part of the problem. Yeah. I mean that's part of the problem isn't it? Cause we're all where you're all sitting there waiting for something to happen and you don't want to miss it. But then I think 90% of the time, maybe even more, you know, nothing is happening and, and you can step away. And you know , I used to get into some real dark places during those quiet ones because I do something just to have something on it and then I'll get myself in a complete mess and I'm sitting there at the end of the day, nothing is moving and I'm waiting for it to come back.
Speaker 4:That's interesting that the role of a trader is full of that. Always on sort of position of just in case you miss something. But you'd only get to 50 years of age and someone said she will , what have you done over the last 50 years? And your answer is what I've said , a screen looking, looking for a trade and hours a day , uh, and forgotten about the fact that I had a life as well. So there's sort of this sort of requirement of your cognitive power , um , and your ability to sense and see and feel the market and the opportunity is hugely dependent upon how you manage yourself to keep yourself fresh and available. But being there when you can work out what the opportunity is , uh , you know,
Speaker 3:I know , I know one other point I would make is what is , is the fact that, you know, you sit there, you sit in front of a screen for, you know, between the eight and 10 hours a day, and especially on the really quite boring days, you know, you've become mentally fatigued and , and , and, and you know, and you've grabbed the [inaudible] on board and I'm this and that. And so if there is an opportunity that comes along, then you're not necessarily in the best place mentally to take that off , you know? So , um, so, so you know, it's a learning curve and that in terms of knowing when to sort of take a break and , and kind of step away,
Speaker 4:you mentioned the, you know, that you started to go mental fatigue, but also after a while your lack of social connectivity of your day to working from home starts to potentially impact your general mental wellbeing and full stop , um, which can totally take you out the market per se . So yeah, it's just critical that people realize, I suppose the message going back to 40 years, his guest reemphasize this point that it's okay to step away. It's okay to get work life balance appropriate. It's okay to be doing hobbies that are complimentary where we're trading. You know, sport is very relevant because it's psychology, but performance is very, very similar and it's okay to do that. It's okay to step away and just not be staring at the bitten off from the depth of the market. And that's kind of your life. Yeah .
Speaker 2:This is another, another question I want to ask you . You've achieved great success as a trader and uh , I probably haven't really introduced you properly to the audience yet, but you know, we, we knew each other. I mean back almost 40 years, you started off in the middle of office at the bank. I was working with him my first trading job and then we lost touch after that and we , we, we, we were reintroduced quite a few years later by which time you'd become a great success on the life law . But you know, I think a lot of people be interested about that journey because you know, so many people who would be listening to this will be either on some sort of journey or might be thinking about that journey. And I'd love to hear about that journey you went through.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I mean I actually, I'm sorry, the banking question was long term credit, Bank of Japan that we both worked happy to show over a long, long time gone.
Speaker 2:We made sure we carried it through . My
Speaker 3:AAA will be joined as well. I'm saying Selassie I did . So I did actually , uh , transitioned from a revenue sort of data's assistant inch . It's being traded there , um, after you've gone. I mean, it's a , to be quite honest, I mean , I'm thinking , I mean, I'll say I joined the bank when I was 18 years old and I think I was trading by the time I was 20 and I was a kid. And I mean, you know, I didn't understand the gravity of what you, what you were doing kind of thing or what we were doing. And , um, it was just fun . It was fun . I was like, wow, this is fantastic. And I, you know , and uh , but it was fun . It was almost entertainment, but , you know, it was hard work. You know, it was there for long, long hours every day. Um, and it was, but the stress, I think that , you know, that actually , that agent, you know, you almost not , um, you know, there's the stress levels that don't come because you know, you don't really take it treaters with a seriousness. It should be treated with blood . But then after I'm out here to Brady and I have not thought , okay , well the stress levels go through the roof, you know , um, and I, so I worked for a LTB for, for five or six years and I moved on to BMP and I traded through different coats . I think at first, first all , uh , trading was Australian cash on straight and Swiss cash I believe actually. And then then went onto doing , uh , f Ras , Broadway agreements. IRS is interest rate swaps and then futures to hedge that kind of stuff as well. Um, arbitrage went on to work for a BMP on national other Perry , um, angles was there about 18 months and , uh , actually got made redundant from there. They , they got rid of our whole desk and that was actually a huge , um , was , you know, psychologically that was a real blow for, to, to, to be made redundant, which was another learning curve, a real learning curve actually. But I was lucky enough to get placed at another bank and I was only there for a short period of time. And at that stage , um, a lot of my mates were, we're on the life floor and I , you know, basically I have a lot more fun than I am and I already more money than me. Uh, so I decided that was probably the , the pace I wanted to go and work. And , uh, I've got job as , uh , the phone broker for credit, DNA rouse, and they were very good. They let, they, they, they kind of knew that basically I was, I was using them to get, to get onto the floor so I could get my badges and then as it become a local , um, and that was in 1996 I believe. So I've been, I've been an independent trader or local. Try to have you wanna describe it since then. Um, and I, I've just an anecdote that I was thinking about this morning and, and talking about the