Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Boomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have Dr Brett Steambarger.
Speaker 1: He is a clinical psychologist and a professional trading coach
Speaker 1: who has worked with the likes of Paul Tutor Jones
Speaker 1: and Tutor Investments and a number of other firms that
Speaker 1: are both storied and legendary. You know, this is one
Speaker 1: of those conversations where I know the person virtually. I've
Speaker 1: been reading him for many, many years. We've swapped emails
Speaker 1: over the years, but it was the first time we
Speaker 1: actually met and had a conversation, and I found it
Speaker 1: really quite fascinating. It the idea of performance coaching turns
Speaker 1: out to be somewhat different than you than you might
Speaker 1: have imagined. It's certainly different than is depicted and shows
Speaker 1: like Billions and and all the drama all the rest
Speaker 1: of that sort of stuff just isn't realistic. As he
Speaker 1: describes in the conversation, it's a lot of basic block
Speaker 1: and tackling and a lot of work on on fundamentals.
Speaker 1: Enhancing the positive minimizing the negative probably doesn't make for
Speaker 1: a fascinating uh television show, but the proof is in
Speaker 1: the pudding and the firms that hire him show an
Speaker 1: actual improvement not only in the process and the satisfaction
Speaker 1: level of traders, but ultimately in their P and L
Speaker 1: and that that seems to be the bottom line. What
Speaker 1: he does works uh for firms that have humans who
Speaker 1: have discretion over deploying capital. So if you are an investor,
Speaker 1: a trader, or someone who's just interested in human psychology,
Speaker 1: I think you will find this to be an interesting conversation. So,
Speaker 1: with no further ado, uh, my interview with Dr Brett
Speaker 1: steam Barger. This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. This week on the show, we have
Speaker 1: Dr Brett steam Barger. He is a clinical psychologist and
Speaker 1: a trading coach, and he has worked with such storied
Speaker 1: firms as Kingstree Trading and Tutor Investments. Dr Brett stein Barger,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks for having me, Barry. So, you
Speaker 1: have a really interesting background. You graduate with a b a.
Speaker 1: In psychology from Duke and seventy six, You get your
Speaker 1: pH d from the University of Kansas two and then
Speaker 1: you begin what looks like a pretty typical academic career
Speaker 1: in clinical psychology New York City, Courtland, Cornell, Syracuse, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you end up at a
Speaker 1: trading shop. How did how did that shift come about? Yeah? It, actually, Barry,
Speaker 1: looks more like a radical shift than it was in reality.
Speaker 1: I began trading myself in the late nineteen seventies while
Speaker 1: I was in graduate school, and so it was a
Speaker 1: parallel interest to the psychology and it helped keep me
Speaker 1: afloat as a poor, starving graduate student. And I maintained
Speaker 1: that interest throughout my training and throughout my early career
Speaker 1: as a psychologist. So what was the event that led
Speaker 1: you to start coaching traders. Well, up to that point,
Speaker 1: I had been doing counseling with college students at Cornell
Speaker 1: and with medical students and residence at SUNNI Upstate in Syracuse.
Speaker 1: So my main area of focus was working with very bright,
Speaker 1: very motivated students, professionals under who are under pressure and
Speaker 1: helping them perform to their maximum. When I started interacting
Speaker 1: with trade leaders, I noticed similar dynamics to the medical
Speaker 1: students and residents that I worked with. Not not a
Speaker 1: big leap that it was psychologically in terms of working
Speaker 1: with them as a psychologist. It was not a leap
Speaker 1: at all the same exact techniques that were helpful. Let's
Speaker 1: say to a surgical resident who's working eighteen hour days
Speaker 1: and working under pressure, not different than working with a
Speaker 1: portfolio manager, let's say at a macro hedge fund. So
Speaker 1: let's um, let's talk about some of the errors that
Speaker 1: traders make that are fixable coachable. I don't even know
Speaker 1: what what's the right phrase to do that? What? What
Speaker 1: are the typical problems that you see amongst traders, Well,
Speaker 1: there are quite a few, and some of them are
Speaker 1: trading problems and some of them are psychological problems. One
Speaker 1: of the things I emphasize with the traders and the
Speaker 1: portfolio managers I work with is keeping score, keeping score
Speaker 1: of what they do well, keeping score of what they
Speaker 1: do that needs improvement, so that they are always learning
Speaker 1: from their experience, always recognizing the mistakes they can correct.
