Better Trader Academy Trading Podcast

Strategy validation is a crucial part of live trading. Get it wrong and the results can be disastrous. Traders rely on various techniques to validate strategies, including out of sample testing, but how do we know if the approaches we’re using are even valid? In today’s podcast episode we discuss a series of questions submitted by trader Sam. Sam raises a number of interesting points about out of sample testing that all traders need to consider, including: How much out of sample data is sufficient to identify a stable relationship, How do you know that what worked in Out of Sample testing will continue to work, Is it even possible to avoid curve-fitting, Why you should NEVER use trading techniques as crutches, Plus much more. Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

If I asked you today: Can you see yourself flying on a private jet in 12 to 24 months? What would you reply? Could you see yourself in that position in a year from now? From my personal experience, a lot of traders will say ‘No WAY’. They’ll completely shut down the idea and intention of visualizing their near-term future. But as a matter of fact, visualizing your 1 to 2-year goals is what may actually help you get there faster. And I’m living proof of it. But it’s not just me. Top performers and athletes all around the world are using these techniques to succeed. So, if you want to become an Algo-millionaire, you have to start thinking and visualizing like you are one already. And how do you do it exactly? That’s the topic of today’s podcast, where we discuss the techniques that could help you experience tremendous progress in your trading, even in a very reasonable amount of time. Here’s what you’ll discover: Why it’s so hard for traders to visualize their near-term results, How our subconscious mind prevents us from moving in the right direction, How emotional visualization pushes traders to a whole new level of achievement, How to successfully practice emotional visualization, And much more! Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

Who wants more free time to do the things they enjoy the most? To live the life of our dreams and not have to eat, breath and sleep work? I’m sure we all do, but how can we do that and still make money at the same time? No… the answer is not the cliché ‘work harder’... The answer is to work SMARTER. Luckily, we’re in an era where we can leverage technology so that the majority of our work can be done for us - we just need to set up the process and then we can go enjoy life while the computer does the work for us! But where do we even start and how can we do it? Great question and today’s podcast gives you all the answers. Here’s what you’ll discover: How Automation can give you the life of your dreams, How much of the trading process you can automate and what you should start with, The do’s and don’ts of automation, to prevent you from pouring years of profit down the drain, Where you can learn how to develop good, sound trading models to use as a strong foundation for automation, Plus, much more!   So go listen to it now. Be smart and automate!

Can you believe 2018 is gone, just like that? Yep! And what a year it has been… A lot was achieved, and a lot was learned. Now, like for any other year, it’s crucial to reflect on where you were the most and least successful in 2018. It’ll make your 2019 goals a lot more REALISTIC and allow you to really focus on what can be improved. So, join us in this podcast while we go back in time through the year of 2018 and reveal what we learned, achieved and can improve upon, and what you need to know to be ready for 2019! Here’s what you’ll discover: Tomas’s and Andrew’s biggest trading lessons of 2018, and how they’re applying them to their new year’s goals, What you need to know about the markets before embarking on your trading projects for 2019, How you can be better prepared for a future market crisis, What you can implement in your trading that could help you predict your moves and avoid nasty ones, And much more. Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

Shiva is a guy like you. He loves trading. He’s success driven. He’s smart. And he’s very passionate about what he does. And he has definitely been one of the most progressive students of the Breakout Strategies Masterclass. He enrolled in the masterclass just 6 months ago, but since then he has already developed and started trading his first breakout portfolio LIVE. Let me repeat that: With the help of the Breakout Masterclass, he has launched his very first breakout portfolio in just 6 months. Something, you can easily do in 2019 too. Imagine how much further ahead you can be just 6 months from now. Trading your breakout portfolio live and enjoying what you really like doing. Like Shiva. And to discover more about Shiva’s story, we’ve recorded an amazing, highly inspiring podcast episode with him.  In this episode, you’ll discover: Why Shiva decided to become a trader and the intriguing reason why trading is to him a better profession than anything else, How Shiva extensively tested the Breakout Strategies Masterclass framework first - to know his money was well invested and that the framework actually works (and his conclusion from the testing), What were his next steps after gaining full confidence in the Breakout Strategies Masterclass and what markets, timeframes and personal nuances he decided to use to build his first portfolio, How many strategies he has built with the Masterclass so far and how many he launched his first portfolio with, His first results with live trading, And much more. Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

