Quant Mashup - Better System Trader New Volatility Based Trading Techniques with Rob Hanna (@QuantifiablEdgs) [Better System Trader]Could traders be using the VIX wrong? Is there an even better way to time the markets and reduce risk? In this episode, discover the new secrets of volatility-based trading with Rob Hanna. Rob shares his award-winning insights into using the VIX and SPX to time the market, challenging conventional(...) Getting serious about part-time trading w/ @Robot_Wealth [Better System Trader]Kris Longmore from RobotWealth joins us to discuss 4 key areas part-time traders need to take seriously to be successful, including: Why it’s important to understanding market participants and why they’re trading, 3 common things traders do that almost guarantee they will blow up, Setting(...) "Low-effort Trading Strategies" with Cesar Alvarez (@AlvarezQuant) [Better System Trader]Algorithmic trader Cesar Alvarez from Alvarez Quant Trading joins us to discuss low effort trading strategies, including: An explanation of rotational trading and the benefits/challenges of using rotational strategies, Why rotational trading is a fantastic way to diversify time (and also get to(...) Podcast with Ernie Chan (@ChanEP): Predicting profitability using machine learning [Better System Trader]Quant trader Ernie Chan from PredictNow.ai joins us to discuss how to predict the profitability of trades using machine learning, including: Unconditional probability and the problem with win% in backtest reports, Why “conditional probability” is much more useful for a trader and how to apply(...) 3 ways traders kill trading strategies w/ Rob Carver of @InvestingIdiocy [Better System Trader]Ever built an angelic trading strategy that performed heavenly in a backtest, only to find it’s a devil in live trading? Well… there are some very specific “sins” traders make when building trading strategies that destine them (the strategies that is) to a miserable life of soul-sucking(...) Podcast: The Magic of Momentum Trading – Alan Clement of @HelixTrader [Better System Trader]I’ve been sitting here for 5 mins trying to come up with a witty intro for this episode about momentum, but I just couldn’t seem to get it going, so… Video: Effective Market Regime Techniques w/ @AlvarezQuant [Better System Trader]Cesar Alvarez from AlvarezQuantTrading.com discusses effective Market Regime techniques to improve strategy performance and reduce risk by only trading in the best market conditions. “Effective Market Regimes Techniques” with @AlvarezQuant – LIVE this weekend [Better System Trader]This weekend is the very first episode of the new BST Live show. On the show this week we’re going to discuss how to improve your trading performance and reduce risk by trading only when the market conditions are best for your strategies. I’ve got Cesar Alvarez from Alvarez Quant Trading joining(...) Announcement: What's next for BST [Better System Trader]There’s been alot of speculation about what’s next for BST. This video explains all the details you need to know, including what’s happening to BST this Sunday… Maximising the potential of portfolios with Adam Butler of @InvestReSolve [Better System Trader]With so much focus often on the actual trading strategies or investments, portfolio construction can sometimes become an afterthought… or not even considered. However, as we’re going to hear about today, portfolio construction and optimization has the potential for huge increases in wealth…(...) Podcast: Leveraging human behaviour to find quantifiable edges with @LarryConnors1 [Better System Trader]As Warren Buffet once said: “the stock market is a manic depressive.” The market can be full of euphoria and greed one moment, and switch to fear and panic the next. This can often be a time of danger and high-risk for some traders, but for other traders it’s a time of immense opportunity.(...) Stitching data for a more 'balanced' backtest [Better System Trader]When traders set in-sample and out-of-sample periods for their backtests, it’s common just to pick some dates that split the data into a pre-defined percentage or range. The trouble with this approach is that it often doesn’t take into account the type of market environments that exist in those(...) Podcast: 2017 roundup: the year in review [Better System Trader]Well here we are, another year gone (and so fast too!). I’m glad you could join me for this final episode for 2017, where we’ll be reviewing all of the special guests we had on the show this year, the topics and insights they’ve shared plus their top trading lessons. I think this is a great(...) Podcast: Building Mean Reversion trading strategies with @AlvarezQuant - Part 3 [Better System Trader]And we’re back for the final episode in this 3-part series on building Mean Reversion strategies with Cesar Alvarez from Alvarez Quant Trading. In the 1st episode we discussed the goal of Mean Reversion trading, how to select a trading universe, a number of effective techniques to measuring Mean(...) Podcast: Building Mean Reversion trading strategies with @AlvarezQuant - Part 2 [Better System Trader]And we’re back for the 2nd episode in this 3-part series on building Mean Reversion strategies with Cesar Alvarez from Alvarez Quant Trading. In the first episode we discussed the goal of Mean Reversion trading, how to select a trading universe, a number of effective techniques to measuring Mean(...) Podcast: Building entries without curvefitting [Better System Trader]You may have noticed over the past few weeks of ‘Thursday Trading Thoughts’ that we’ve been following a theme. In episode 113 we heard about a test Kevin Davey calls the ‘Monkey test’, which can be used to measure the effectiveness of entries and exits. Then in episode 114 we reviewed a(...) Podcast: When is a strategy ready for live trading? With @Robot_Wealth [Better System Trader]It can be really interesting and exciting to research the markets and test different ideas but at some stage we need to decide if the strategy is ready for live trading. Some traders can get stuck endlessly researching… Trying to find that