 Welcome to the MarketWatch podcast by Amplify Live, where you can access the latest market insights with me, Anthony Chung, the head of market analysis, and joined by our head of trading, Piers Curran, getting you up to speed on what mattered in markets this week. Good morning and welcome to episode 11 of the MarketWatch. It is Friday, the 9th of April. As per usual, I'm joined by our head of trading, Piers Curran, but markets have been incredibly quiet this week, and so rather than do our normal routine of talking about some of the market-led themes, we're going to completely pivot and talk about one single topic and that is what makes a good trader. So Piers, I think to start things off then, we need to qualify that statement. So how should we go about that? Yeah. Well, it's a big question, and it's a question I get asked all the time. For me, what makes a good trader is consistency. I think anybody can make profit on any one day, let's say, or in any one week or in any one trade. Anyone can make profit, and that's just simply by view of the fact in the end price can only go one of two ways, and you get lucky. I mean, I've had plenty of trades where I've got lucky, and if you happen to be in a trade at the right time, I don't know, you might be long something and there's news and it happens to ping higher and wow, you make a lot of money really quickly, but I don't think that makes you a good trader. So for me, it's consistency over time. That's what makes a good trader. Okay. So now that that's clear then, let's go back. You've been trading for about 20 years. I think I've been around the block now about 15 years. So we've encountered some amazing traders and some not so good traders along the last few years. So tell me about some of the characters that really stick out in your mind of being what would be perceived as a good trader? Yeah. I mean, so I hit the trading floor, well, I say I didn't quite hit the trading floor straight away in 2002 when I joined a US trading firm in their London office. So I said we hit the trading floor, we didn't. We actually got shoved into a side room. So these trading firms were quite aggressively hiring and I was one of 15 people and Will De Lucie, the other co-founder of Amplify was also in that same group of 15. And anyway, we started, but we got shoved into this side room and basically just got given a computer and an access to the simulated version of the market and got told to basically figure it out. There was really virtually no training at all. And we got shoved in a room and then like a month later, right, let's have a look at your simulated performance, okay, if you've done well, fine, right, you can come across to the trading floor. And so then you kind of walk into this massive room, these open office, you know, huge rooms with like 100 plus traders on there. And I have to say it was very, very intimidating. And it's not the environment you would expect or certainly not the environment you see these days. I mean, this is 2002 pre, well, pre everything pretty much. This is where we were right when I joined, we were right in that transition between coming off the life floor so that the life being the futures exchange in London, that's an open outcry trading pits that closed and futures trading went screen based and you had all these kind of big characters, these big, I mean, these bit a lot of them were like Essex boy, Barrow boy, as we call them, these really kind of extrovert, being quite aggressive characters that were trying to figure out how to trade on a screen, having had a career on the floor. And with that came some just ridiculous behavior. You'd walk into the trading floor and you've got people just in their in their Bermuda shorts and flip flops with their feet on the desk, you know, just reading stuff that really shouldn't be read in public. I've got a good story of how the traders because they used to go out all night and then come in straight into work, they would borrow the, they would borrow a special bag because back then there obviously wasn't smartphones and the bag had some adult content magazines and they would take the bag to the toilet. They would get and they'd also have a stack of toilet rolls and have a little kip in the in the toilet. Yeah, there's that kind of behavior. It's true. And it's kind of weird to think about that now. You know, you go on to a trading floor now and obviously it's super serious. I mean, part of that, I mean, we won't talk about it in this podcast, but, you know, the, perhaps the over-regulated situation that we now find ourselves in means that, you know, behavior has gone swung from one end of the spectrum, which was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous when I started. Now to the other extreme where it's just gone too far and actually a lot of traders working for some of the big, big banks, for example, are now actually, you know, they're super cautious about what they're doing because literally they could get fired for saying the wrong thing. So one of the things here was that I spoke to my brother yesterday. My brother used to work for Refco and Refco at the time was a New York based. So biggest broker in the world in the late 90s, early 90s, and they had a big futures division where people were just speculating on the market. And I asked him, well, what was some of the what were some of the nicknames because this is something that doesn't really exist so much nowadays. But back then, if you were if you were good, you weren't known by your name. You had like a code name, a market name. And here is here's just a selection for you is that you might enjoy. So you could tell what people thought about how good a trader this guy was. This guy was called Yoda. So he obviously was the boss. I mean, to have a nickname like that, you really are top dog. Another one, this is slightly going in a different direction. He was called toxic. But you mentioned one of those characters. Now, I remember toxic. And he actually, you know, it was really weird situation because when I first went on the trading floor, Refco, I was about 16 because my brother was trading for Refco at the time. I was I was young and I remember they took me out at lunchtime for one of their usual lunchtime forays. And oh my goodness me. But ever since then, me and my brother are quite different personality wise. I mean, he definitely enjoyed