Handling drawdowns and losing streaks is one of the biggest challenges traders face. We say (or think) that we’re ready for them, and that we know what our tolerance is and can handle them… but problems can arise quickly. Traders often underestimate how long, painful and frustrating drawdowns can actually be. They can leave us devastated for months… Or even completely break us… But believe it or not, drawdowns can actually be a good thing. How? In this podcast episode, we discuss drawdowns, how to prepare for them, how to manage them and how to become a better trader because of them. Here’s what you’ll discover: Why nobody is really ever ready for drawdowns even if they think they are, The number #1 exercise to get psychologically ready for drawdowns before they actually happen, Why very rational people, especially, should not ignore this key exercise, The hidden benefits of going through actual drawdowns and how they can make you a better trader, How your trading journey should be a constant self-optimization process, And more additional techniques to minimize and manage drawdowns. Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

It’s no secret that trading comes with its own challenges and obstacles. But as for any other worthwhile endeavour, perseverance and persistence is often the key to success. On today’s podcast, we have Jim, a retired currency trader, who’s a great example of this mantra. Jim took an interest in automated trading as a way to solve a lot of the issues he had with discretionary trading. He started developing automated strategies but was faced with the challenge of trying to build enough diversified systems in a reasonable amount of time. And then one day he made a key discovery, and the rest is history... He has now achieved a fully automated system of generating strategies, along with more than 70 robustness level 3 strategies, and is now building his first portfolio. Stay tuned to listen to Jim’s story and how his persistence paid off! Here’s what you’ll discover: How Jim went from discretionary currency trader to automated algo trader in such a short amount of time, The key discovery that accelerated Jim's progress in the algorithmic trading world and how you can leverage it too, The importance of persistence in trading and how to achieve extraordinary results fast, Jim’s advice for a successful trading journey, And much more. Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

Most traders love “tinkering”. We’re always looking for the next problem to fix, the next idea to try out, the next thing to learn and tweak. In our trading journeys, we can become obsessed with understanding every single detail that a lot of the time has no relevance to our progress. We can become so occupied with artificial problems that we’re not making space for what truly matters… live trading! It's great to be curious and keep wanting to learn, but when it starts delaying our progress it can become extremely DANGEROUS to our trading success. In this podcast episode, here’s what you’ll discover: The #1 reason why traders can’t relax and keep making mistakes prematurely, How not taking the time to take a step back and observe could damage your trading, How social conditioning is leading you to have the wrong trading mindset, How to find the balance between “doing” and “relaxing”, And much more! Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

A couple of weeks ago we shared a podcast about Dynamic Position Sizing (DPS). After that episode, we received an interesting comment from BTA podcast listener Paul (thanks Paul!), which we believe could bring more clarity to other traders as well. Paul is a trend follower who’s been trading for about 2 years. He’s figured out that varying his position sizing can be a good way to improve his results. So, he started applying position sizing to his trading, betting more on trades he thinks have a higher chance of being profitable. Sounds good right? Well… it depends... Even though Paul seems to have found a way to improve his results using position sizing, he could potentially be applying a very dangerous concept that is far from DPS. Something that can bring traders a lot of pain and frustration. What is it? In this podcast episode we discuss Paul's comments, plus a whole lot more, including: What is DPS and how to correctly use it in your trading to improve your profits, How this particular position sizing technique can ruin your capital very quickly, Why you shouldn’t remove a lower probability trade from your trading system, The tool you should be using to predict your most realistic worst-case scenario, And much more! Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

A lot of traders think of performance in terms of the dollars they’ve made or lost. But knowing how to effectively measure trading strategies, portfolios and overall trading performance is key to long-term success. The overwhelming number of statistics available in backtesting software these days is incredible, but… Most of it doesn't actually matter. So, how do you separate what’s important from what’s not? In today’s episode, we share the most important metrics we’ve used over the years to assess strategy and portfolio performance. Here’s what you’ll discover: The 2 main types of trading metrics you need to be aware of, Which trading metrics you should always keep in mind and which ones you can ignore, How to accurately measure strategy/portfolio performance, How SQN is often misunderstood by traders and how to apply it to strategies correctly, Why daily correlations can give inaccurate results and what to measure instead, How assessing system versus portfolio metrics requires two very different mindsets. Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