transition of stone from, you know, from a, from a bank trader , uh, to , to a local trade. Now when you are, when you trade for a bank or at all , I guess the Hedge Fund as well, you know, you're looking for large moves in the market. You know, you're , you know, you're not looking for like, you know, you're not looking to buy twos and sell threes. You're looking, you know, either from for 10, 12 basis points at least, or at least like we did back in those days. And if the management came over and I'll , she'd way out of position and you had to justify those positions. Um, and you know, with a , with a sorority worked out the idea of what I think interest rates are going up for . I think insights coming down and this should occur, the curves, miss , et Cetera, et cetera. When I first went onto the exchange exchange exchange to trays, my, my , my, my focus as a trade has gone from, you know, you just want to take 12 points out of the market or, or 18 or 25 points out of market based online shows are selling threes . But that is such a, you know, he took me lazy to get my head around that. And I actually remember, I think the first trade I did in the pit , I was backed by a couple of local. So I used to stand next to when , when I was sort of doing it for a few patient patients aroused . And I think I bought 20 lots of the sacraments in the euro marks. And I walked out the pit when often had a cup of coffee and now we've gone for about an hour and a half. And when I came back, I think I was a ticking half off side. And , uh , I think I ended up taking the loss as well. And the two guys were back and we were like, what the hell are you doing? You know , I was like, well, I've got a tree . I've got , I've got a bank trading mentality here. Um, they were like, well, you know, you're not gonna last very long down here if that's what it is. That's the way you're gonna try . So, you know, and you know, luckily they kept me under their wing. I've , I've, I've watched them how they traded, they were spread traders as well. We should, while I became a spread trader rather than being viable call directionally trading , which is buying Susan sending three on buying seht to sell red or , or whatever. We're looking for a curve play, you know , um, and so that, so , so that transition from, from a banking mentality to being a local, you know, I mean I've , I picked up pretty quickly but , but you know, it wasn't really its problems and , and it was quiet, you know, but there was quite what is obviously a massive difference in doing that. Um, and then once you have , once you get to that stage , then you have to transition on. So, you know, obviously 99 while I was able to, your remarks was closed down because we went electronic and then you had to go back to the , to , to working on screens and then, you know, and I think that was where really my experience of being, having been a bank trader and then having been a local on the floor really stood me in good step . Because, you know, you're not seeing the flow coming in from the, on the, on the exchange on the floor, you look across and you could see Salomons or, or JTS putting in a , you know, they're gonna come in and they're going to Hoover up about 10,000 the front month . And you didn't say you could see them come in. Whereas on the, on the, on the, on the, on the screens , obviously you don't see that coming. You just see it hit the market, you know, and so you had a natural advantage when you worked on the floor. Um, and then so to go from a , from a local firm , from a bank traders for local trader , then back onto the screens, the , the, the mix of experience with the to read really helped me out. Um, and I think when I was thinking about it earlier on today, the one , one of the big things as well as you know, even here , I may have heard this many, many times, you'd obviously since we left the floor where some guy will cut some an order, we'll go through there , we'll lift the market and then they lift the next prize and then they lift the next price and the other , I know , listen , x prize and people next to become one . How is he doing that? It's like, well this guy is probably a hedge fund guy or a bank guy and he , he's , he got such a large audience so that your day depends on points . Susan said in three , he just wants to get the deal done. So if he's paying twos up to sixties , he doesn't care, you know. Um, and I think if you've not been in the banking side of it, that to get your head around the fact that people are willing to give away , uh , a tick tick two takes three takes , four takes to get a trade on is actually a , um, it's a difficult thing to do when your mentality is not easy is basically if you buy twos and threes all day long, that's a great day for you.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. I should , I mean that's a great summary. You know, there were so many questions I've got from that, but that last part is so key because you know , when you're sitting at home trading and something's happening, there's this temptation to think of they're trying to screw you. But actually they know, they just got somebody to tell . I mean when I was at bank, you know we had orders that we just had some way we we'd get, we've got lifted or given by the large customer and we take one that position and we just want to get out of it and you just have to find the next break or the next offer and you keep doing that until you clear that position. You'd go on last and then you back pilots to get in . But for , for anyone who might've been on the other sides of that old dot , they'll probably just assume that I'm trying to screw the market over.
Speaker 3:Yup , Yup . They say, yeah, that's very true. Yeah. Flo is very interesting because you , you don't know what well I've been on the bank side myself and seeing the various flow come through me to hit the market. You know, you've got a , as against cash as a close out is an option cover trade, you know, as a , is it an opportunity trade and as a, as a broker, you know, pay market for a thousand when those
Speaker 4:50 on the offer and you can see that that phone screen and um, you know, the climate sensors did that as well and he'll just say pop 20 , I'll just wanting to trade on. Uh, and he may be closing out a so you can never tell from flowers whether it's initiator where it's a closer, you know, whether it was the spreads, you know, it can be all sorts of things they try to , that's difficult to understand.