perfect system… Which comes at a cost. How do we avoid(...) Podcast: How to find trading ideas every single day with Rob Hanna (@QuantEdges) [Better System Trader]I recently received an email asking me where all the trading ideas are. I think every episode provides at least 1 idea of value, but one that stands out in my mind was the chat with Rob Hanna in episode 7. In that episode he share loads of trading ideas. But he also goes one step further and(...) Podcast: Machine Learning with Kris Longmore of @Robot_Wealth [Better System Trader]Machine learning has seen a huge amount of growth over recent years with the increase in available data and processing power. It’s an incredibly powerful toolset for uncovering patterns and relationships in data, however, these tools can be challenging to learn, apply correctly and are also open(...) Podcast: Trading the Mean Reversion Curve [Better System Trader]One of the challenges of Mean Reversion trading is deciding when to get into a trade. How far from the mean should we actually wait before we consider getting into a trade? In a trending environment where the dips are shallow, getting in closer to the mean can bring lots of trading opportunities(...) Strategy Validation with Dave Bergstrom (@DBurgh) [Better System Trader]With the toolsets we have available to us today it’s really quite easy to create a trading strategy by just mining market data. As we’ve just heard in that opening bit of audio and also from previous podcast guests too, if you try enough combinations you can find something that appears to work(...) Podcast: A deeper understanding of optimization with Andrea Unger [Better System Trader]One of the most common uses of optimization is to find the “best” values for a trading strategy, but is this approach only giving us part of the picture? Are there other uses for optimization that we can leverage to create better trading strategies? Today we’re going to have a quick chat with(...) Podcast: Combining simple concepts to build robust strategies with Art Collins [Better System Trader]I’m excited to be sharing this one with you today for a number of reasons. Firstly, I’ve been trying to get this guest on the show for over a year now, in fact it’s been longer than that because we first got in touch in July 2015, so it’s been a long time in the making. But secondly, and(...) Risk Management with @InvestingIdiocy [Better System Trader]Risk Management… It’s not as sexy as the latest hot indicator… Or the undiscovered penny stock poised for an explosive move… Or the trading guru who appeared out of nowhere and is now promising to share the “secrets” to making million dollar profits overnight… But there are a whole(...) Quantitative Momentum with Jack Vogel (@jvogs02) [Better System Trader]The guest for this episode is Jack Vogel from Alpha Architect, a quantitative asset management and consulting firm. Jack has published a number of papers on SSRN and also co-authored a couple of books including “Quantitative Momentum: a practitioners guide to building a momentum-based stock(...) Cryptocurrencies and Machine Learning with @BMouler [Better System Trader]As markets become more mature and more efficient, it can be become increasingly difficult to find sustainable edges. Many traders are looking at the same data and using the same techniques, so what are our options here? 2 of the obvious options we have are: Try to find a unique approach to the(...) Podcast: Market Regimes with @HelixTrader [Better System Trader]Most trading strategies have an optimal type of market condition where they work at their absolute best, so having an understanding of market conditions and being able to detect and adapt to them can really have a huge impact on trading performance. But how can we measure market regimes properly?(...) Podcast: Mean Reversion strategies with @QuantLabInfo [Better System Trader]The performance profile of Mean Reversion is extremely desirable to a lot of traders. Mean reversion trading strategies can produce high win rates and a smooth equity curve, however there are risks, which can result in giving back a large portion of profits, or of your trading account, some times in(...) Foundations of Successful Trading with Howard Bandy [Better System Trader]There are a number of different aspects to trading that we really need to get a handle on to increase our odds of success. Some aspects we often put a lot of thought and analysis into, and others we may not consider so carefully or at all, which could be impacting our trading results without us even(...) Podcast: Strategy Optimization with Robert Pardo [Better System Trader]Why is it that some traders can create trading strategies that perform well in real-time trading while other strategies fall apart? How do some traders keep their trading strategies fresh and adaptive to market conditions while other strategies just stop working altogether? Robert Pardo, president(...) Podcast: Reducing Drawdown with Scott Phillips [Better System Trader]Who wants a steadily rising equity curve with little or no drawdown? I'm sure most traders do, but unfortunately it doesn't usually end up that way. Drawdown is a big part of trading and can be one of the the biggest challenges traders face, so what techniques can we use to potentially(...) Podcast: Adapting to market conditions with John Ehlers [Better System Trader]Building robust trading strategies that can detect and adapt to market conditions can be a real challenge, and failure to do so can often result in poor trading performance and drawdowns. How can we build more robust trading strategies that adapt to market conditions as they change? Our guest for(...) Trading on Sentiment with Richard Peterson [Better System Trader]Trading algorithmically based on sentiment data is a relatively new field compared to more established approaches. With the explosion of social media and computing power, the analysis of sentiment data has also increased, with some hedge funds committing considerable resources to researching the(...) Podcast: Market behavior with Adam Grimes [Better System Trader]Today's guest is