Imagine starting your trading journey. You have a super positive mindset and you’re excited to learn and succeed. You keep learning and improving your craft, and you keep seeing positive results coming your way. You have profits. You feel great! You have a good number of robust strategies and your equity curve is looking smooth. But all of a sudden… you feel like you’ve been hit by a hurricane. Your trades start losing, and you feel devastated. You’ve done everything according to trading “protocol”, but you feel stuck and don’t know what went wrong. You lose hope and label yourself a “losing trader”. That’s exactly what happened to Domenico - a very driven and hardworking trader that faced a couple of rough months. The good news is… nothing is lost. This is completely normal. So, how can Domenico or anyone else in this position move on from this unfortunate situation? Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: What to expect when going through a losing streak and how to deal with it long-term, What mistakes you could be making in your testing procedures that could influence your losing streak, How you can have a more realistic picture of how your trades will perform, Tomas's number one advice to help you get past the negative “losing streak” mindset and move forward, Plus, much more! Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

Alan, an electric engineer tuned orthopedic surgeon, went into trading with a positive and enthusiastic attitude. And as most traders do, he learned the hard way… He learned that the beautiful backtesting curves being sold online bring you nothing but pain and frustration. And you can probably guess that Alan lost a big chunk of his account very quickly… Actually, he lost 50% of his account in ONE single day. Ouch! He suffered BIG time. But nevertheless, Alan stood his ground. He was determined to make this work and find out what went wrong in his trading. After investing in the Breakout Strategies Masterclass, Alan has now created more than 70 robust strategies, across 7 different markets… and in less than 2 months! So, here’s what you’ll discover in today’s episode: Why Alan decided to build his portfolio with the Breakout Masterclass process after numerous failures with other trading courses, How Alan successfully changed his trading results by never settling for what he thought was logical, How Alan’s impressive “surgical focus” helped him to develop 70 robust breakout trading strategies across 7 different markets FAST, and how you can do it too! Plus, so much more! Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

Trading is a probability game. But the probability of the success of each trade changes every single time. While the market conditions of today may reduce the probability of a trade by 50%, tomorrow the conditions may increase the probabilities. So, it doesn’t matter what trading system or strategy we trade… we cannot treat all trades equally.  If a trader has a proper understanding of this, it can be leveraged to improve performance, sometimes radically. How, you may ask? Dynamic position sizing (DPS). It’s an idea that goes far beyond the conservative way of thinking in trading. It’s a simple but out of the box idea that can make a huge impact in your trading… if it’s applied correctly. So, here’s what you’ll discover in today’s podcast: What is DPS and how you can apply this cutting-edge technique to improve your drawdown and overall profit, The DOs and DON'Ts of applying DPS to avoid lowering your overall trading performance, What you need to do to avoid overfitting your strategies when applying this technique, And much more! Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!

Imagine you need a new pair of shoes. You go to the shoe shop and explain to the store attendant what type of shoes you want. Now, imagine if the store attendant tells you they only have 1 type of shoe and it only comes in 1 size. They recommend this same shoe to ALL of their customers, and they recommend it to you too. They don’t even check if it’s in your size! Would you take it? Probably not. To get the best results you need shoes that match you. Shoes that match your foot size. Shoes that match your body weight. And shoes that are designed for the specific purpose you need - you’re not going to want women high-heels if you’re a male runner. (and if you do that's fine too, we’re not judging!) But, just as there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution for shoes, there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution in trading. Every challenge a trader goes through has a very specific solution to solve that problem. Trying to use the wrong solution for a specific problem won’t give you the best results. So, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could get a personalized solution to your trading challenge RIGHT NOW? In this podcast episode, we talk about finding the right solution for trading challenges, including: The mindset you need to never get stuck in your trading challenges, The first step to finding the perfect solution for what’s holding your trading back, How to get a personalized action plan for the trading challenges you’re facing right now, And much more. Do you have any trading questions you’d like answered? Submit them here, and we may cover them in a future episode!