Speaker 2:Mark . Well , I made a mistake once and you probably didn't know about this item in my early days when I was at ROTC p I was doing an obit . Charles tried and I was met some by , um, a hundred million dollar yen , a hundred million yen rather on the total . Again, so that was, I met to sell tolaris and [inaudible] as you know, a hundred million Yanni is not very much. It serves a ton of toilets on the spot . It's about people. It's like a few points, $1 million. I shouted, I eva to the guy on the spot desk, can you pull me $100 million again? And he went, are you sure about that ? So it's all right. Yes. And it's by $100 million yet. And now these days I think $5 million game is a big ticket and he ran it. I will tell you at least was no problem. Payroll tie the release. And I found the mistake about seven hours later in the afternoon and when I found it , the first thing I was , he was looking at the price. It was exactly the same as where it was when I made the error out of it with anyone. Not Big . You could just say that the other way around. Could you? Well in the meantime it caught a hundred points in my favor. Sorry. Is You, what's so good about that size?
Speaker 4:No , that's kind of examples about , you know, you're also managing errors as well, right ? As part of the process, the flow, it's not getting clean. Cut, clean, cut flow that's going on. Some of it is getting out something that you shouldn't be in a very, very complicated, very, very deep and multilayered. So
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, but that's another point is what is it , especially with , you know , especially on screens these days, is that, you know, you'll see an order go through and you'll say it might be in one month, but you know, it could be , um , just in the boons or something like that. It could be the BTP or , or, or, or a in, in what I do is a , your arrival contracts and you'll see one month in bed up it up, bit up and up, and it stopped forcing the spreads up and down, either side of it, et Cetera , et cetera . And you , and when it , when he's relentless older , you think Christ , what do they know that I don't know. But then as mark said earlier on, this guy could be getting stops out, you know, you don't know if he's getting stopped down on a massive position, you know, he could be initiating the position. Um, and, and the psychology is sitting there saying, you know, you've already hit him. And then he keeps going and going again. You know, every county. So, and , and every that psychology thinking, am I wrong here? Have I missed something? Is there, is there something out in the market I don't know about but you just don't know. It could just be some guys come in and spoken an 80 hit, it could be a fat finger or it could just simply be a large, large corporate order. Um, and uh , and that's again plays into the psychology of , of, of, you know, sort of knowing or trusting yourself that actually this guy, this, this is now misaligning price-wise , whether it's misaligning against other, other fixed income markets or, or it's misaligning in terms of spreads in it , in the your eyeball market or your a dollar market. Uh , you know, that , that , and actually they, they sort of opportunities , they turn, they turn into opportunities. But you know, when you're, when you go early on something like that, it doesn't feel like an opportunity cause you're already offsite .
Speaker 2:Well, the hedge fund guys will be doing trades in yards and yards of size and you know, it that, and they might, they might be turning it over even for three days and , and, and that's both getting out and getting in. And then quite often if they turn it, there's usually somebody else doing it. It's quite rare that you just think of an idea on your own and that trend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that's , that goes back to the , to what I was saying, we want about an hour tick , you know what I mean? But I think, you know, I've never been, I know it wasn't a hitch on or anything like that, but I got those guys as the same way as, you know , if you're already trading off , we , we'll speak to each other, you know, hedge fund guys, they'll speak to each other and you know, and you get that crowded trade where, you know , everyone's pushing it and there's not many of , when you get to all gender the narrative because everyone's pushed it, pushed and pushed it. Um, and then, you know, when they only had one , one goes through the door, they all go through the door at the same time and you get a massive blow back on it, on a position or on a, on a, on a narrative that's made people a lot of money for a long time. Um, and it's always about musical chairs. It's like getting out before everyone else decides to get out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. You , you, you , you said earlier, I mean , this narrative as a thing that you brought up at the very beginning and it's, it , it doesn't always get the exposure it should, so it's great for you to bring that out. Have you got any examples of that in your career where you fought the narrative and , and it was, you know ,
Speaker 3:so that's been very painful.
Speaker 2:Everyone loves hearing these stories, not the ones where you might like lights .
Speaker 3:I'll probably try to expunge those memories to be quite honest. I'm not sure that I can actually think of one off the top of my well , um, yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah, there's, I mean, there's been plenty of them. I mean, that's why I wrote that, right . It wrote down earlier on that one of the things I told my younger self is not a rum. You know, you don't go against the narrative, but yeah, please been plenty of times. I mean, I mean you could , one of the things about leaving, leaving the exchange and going on to the screens is that it suddenly , you know , you've got a huge number of new products that you could trade if you , if you're that your minded . And that goes back also to the boredom side of things where you know, you think , oh well bored and my market is not doing it too . What else? Something, you know, and you end up trading the market. You don't , uh, don't necessarily understand. I don't think there's definitely, for one of the things I'm really bad at trading is indices , speeches and you know, the amount of times we're off these stocks are just, they just keep going. The relentless, I mean, you know, the cue of e um , back in when the USDA , the QA, et cetera , et cetera . And you think, well, these are two , this is just, this just can't keep going. So you start shows , you get stopped out your , you know, and , and so certainly, but on the wrong side of that, now it's just before. Um, but yeah, there's been numerous of narratives going back from when you've done it for as long as I've done it. There's numerous times when I've gone against narrative. Uh, and it's been very expensive.