that culture. I think for me, it was very different from what I was used to. And I was quite introvert at the time. But they were always so pleasant and nice to me. There was almost like I was the little kid that they took around the little brother. Yeah. And so toxic actually was part of the I can't remember what the firm is called at Chelsea Football Club, but he was part of the firm. Right. Yeah. So he said he was he was a tasty fellow. But really, really nice guy. Somebody other names the edge. Nice. I'll take that. Another one, Black Ray. Black Ray. No, you know, these are different times, I guess. Chicken. And then my my brother was called the Chinaman. I asked our surnames, obviously, and us being half Chinese. And then and therefore I just adopted the nickname Chongi Junior. So but but the one that stuck out, talking of like of the biggest name at the time was one that I think even you heard of a different proprietary training firm, the guy was called Braveheart. And surely that has to be the best name. He was he was a legend. I actually never met him, but you certainly knew about him. And the almost like the folklore kind of stories that would kind of ripple through the proptating desks about this guy and how much he's making. And I mean, I'm sure I know he made a lot, but I'm sure the the numbers that is like Chinese whispers. By the time it got to us, a few trading firms across, then, you know, those numbers have been multiplied ten or 20 times. But but yeah, I had I had a nickname. Yeah, I was was and I didn't give this to myself. My name was was Iceman. And OK, that's that's that's good. We'll get into some traits, you know, personality traits of good traders. You know, we'll explore that in a minute. But yeah, that that really that that name came from the fact that apparently you couldn't tell. So other people on the trading floor sat around me or whatever. They couldn't tell if I was having a good day or a bad day. They didn't know through the way I was my external appearance, the way I was behaving. They didn't know if I was making a lot of money, if I was flat, or if I was losing a lot. And the point being that I think I was I was very good at dealing with the sort of roller coaster of P&L swings, let's say. So so I've heard this before. I know you're the Iceman. And I know for what reason that you you were given that name. Well, I don't know. Is that what what's where's this ability that you have come from? Was it learn? Was it something that was born out of an experience, life experience? And if so, like this can we have some more colour on that? You want to explore that? Well, look, the I think to be a good trader, I mean, let's start there. Then we'll kind of get to that point. You know, why am I why why did I perform well? I think to be a good trader, firstly, it's very hard. And as we said before, at the start, it's about consistency, you know, over time, day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, year out, right? It's consistency of performance. And so a whole bunch of stuff, attributes, skill sets needs to go into that, you know, into you achieving that consistency. And of course, there's obvious stuff like, you know, you've got to be your your product knowledge needs to be excellent. So what what financial products are you trading? And, you know, just understanding these products from the ground up. I think you've got to be a great analyst. And that comes in a few forms, actually. But the obvious one is price analysts, so charting and technical analysts. So really understanding price and price behavior. I think you've got to be a good sort of macro or you've got to be a macro expert. So understanding the forces that drive prices. OK, and all of this stuff, those kind of three things, really, that just comes with time and learning and reading. Anybody can learn that stuff. It's it's it's not rocket science. It's it's very straightforward. Just take some time, right? So that's not the differentiating factor. You know, how much of an expert are you on equity products? That that's not your differentiating factor, because everyone can learn that. So actually, I think in the end, it comes down to your your control of yourself is, in my view, the most important attribute of a trader. All the good traders I traded with all the good traders I know, I would say that's their one common attribute. No other common attributes. None at all. Actually, just the control of yourself and that. And mostly, I would say that comes when you're losing money. The control of yourself, you know, can you deal with loss? I think ultimately in the end, that that's the single most actually. So whether can you learn that is the kind of question. Can you teach yourself to deal with adversity? Can you teach yourself to deal with loss? You know, can you be in that moment where everything's crashing around you? Your your P&L's red and getting massive and red and how do you act? You know, how do you behave? And I think to a certain extent, you can educate yourself around psychology. And that's key for anybody who wants to be going down the pathway of trying to perform as a trader, psychology is key. So you've got to look, you can learn about that stuff. But unfortunately, that isn't enough because in the end, fine, you might understand psychology, but can you control it? And so I would say, you know, for me, you know, are you able to deal with those bad days? Are you able to come back tomorrow and behave genuinely behave in a way where yesterday doesn't matter? And I say genuinely because the psychologists out there will say, well, you know, you've got to get the right mindset, you know, come back tomorrow, you know, new start, P&L's at zero now. Forget yesterday, those losses have gone. You can't make them back. Always look forward. You can tell yourselves all of those things, but actually, actually, how are you feeling inside and can you control that? And so, yeah, for me, I mean, I guess, you know, I was quite, I think I'm quite resilient as an individual. And I think that comes from my early years. My kind of childhood, I was, we lived in a, in the back end of nowhere in the middle of Wales in a tiny little village. And I went to school and the school I was at, this is when I was six. And the school I was at had 21 people, not in my year, in the whole school. There were two people in my year, I was one of them, right? So