Trading with @chicagosean: Recent Episodes
Sean McLaughlin
Bringing this episode back from the archives to celebrate my late friend Jon Boorman who sadly passed away from a bout with glioblastoma (brain cancer) on October 21, 2020.Recorded in August of 2015 (long before his diagnosis), Jon and I discussed his background, his experiences working for big banks, and his approach to trading the markets when he struck out on his own.Many of the lessons from his career and life that he shares in this conversation are even more poignant today.
Sean & Michael Nauss (@bonpara) discuss the new Trade Ideas live youtube stream where users get live support every trading day.
Learn how to find it, use it, and profit.
In 2016, I interviewed stock trader Dan Zanger where we discussed the meteoric rise of his trading profits in the dotcom bubble of the late 1990's.
The response to this interview was phenomenal and I've had numerous requests for me to post this talk up again since it was taken down from its old location.
So here it is, remixed, but with all its original glory.
Enjoy.
The path to Wall Street is neither straight nor narrow.
After studying psychology and music in college, midwesterner David Keller somehow landed himself a job at Bloomberg in NYC,
Learn about Bloomberg’s foresight and good fortune to land a guy like David, and how this entry to the street served as a springboard to launch a career in research and ultimately to the founding of his own research firm rooted in the study of behavioral finance and consistency of best practices.
Meet the RedDog, Scott Redler of proprietary trading firm T3.
Learn how Scott danced his way through Bar Mitzvahs, into event and concert promoting, and eventually to trading -- exercising a work ethic first observed in his immigrant Grandparents.
These lessons, as well as ones learned through painful losses in deals gone bad and trades gone worse, have molded Redler into the disciplined dynamo risk manager he is today.
Kunal brings high energy into every pursuit, whether it be trading, entrepreneurship, travel, or life. And it's infectious.
Learn how he struggled to learn trading while still in college (doing poorly at both), but leveraged a determination and a willingness to seek knowledge and inspiration from wherever he could find it to continue moving toward his version of "freedom."
We learn about Kunal's upbringing, his early trading struggles, his mentors, and his journey in building a very successful online business that serves the trading community.
Michael Nauss represents the future of active trading.
No longer a hunter, Michael spends his trading day letting machines find him trades with edge, while he sits back and just manages his open positions. He's found a way to minimize or completely eliminate the opportunity for his "trading demons" to effect his P/L.
When markets and facts change, we have to change with them. We have to stay nimble.
In this episode, I chat about the shifting sands in the markets and how I'm adapting my strategies.
The Paradox of Successful Trading (a phrase I coined) describes the frustrating truth that there are only a handful of ways that most traders lose, while there is a seemingly infinite amount of ways to succeed...yet so many fail. Why?
Don Hensley posits that the issue is rooted in the fact that to succeed, we need to be, act, and behave in the markets in uncommon ways. We need to operate individually -- not only from the herd (the majority of losers), but from the winners as well (we need to have our own unique edge).
Strip the complexity down to its most simple parts. That's where the real hard work begins.
Meet Jason Leavitt, a trader for nearly 20 years who brings a calm demeanor and an athlete's dogged persistence to bear as he tackles the market daily, both from his home in Colorado and abroad while traveling with his family.
We talk about some early inspiration in his career, the challenges of being self taught, how skills learned on the baseball diamond have transferred to his trading, and the mindset of new and experienced traders.
We also get into a hard truth that we can't just rest on our "experience" and hope that it alone with carry us forward with its own inertia. We need to maintain proper awareness of our own limitations, the early warning signs of their appearances, and a gameplan for overcoming. Otherwise, our experience gained will be for naught.
Don't trade your emotions about the news and the latest breaking headline that is designed to scare you out of your pants. Turn off the TV, stop reading the front page of the newspaper, and start sticking to your plan. Your account equity depends on it.
Also, I get into a discussion on some rules of thumb that have served me well as an Options Trader that you too can easily implement and see immediate performance results.
In options trading, risk management starts with defined risk and ends with position sizing. "Stop Losses" -- if used at all -- center around price action of the underlying and give zero weight to the value of the option(s) itself.
As an options trader, nothing makes me cringe more than hearing about people "protecting" their open options positions with Stop Loss orders.
In this episode, I discuss the proper way to manage your risk in new trades and why stop loss orders (and by extension market orders) are a TERRIBLE idea in options trading.
I learned another painful lesson recently on the importance of holding my winners and I discuss ways I'm addressing this weak part of my game. I also discuss tools I use to help me source swing trade ideas and manage my existing positions.
My friend and colleague Jamie Hodge (@quantbot) and I chat about how the public has been disenfranchised from the market after 2002 and 2008 gutted their portfolios, and how just recently we've been starting to notice signs of public participants starting to wade back into markets in a meaningful way -- partly due to the power in their pockets (smartphones).
If we're reading the tea leaves correctly, it spells good news for traders who are honing their craft now, as many more profitable opportunities will soon be coming down the road! We're excited!
In case you missed my interview with JC Parets (@allstarcharts) on the All Star Charts podcast, I've simulcast the interview here for this feed.
JC interviews me, and we talk a little bit about my options trading process, about where we find inspirations, great books we've read, and great stuff we're working on together for the benefit of all listeners.
This is an audio follow up to a recent blog post I published discussing the 20th Anniversary of my career in Trading. I discuss the importance of your WHY and some tips on discovering it yourself.
And it's a pep talk to myself that you call can benefit from.
Having trouble with your trading? Do you need guidance, mentorship, and access to tools and support?
If you're good on the above, then are you struggling with gaining access to capital to size up your game in a meaningful way? If so, then you may enjoy listening to Conor. His firm TopstepTrader solves these problems for aspiring market mavens. And the insight he's gained along the way in working with traders on the rise is incredibly valuable.
In this episode, we get into many of the important things Conor has learned over the years while supporting, working with, and seeing traders succeed (and fail!).
Cryptocurrencies get all the headlines, but it's really the Blockchain that is changing the world. Meet Raffi Bagdasarian, a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur operating in the brave new world, figuring out ways to leverage this game changing technology into new business applications.
If you are like me, this whole crypto/blockchain world is way over your head. Raffi helps to explain what's happening in plain English to me (the idiot) and this talk will be a great launch point for you to get motivated to learn more about the space as well.
Traders, Investors, and Entrepreneurs will all find value in this wide-ranging talk.
There's nothing like living through a disaster that gets one laser focused on only a handful of things in life that truly matter. Charlie lived through the twin hurricane disasters in Puerto Rico and came out the other said a better man.
Learn about "location independence", tax arbitrage, socionomics, elliottwave, and more.
The Headlines fooled you again. This is why your process trumps whatever is in the news. Plus, learn how I leverage #AI for purposes of Swing Trading. And a nice tease for an upcoming episode with @MarzBonfire.
Meet options trader Mike DiBari, a musician who yields to the pull of the mountains. Learn about what keeps him grounded, how he got started in the markets, and how he uses volume as the key determinant in executing a trading strategy only utilizing naked long call options.
Couldn't be more excited to be back to podcasting. Here's what we have to look forward to coming up: Interviews, insights, laughs, tough love, and everything else modern trader experience in a computer driven world.