Speaker 2:Put that your memory now.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Well , well, can we start with some that ,
Speaker 4:cause I've seen clients go against the narrative. Uh , I've seen the market go against the narrative sort of by mistake as well. There was a Spanish Bono contract that life decided to launch in a very awkward way at side of the call, the um , the DSI New York , uh, Bono , which is the Spanish bond market. And they did this massive advertising campaign and Madrid with like Jackson's on walls and they, they left the , um, the sort of squiggle about the n off of the marketing, which basically meant they were , they were setting the 10 anus bond, which caused some degree of concentration across the entire market and Madrid. And , um , uh , I was sitting on this , uh, you know , uh, my desk getting flow from a lot of Spanish clients. I looked up an awful lot of the big Spanish clients and they got the early nineties, I think. And um , but up and eight and eight , they said, they said, we're not going to try to start cause it's like we want to support our market and our brothers in , in the Spanish business. And , uh , up pops the pricing on the , you know, day one. Um, and it was basically, I, I was coming out of U s investment banks to pricing. It was three big figures wrong, pretty big figures wrong, which is significant. Not Three takes, but three big figures wrong. And suddenly I've got this sort of Mockito mockito thing was what they called me, junior version of mark was the Alpha mine and I think we bought like three and a half thousand lots. It was like the biggest diverse sort of volume of day one of any new life product. Um, but what it was, it was a Spanish bank up in three big points between the new product in the London market and that that existed in the Spanish market. And , um, I guess run that run that tried to maturity and the FTA was Sonia Spanish bond launches on life with this massive volume and great success. Didn't try that again. Like they two volume was like 10 lots or something. But it gets , shows you the , you know, professionals , uh , been really, really messed up. And so probably price action isn't necessarily what you can expect and may present it to be an opportunity and that's where whatever you're trading, understanding what fair value is, is pretty bloody. Clifton , very, very critical.
Speaker 2:What you say about professional was, is so true. And , um , you know, that there is an opinion or a thought that there's always someone that knows what's going on in the market, but not everyone knows what anything more than a high degree of probability. And that's the truth. It doesn't matter how well informed you all have smart you are. And I think that came , you know, that that is, that is one of the learnings I've got as a coach where I speak to so many great individuals, both in banks and hedge funds, private traders is that no one knows.
Speaker 3:Yeah . I think , I think that's a good point because you know, he's the amount of time as you sit there and you think, oh, you know, this mark is getting pushed, pushed, pushed, you think somebody knows something, there's somebody knows something and then you know, it's not spike reverses. And at the end of the day, you , you've forgotten you've had that skill because it was just, you know, they might've been allowed to, would have gone through when they , when the market was really quick for them for a period of time. It's just before lunch or just, you know. Um, but yeah, you know, there , it's a very, very natural inclination as a trader to think, hang on a second, I'm , I'm out the loop here. Somebody is not tell me no . Something that I don't know. Um, but probably not 90% of the time is actually not the case.
Speaker 2:And that that's your mind playing games with you.
Speaker 5:Yup .
Speaker 2:That's the difficult bit. Listen to one of the questions I wanted to well ask and I'm sure a lot of people are going to be really keen to hear your view on this is well, what do you think are the biggest factors which contributed to your success? I mean you shared with us what you would have told your younger self if you look back on your career. Um , and, and , and you know, you've done really, really well in this, in this professional is so many people and not able to make a sustained career . Well, what do you think those may factors are?
Speaker 5:Yeah .