a trader that has been requested quite a few times actually, I've had a lot of requests to have this person as a guest on the show, and the guest is Adam Grimes. Adam has two decades of experience in the industry as a trader, analyst and system developer and is currently(...) From trading ideas to robust strategies [Better System Trader]To prepare for the previous episode on system trading through the Brexit, I had to dig through some of the past podcast episodes for background information. As I was going through them I realized there was so much great information there, some that I had already forgotten about. Such a shame, all(...) Should system traders override their systems? [Better System Trader]What an eventful few weeks we’ve had since the last episode. The results of the Brexit decision took a lot of people by surprise and the markets reacted accordingly. What was interesting about this market event is that we all knew the date and time period when the Brexit votes would start rolling(...) Can a simple Market Internals technique actually improve trading strategy results? [Better System Trader]In my 10+ years’ full-time trading career, I have found very few tools and tactics that would get my attention so deeply as Market Internals. In 2014, I spent about 6 months in a row with this unique traders tool, exploring its possibilities every single day, searching for new and creative(...) System Parameter Permutation - a better alternative? [Better System Trader]When I wrote my Wagner Award winning paper "Know your System! – Turning Data Mining from Bias to Benefit," I had two goals in mind: Introduce a new method to reasonably estimate the long-run expected performance of a trading system, and Provide a simple method for the average system(...) Strategy Evaluation with Dave Walton [Better System Trader]Today we're covering a topic which can really be a concern for traders of all levels, from beginner to pro, and that is the topic of strategy evaluation. Have you ever found that real-life performance does not match expected results? Or perhaps you have a strategy that is stuck in a drawdown(...) Podcast: Tribute to Nelson Freeburg [Better System Trader]Nelson Freeburg was the editor of Formula Research, a newsletter that developed systematic timing models for the stock, bond, and commodity markets. He was also a research consultant working with institutional money managers to design proprietary timing models. Nelson had been an active trader since(...) Interview with Nitesh Khandelwal of @QuantInsti [Better System Trader]Backtesting and execution are such key parts of algorithmic trading so choosing the wrong platform can have a huge impact on our trading. There are loads of trading platforms available and a lot of considerations which need to be made when choosing one that suits our needs, so in this episode(...) Strategy Development with Perry Kaufman [Better System Trader]I’m sure we all want to create trading strategies that perform better and last for longer but there are a number of issues we need to look out for when developing robust trading strategies, some are well-known and some perhaps aren’t. In this episode we’ll be talking with Perry Kaufman about(...) Podcast: Laurent Bernut - Part 2 [Better System Trader]Back in Episode 32 we had a chat with Laurent Bernut, a systematic short seller who spent years working in the Hedge Fund world specializing in short selling strategies. He shared loads of knowledge with us in that episode but we actually had a lot more to talk about. We ran out of time back then so(...) Podcast: Breakout strategies with Tomas Nesnidal [Better System Trader]Tomas Nesnidal has been a full-time trader for over 11 years, specializing in automated algorithmic trading strategies. He has experience with a number of trading styles, including option trading, spread trading, statistical arbitrage and market internals but in this episode we’re going to discuss(...) Interview with Murray Ruggiero [Better System Trader]Murray Ruggiero is the chief systems designer and market analyst at Tuttle Tactical Management with around 200 million dollars under management. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on the use of intermarket and trend analysis in locating and confirming developing price moves in the markets.(...) Collaboration in Trading with Michael Cook and Kevin Davey [Better System Trader]For those traders looking for an edge in every aspect of trading, today's topic is something that isn't discussed too much but has had a great impact on the 2 guests of this episode. The topic is collaboration in trading and the guests are Michael Cook and Kevin Davey. Both guests have(...) Podcast: Algorithmic Forecasting with Larry Williams [Better System Trader]Larry Williams has been a guest of the podcast before, sharing insights from 50 years of trading in Episode 20. In 1987 he won the World Cup trading championship, turning $10,000 in to over $1.1 million in 12 months. He is a published author, with a long list of best-selling books and has also(...) Interview with Michael Cook [Better System Trader]We’ve been very lucky to have a number of trading champions on the podcast before and this episode we get to talk to another champion trader, Michael Cook, who won the World Cup Trading championships in 2007 (Futures), 2011 (Stocks) and 2014 (Futures). Michael worked in the institutional world for(...) Cesar Alvarez Studies Stop Losses [Better System Trader]In this episode we’re discussing the results of a quantitative study on stop losses completed by Cesar Alvarez of Alvarez Quant Trading. Cesar was also a guest of the show way back in Episode 3. Cesar was director of research for Connors Research for almost 9 years, developing quantitative trading(...) Interview with Michael Bryant [Better System Trader]Creating robust trading strategies can be a difficult task, sometimes taking months or even years to generate something you find acceptable. Even then, once you start trading it live there is no guarantee it’ll work in the future. With strategy creation being such an involved process at times, how(...)