that was my environment as a school. But then my dad started doing quite well at work. And the school wasn't very good. And so the best school nearby was actually like a 45 minute drive away. And it was boarding school. And so they thought, now we've earned a bit of money. Let's let's see, we can upgrade education here. So I got sent to a boarding school and I was seven. And it was like a Victorian old school boarding school. It's since been shut down, put it that way, got shut down about 15 years ago. I'm all maybe 20 years ago now. And look, it was just at the age of seven, it was just a very harsh environment. And I think that that forced resilience into me and that resilience. I believe as I stood me in very good stead, certainly when it comes to trading, because look, you know, I've lost some money, just getting it in perspective. You know, and how easily can you get that loss into perspective? I think is relative to the kinds of ups and downs you've had in your life prior to that moment. And that's why I think, you know, kind of thinking, thinking about like the way big institutions hire and how they've hired, they tend to hire the Oxbridge candidates and there's a flaw in that. There's a flaw in that system. And that's because Oxbridge candidates tend to have just excelled throughout their life, right? They've academically smashed it, they've achieved and achieved and achieved and they've never failed. And I think having never failed at anything actually puts you in a really vulnerable place when you enter the trading floor and you start to try and manage money because money goes up and down. And when it goes down, right, let's see what you've got. That's really where you find out if someone can trade. Yeah, it's just so interesting because I think having being involved in Amplify, you know, since our inception with kind of trader development, often new traders coming into this will be looking for like, what is the routine? What's the framework to success? But actually, you and I were talking a while ago about the idea that some of the best traders we know, you know, some trade 12 hours a day, some trade literally one hour a day, and they have equally the same output if you like as results in how they trade. So funny as well, when I asked because my brother worked with Braphart and I was like, come on, then tell me what was he like? I said, what was the one defining characteristic of Paul Bristol, which was the guy's name? And you know what he said? Is it two word response? Big balls. But I've heard you say this, there's something weird about the way this kind of manhood thing, because you've said about your boss told you what was it your boss said to you about what he liked about your your best quality? So we used to get we should have a monthly review. So at the end of the month, March down into the boss's office, my boss was a guy from Chicago. Billionaire, dollar billionaire, quite old guys in his seventies, Ralph Goldenberg legend. Anyway, we get marched into his office. It's very intimidating because he's such a massive figure in the industry and right, he'd sit you down, right? You know, have you gone this month? Let's have a look. It's been going on. Let's have a look at your piano and he'd go through it. And then yeah, he used to tell me, you know, what I like about you? What about what I like about you is you you you don't mind letting it hang out there is what he said. And he wasn't talking about my genitalia. This is where he meant that because look, when you're trading, you've got to be comfortable with risk. All right. Obviously, a trade is taking risk. So you've got to be comfortable with risk. So you've got to take put a trade on and let it hang out there. Be be comfortable in the environment where you might lose money. Obviously, you're going to be in the trade because you've done the analysis and you think the probabilities are in your favor and you're going to make money. But there's always a chance you might lose. And are you comfortable there? And a lot of people aren't. And if you're not comfortable there, don't trade. So it must have felt uncomfortable for you at the beginning, though. So what was the transition phase of that for you? Yeah, I think I was quite quick. I adapted to it quite quickly. And so I guess I took a bit of confidence from that. And that was quickly relative to the 15 other people that were all in our microcosm together. And I think I took some confidence from that, I guess. And that helped, you know, confidence is like in many walks of life, confidence is such a valuable commodity. So I got a bit of confidence because I was progressing quickly, relatively quickly. And then, you know, it just just went from there. And I think, yeah, I was just good. I was I think I was a natural at being comfortable with taking risk. I think that was a natural attribute rather than something that I learned. And I think that really helped me along the way. OK, well, to conclude this conversation, then, well, what's our takeaway here? So the podcast title is What Makes a Good Trader? Having discussed what we've discussed and what's what's what's the conclusion? Well, big balls. Well, all joking aside, that's pretty much it. I mean, yeah, as you said, it doesn't matter on the trading floor. You know, we had people walk in at 11 a.m. Walk out at 2 p.m. They're the best trader on the floor. You had other people who got in at 6 30 a.m. and left at 6 p.m. And made a fraction of what the other person made. So it's so hard to kind of pinpoint it. But yeah, I'd say. You've got an expert on products, really good analysts know your stuff. But in the end, it's about being OK with risk and is being OK with loss, particularly. I think it's that old saying, you've got to learn how to lose before you can actually learn how to make and so true. If you can't deal with loss, you're never going to make any money. Great. Well, look, that's a good strap line to finish on. And so, yeah, I hope everyone enjoyed that slightly different sort of direction, if you like, for the podcast this week. If you did enjoy that, do let let us know. And, you know, we're happy to go off and talk about other non kind of direct market stuff and time to time. If that's what you guys want to hear, absolutely happy to do so. But otherwise, I hope everyone has a great weekend and we'll see you next week. Thanks. See you guys.