Speaker 3:Um, well, I mean, one of the things, I mean, I , I've , over the years I've, I've , uh, attempted with varying degrees of success to try to train people up as well as a rare trait for myself. Um, and the first thing I would always say is that there is no, there is no photo identikit of a good trader. I mean, I , I, you know, I've worked with guys who've been to public schools with double Bauer surnames who've been extremely good . I've worked with guys, I've worked with guys with, you know, I've left school with set at 16 with no qualifications. I lost so sharp they shelf than anybody and, and so that , so the, the reason any, any photo id I didn't , and it also when you come down to gender as well, you know, they , they , they , you know, a man doesn't make a better trader with a woman, in fact, you know, or vice versa. You know, it's just basically about the individual. And I think the first thing I would actually written, the first thing is mental toughness. Um, you know, you have to be extremely strong mentally , um, because you, you, you're gonna get knocks . You've got to , you've gotta get losses. Um, and it's, you know, actually one of the things I've always said about traders is that you don't learn anything about a trader when they're on a good run. You know , what you learned , you learn about strangers when they're losing money and how they, how they, how, you know, how you, how you carry yourself, how you, how you bounce back. You know, how you, you know, and, and so, I mean, I've , I've learned a lot more about trade as always when they're losing money. And I've seen guys that I've seen, I've seen, we've had kids come in, you know, the first six months, they've been absolutely fantastic. And they, you know, they've taken everything on board. They've had a slow progression. They start making some really good money. They get over confident, they lose money and they crumble. And they just, because mentally they just can't. They can't, they can't deal with it, you know? And so you know, I, you know, so basically the first one is always mentally he's mental toughness . It's the ability to, to, to admit to yourself that you're wrong. Don't let your ego get in the way of it and just, and just be like, right, okay, now you've got to bounce back. And, and also another thing worth noticing for new traders, if you have a bad day, then the following day you don't go into work and think to yourself, I lost x amount of money yesterday. Today I've got to make that money back because that is the worst way to approach it . You've got to say to yourself, right , I'm going to go back to my plan. What I'm happy to work to make on a day to day basis and whenever I've had really big losses , if I've gone into work the following day and so I'm going to chase myself here , I'm going to chase it . And it , it's like that . I'm not going to do it well , but what normally happens is you think what ? Okay, I'll have a steady day and then you have a good, good day. You breathe out your confidence and before you know it, you know, you might feel like, oh that Nazis going to take me ages to get back and actually only takes you half the time because you know, you , you , you've , you've trusted your own process kind of thing. So the mental toughness is a, is a real, is a real part of it. And , and the ability to wipe the slate slate clean mentally when you are having a bad time and go back to, you know, it's almost kind of like, I suppose if you wanted to use a cricket analogy, it's like, you know, if you look, you know, if you lose what you could lose your wicked, then you've got to go back and involved and going out there and trying to hit forward and 60 straight away. Build your in , in sort of , you know, knock a few singles, get your confidence back up and then, and get and move on from there. And then know , the other thing about being successful is it is adapting all the time. You know, I think, you know , um, I've seen guys along the way who found , you know , a niche or , or, or, you know, some kind of a anomaly within the market, which they've managed to explore it fantastically well. They may load of money and then suddenly that anomaly goes and all that narrative might go as well. And suddenly they're in a situation with like, well, okay, so that's how I was really making money. That's now gone. And so you've got to , you know, you've got to adapt and you've got to, you know, you've got to, you know , look for other ways of trying to make money. So you've always got to adapt because the market is always different. You know, these days with the algorithms, the algorithms aren't always the same. They, they, you know, they'll push the market for a while with one way. I didn't know if there was something else and that will catch you off guard. Um, I don't think, oh, so the other things, but he's like, you've gotta be humble because you've got to , you know, the thing that is , look for things with markets are, and the thing with trading is you have never ever cracked it. You know, no matter how long you've done it for, how long you've done the job for so long , no matter how much experience you've got, whenever, the biggest losses I've ever had is when I've got blahzay and overconfident and just thought , you know , I can't do any wrong here . Anything wrong knows that the ties , nope . But nobody with the minute that that thought hits your mind is when you are heading for a fall , you know, so you've got to retain humility , um , and discipline and find it. The final one, discipline , I would think, you know , um, you've got to be , you know , if you lose your discipline, you know, I mean, some, some of my worst days of come , we're not, we're not . When basically my head's gone. I've, my emotions, we've got the better of me. Um, I start chasing something. I get stopped out and I say , I know, I mean, you know, one of the, the cardinal seniors get stopped out somebody and put the train straight back on. I've done that numerous times and it's taken me a year to learn that. Yeah . Yeah. So you've got to , you've got to maintain your discipline at all times and you know, and , and do the things that if you start to build a successful track record, you've just got to do that over and over again because that's that , you know, those processes have got you to the position where you can be successful. And so you've always got to trust those. Um, and, and as I say, don't get plaza .
Speaker 2:Oh , right ,
Speaker 4:yeah, I like that. So trust the process and a , I always have in your mind, back of your mind what's about to happen that's never happened before. And I would kind of look at all the patterns in the past and think , yeah , that parents gonna make sure that this then happens, but actually what's about to happen? It has never happened before. It's yet to happen. So agile, flexible mindset that humility of is managing yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You've not so much beneficial for you achieve Etsy cause you've changed from you know bank trader, so Fluor trader, back to computer screen trader and you've, I know you've moved geographical locations quite a few times and that almost seems to be one of your home milk's you know the fee you are still doing this job, this side and you know I like a lot of the coaching work I do is with paypal who who are making a change and struggle with that change. So they're quite, a lot of my work has people who moved from a bank to a hedge fund and then suddenly that really struggling or jump from one hedge fund. So another hedge fund and they can't replicate what they were doing before or I'm getting quite a lot of work with old bank traders if you know, especially in FX and we sing inequities as well where the number of bank trading jobs have disappeared. So they try their hand at trading for themselves and fraud and it is a completely different job. And the scares I had as market makers where they thought, you know, that they would be able to turn it very simply to a day trading or a prop trading job and they're really struggling and they've go, the scale was , but they just can't make the adaption .
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean I think that the biggest point with that is what it is. The fact that riding with somebody else's money and tried to use their own monies is a , is a completely different kettle of fish, you know , you know , so I caught the psychologies is a completely different thing. Um , I mean obviously I've traded with other people's money and I've traded with my own money mainly for the last , you know, couple of decades. I've used my own money in and you know, it's a run . But that transition across, you fill those. Yeah . What is your own money? You thought those mean you're a bank trader and you lose it . You having a good year and you lose half the money you've made that year thinking, oh my bonus is [inaudible] but when it's your own money and you just lost say 10% your account or something like that, it's just totally different. That's a different kind of official together.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Well I mean I, I it's , it's one of the things I've noticed since I started coaching because now I wasn't so familiar with the private trading world when I was a bank trader. You know , I always had a salary. I even had a really bad year. I still got paid, you know , a good salary at the end of the year. Um , and then the private traders, you know, I've got so much respect for them since I've , since I've come out of banks and started working with them cause I literally eat what they care and it's a completely different mindset.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'd also , something I think that if any new traders are listening to this as well as is , and this is a really, really important point, [inaudible] for new traders, is that if you, if you are coming in every day under pressure, that you've got to make money because you've got to pay bills and, and, and, you know, and , and basically you have a finite amount of time to , for success before you, you know, that's , that makes your job so much harder because if you , you know, I've seen this with many guys before where it's like, okay, well I've got to make x amount of money this month. Otherwise, you know, I'm in , you know, I'm basically in dice , dice straits and that, that kind of outside pressure, it massively impacts your decision making. Um, and so for , for any new traders , you know, you've got to sort of think , so wouldn't , you know, you've got to have to give yourself a period of time to, to, to, to learn the processes , uh, to feel, you know, to get comfortable with what you're doing. And the more outside pressure you have to succeed in a shorter timeframe makes your, your chances of success actually , uh, well certainly diminish, you know,
Speaker 2:yeah. The , the , these, these are two themes up. Both our last podcast , um , interviewers made exactly the same point. You know, there's a lot of people that rush to make money and become successful in an unrealistic timeframe. I am, I said, but they would just never succeed.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What do you say ? It's the, it's the, you know, it's like , I , you know, I hate to get got all the back boxing analogies, but you know, it's , it's , it's a , you know, it's like when you're chasing down, it's hosted in cricket and , and you know, the number of balls are running out, but the runs aren't dying down. So you've gotta have to take risks and, you know, and the more risks you take, the more chance you gotta you gotta you gotta go have a get an out, you know, and it's exactly the same in trading. You know, if you have to start forcing trades because you need to make money, then you know, you're , you know , you might get lucky and you know, you might end up, you know, sort of knocking out the park, but more than likely you , you know, you're going to end up forcing the trade and it's gonna end up wiping you out. Uh, if you're under, you know, because you start to unravel psychologically. So you know, you really need to, you know, you need to give yourself plenty of time and plenty and as much leeway you can financially if you've got to take this job on because it, because it went when you , when you're up against age, it tastes that hard enough job as it is. But if you really need to make money, then it's going to make the job, you know, fucked up really hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Can we just have a little mention for any Americans left listening about cricket? Just think baseball.
Speaker 4:I'm picking up from this conversation that from, from you two , they've been on the trading side successful on the trading side. But if you go to exams at school, then trading might suit you . Either way . I wasn't going to exams. I became a broker. Actually . If you're a trader, actually maybe you want to go in and learn some cricket rules and a tricky strategy as a, as a way of actually picking up ideas as to how to managers. Because in cricket you need patience . It's all about strategy and uh , there's a huge overlap with, with , as I said before about the psychology, we're trading books should not be ignored. So if I put my 40 years ago hat on, then learning about sports psychology could well be one of the things that , uh, would have , would help you, you know, sort of , um, you know, differentiate yourself as an early trader in this business.
Speaker 2:Well , they, so much overlap. I mean, I think a lot of people come into trading thinking it's really an academic profession, but actually I think it's got far more to do with sport and playing sport than it has with any academic activities.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree with that 100%. And, and actually , um , does use another analogy that this is a golfing one actually. So there was a, there was a US golf back in the late eighties, early nineties called Palase and Joe, who's actually been the Ryder Cup captain since then. And I remember seeing an interview with him a few years back and he was talking about [inaudible] , you know, he was saying, you know, when you're on phone, you know, you just can't do anything wrong. You know, you , you might hit up , you know, you hit a shot that really should be going out about the history and comes back in or, or whatever, but you , you , and it feels like that form will never leave you. And then he said , you know, but when form leaves you, it feels like you're never going to get it back. You know , and spend hours on the practice rounds hitting balls, hitting balls, hitting balls , but you fill out a form and it feels like it will never return, but then something will happen that that makes it return . And it's , and that is exactly the same as trading. You know, you could spend as much time as you normally do, research wise, get very frustrated and sometimes you just end up on a bad run. You can't, you know, and it's , you know , once again the psychology comes into it is, you know, you've got a , you know , you know, you've got a big basically trust in the process, keep doing your research, you know, keep keeping your trading rules and, you know, your bad run will come to an end eventually. Um, yeah , that's how I am . When you're in, when you're in the middle of a bad trading run, you just feel like it's never, he's never going to end.
Speaker 2:Not really. No. I think that , I think that's great advice and um, you know, it's, it's, what's our interest in that sort of, you know, having a little bit of mentorship or support , um, can be brilliant as well . You talked about the guys that back to you that came out and sort of made sure that you, you know, when you just pay for your coffee, you know, it sounds like that was a pivotal moment in your career even though it seemed like it was some , it's so smoke .
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think he's, I think he's really, I mean I remember Steve , we had a session I think about eight years ago and it's the first time I'd ever really sat down and really chatted to anybody for a couple of hours about what I do. You know, what my thought process is and the stress you stress and strange to go on the, and you know, and obviously I was actually quite skeptical about that , that chat we had going into that chat. And I've really, really enjoyed it because the first one I think you might in many, many years apart from me coming over and emoting of a girlfriend about, oh my God, you know, texting this and that, and she's looking at me with blank, blank look on her face. You know, you sat there, listens , you knew exactly what, what I was talking about. And I just thought it went off for a couple of hours and I was like, wow, that was, that was such a, it was a release, you know? And , and I think whether it's , um, you know, whether it's a post work beer with a , with a , with a couple of fellows, you sit next. So to be able to go, you know, and just sort of, you know, vent if you like, you know, Oh, you know, this didn't quite happen to me today or, you know, or you know, that that went really well and I didn't expect it. You know, that reason . I think he's always good to debrief. And I think, you know, for anyone who's sitting at home who's a trader and sat sits at home , um, I mean , I'm not necessarily a huge fan of trade rooms or anything like that and I've never really been involved in them. But I think if you, if you can have a network of people that you can speak to and , and, and it helps, it helps you , you know , you , you emotionally unload and it also out on Burns your minds to a degree I think, you know. Yeah, totally go that
Speaker 2:I think it's so important people don't think of it, but it should be part of their process. You know, one of the things which I always used to say was that when I worked in a bank trading desk, you know, it was a lot , there was a band of brothers mentality and want us to go ripped each other and pulled each other apart. You know, something rotten. You know, when your backs were against the wall, y'all supported each other so much. It's , it's someone how halts described, you know, as like, you know, you're under fire and there's a guy who's got your back and he's covering your eye and you know that, that I always wonder , you know, traders on their own talk about this loneliness and not having support and sort of forget which I rainbow is Harry Potts . And that is in tried to,
Speaker 3:yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know this is essentially, you know, if nothing else out , you know, just to just at the end of the date so you know, if you'd call it , you know, cause you go through, I mean it all goes through. Yeah . Highs and lows all day long. You know, obviously you get have bit dog days where nothing happens until, but when he's really busy, you know , and you know, your PNL fluctuates and you know, and you know what I mean. I've had days where I've had some days where I've told him really got to start some day . Interesting . Cause . And then, you know, I've had real, really terrible starts today and , and ended up walking out of either made the money back or actually made my , and like , that's fantastic. But the thing is you're walking out, he doesn't, or you really depressed and it just it , and to go home or to stay at home and walk downstairs from your office to have that, you know , it , you know , to not be able to release the emotion of that. It's, you know, that, that, that builds up. So you say , I think it's really easy essential students to be able to see it, but someone who talks about it to talk to talk about it, you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. No, I think so . I don't , I don't think this aspect is understood. Understood in that ,
Speaker 4:oh , do you know , sorry . Interesting . As someone I know that came off the light floor , that a remarkably successful in investment banking and went back into, I guess being a day trader and it , but it does it from home. Um, any pets I've had in the morning gets himself so casually dressed, goes for a walk and then we'll back into this house as I was walking back into work. He does the same. It makes sure he has a lunch. Nicholas , there are these periods of time when you kind of launch in markets. Um, and at the end of the day he actually gives himself a sort of a sort of an end time where he puts down his things. He walks out of his house, he goes to and back into his house . He's always coming home and he changes his mindset from Ben , you know , totally a hundred percent market focus during his trading day to be an obviously a slight iron , the market for anything nasty of night, but he shifts it to be in family focused and he uses that sort of, you know , walking out the front door and back into the front or just his process for managing the fact that he's got a day life. But also he's got a family life as well.
Speaker 2:I think that's brilliant. I mean, I was about to sort of make a joke about that, but actually there's something really, really valuable about that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was just, it was, and I've heard it from somebody else as well. That's , that works in a normal corporate, but they work from home and she does the same thing. C essentially walks out the house and then walks back into her house though she's walking to work. Because you said that you can guess time flies when you're home. You can, you tend to work more at home than she doesn't work. And I think you could say the same for traders. It's a little more intense. You're more focused, you're looking at more
Speaker 3:things and suddenly it's like eight o'clock at night and you've forgotten about the fact that actually no crumbs. I'll have fun time for myself.
Speaker 2:Nice meds . That's self management, isn't it? I smell , I mean that this is all part of this psychology. The more present you are mentally and in yourself, the better you will trade. And it's managing that self outside. You know that you know what you eat, how you sleep, you know, having a social life, getting away. These are really big parts of trading that people don't, you know, they don't care for.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think also the one other thing I'd say is that the, a example that Mark's just always up there. I mean, you know, I suppose I've ever heard , ever heard somebody does that actually a fantastic idea because you know, I , I've worked between home and working in an office with other guys as well at times and you know, you did , there are no hard and fast rules to this game. And it's what , what it basically what works for yourself, you know , and it , and if it works for you that you walk out your home and then walk back in the door and you said, I should start your day , then fantastic. You know, it doesn't matter how you, what you do. If it works for you then then just keep doing it , you know?
Speaker 2:And that's brilliant. And Jenna are getting a fairly, you know, we've got to start wrapping this up. Well that's a really good, I mean, I was going to ask you about a knock it at the end, Adam , I think you've kind of just said it there. You know , what works for you is really important and sort of meant ,
Speaker 3:I think the thing is , is well as easily , you know, if this is an extremely hard game, when you, when you're starting out, you know , um, and you , you know, and it is about trying to find something that works for you and what you're comfortable with. And yeah, going back to that point is , you know, if you find something that's working for you, then you know, then then keep it, keep doing it. You know what, you know, they'll, they'll adage, noted that they've ain't broke, don't fix it. That's , that that works is, you know, that that completely works. But, you know, I'll show you . Yeah . Because you know , trading is contradiction. You've always got to be prepared to adapt . So, so if something changes, you know, don't think, Oh God , you know, that was working for me now. It's not worked for me . You know, what do I do now? It's like, well, you know, you , you know, sit down, take a deep breath and start to look at other processes. Um, so you should still always, I think that the nugget would be, you know, if it's not broken, don't fix it. But if you , if , if things start to change a little bit for you, then you know, you have to be ready to adapt.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's an [inaudible] isn't it? I mean, I think that that is an arts how you calibrate that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's still , there's that, it's a lot easier saying it than doing it,
Speaker 2:but that , that I think, I think mass kind of like, well, you know, you stick at it and you start to intuitively get a feel for when, when you do that you stay with it and when you move on. And I , I think that's one of the, you know, it's one of the defining characteristics of, of great traders and successful traders is like to stick to it and I do change and I need so , but you can't, I don't think they could even describe to someone how you do that.
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 3:There's actually one other thing that causes springs to mind is what is , it's also, it's about being honest with yourself. You know , I think you know, you know, another one is, you know, hope hoping isn't a trading strategy and you have to be, and you have to be honest with yourself when you think, well, I account I'm actually influenced too much hope here. I don't feel this is going very well. I , and you know, and , and being prepared to say, right, okay, look yourself in the eye . This isn't working. Let's go back to , let's go back to basics and , and , and, and you know, and I'm wrong, whether it's weather or whether you're wrong about your market view or you know, weather , weather , you know, the star we'll try it is not, not working. You know, you always got to be honest with yourself because obviously , you know, you're not going to kick yourself and deep down we'll know, you know.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, that's brilliant. Aspirin . Listen, I think we're going to wind this up. Um , I'm going to ask, this is not going to be recorded this bit , but I'm going to last March. Just wrap this up now, but if you could stay on the line for a couple of minutes, type time , put the phone down yet. Okay.
Speaker 4:Okay, no problem.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] do you want to just wrap this session up? It's been a great interview and overview to just sort of send it out.
Speaker 4:Well, crumbs . I think we've learned so much. I think Sarah , Sarah and his experiences as an audience that would be of any, you know, state of the career in the market in terms of where they are. But I'm at a very grateful for you coming out, being so frank. Um, so honest yourself. Um, I think you can tell from , uh, you know , just your tone, just, just how, see how committed you are to, you know, the , the market and as we all are, you know, those have come from the market. There's this sort of, it's the energy that comes in conversation and I think that's come across very, very well today. So we're, we're very grateful myself and Steve, but also I'm sure the audience will get an awful lot out of this, so we thank you once again. Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening today . This has been a lot of fun talking to Adam. As you could say, it's a, it's a topic we're passionate about and we know most people who have tried and are involved in trading and investing are really passionate about this mental side of trading performance. The real challenge, the real art of trading. That's where great performance comes from. You know, we have many other resources on uh, on the subject. You can check out our blog alpha mind blog.blogspot.com you can follow us on social media at Alpha mind when I run, that's my Twitter handle. You can follow my work@themindgoes.com . Oh sorry . We have a linkedin group where we post. Many of our routes grows . I like the group. It's called the Alpha mind group. You can also check out some of our previous alpha mind podcast episodes and subscribe to it so you don't miss any future episodes. And we've got some brilliant songs coming up, which I advise you not to miss. Please rate us on iTunes that really whatsoever . Thank you very much for listening.
Speaker 1:[inaudible] .