Speaker 1: One of the greatest big picture mistakes that traders can
Speaker 1: make is the failure to adapt to changing markets. They
Speaker 1: hope that they have an edge, probabilistic edge in the markets.
Speaker 1: They hope that that edge will last in perpetuity, and
Speaker 1: in fact, markets change, and just like any business, what
Speaker 1: worked at one time can become obsolete at another and
Speaker 1: failing to innovate is one of the greatest problems. Failing
Speaker 1: to innovate. Just describe how individual traders innovate. They innovate
Speaker 1: by tracking patterns in markets, tracking what moves markets, and
Speaker 1: developing new and different ways of monitoring that and taking
Speaker 1: advantage of that. So, for instance, an example would be
Speaker 1: as computers, as algorith big trading systems became more dominant
Speaker 1: in the marketplace, we found more traders, both short term
Speaker 1: traders and portfolio managers employing some quantitative techniques to help
Speaker 1: them understand some of the forces that we're moving markets.
Speaker 1: That's an evolution, that's adaptation. So let's talk about when
Speaker 1: you shifted, Um, is it fair to call at full
Speaker 1: time as a trader coach? Was it two thousand four
Speaker 1: Kingstreet Trading, who for people may not be familiar with them,
Speaker 1: at one point in time they were of all the
Speaker 1: futures trading at the Chicago Mark. They recruit you, Um, yes,
Speaker 1: to be the head of trader development. Is that that's right?
Speaker 1: That's right. So I had written my first book, The
Speaker 1: Psychology of Trading, and one of their traders had discovered
Speaker 1: the book and convinced the owner of the firm to
Speaker 1: bring me in to work with the traders. That went
Speaker 1: very well, and they hired me on a full time basis.
Speaker 1: I left the Ivory Tower and went full time to
Speaker 1: working at a crazy trading firm in Chicago with people
Speaker 1: I loved. So I would imagine a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are listening to this might be familiar with the
Speaker 1: idea of a trading coach from the showtime show Billions.
Speaker 1: Have you seen it? Does it doesn't ring true? Or
Speaker 1: is it just a Hollywood dramatization of that sort of relationship.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that there's a lot less drama
Speaker 1: in my work, and I don't think the nuts and
Speaker 1: bolts of my work would make it into TV drama.
Speaker 1: A lot of the improvements that traders make are nuances
Speaker 1: that it's the block crement, yeah, incremental, it's the blocking
Speaker 1: and tackling, so to speak, learning to do things better,
Speaker 1: identifying mistakes made, where to and how to best execute
Speaker 1: a trade, how to wait evidence in, deciding upon an
Speaker 1: idea to invest in. Those are the kind of nuances
Speaker 1: that end up making a big difference in performance, but
Speaker 1: are not particularly traumatic to work on. You hinted something
Speaker 1: that I had that raises another question in my mind.
Speaker 1: When you evaluate how well you're doing, is it just
Speaker 1: a function of the trader's P and L or are
Speaker 1: you looking at process more than outcome? Great question, and
Speaker 1: you have to look at both. You know, at one level,
Speaker 1: what a affirm hires me. We have to look at
Speaker 1: do the traders make use of the resource? That's one level.
Speaker 1: Are are they satisfied with it? Do they feel they've
Speaker 1: benefited from it? So satisfaction is one criterion. The second
Speaker 1: criterion is a process one. Are they actually doing something
Speaker 1: different as a result of the meetings? And then the
Speaker 1: third criterion would be the profitability. Does doing something different
Speaker 1: translate into better overall performance? I'm very Rihults. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest
Speaker 1: today is Dr Steam Barger. He is a clinical psychologist
Speaker 1: and professional trading coach. Let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the process of coaching traders and investors. Where does that
Speaker 1: process begin. The process begins with self observation, and this
Speaker 1: is true of any psychological change. We have to become
Speaker 1: aware of our patterns before we can make changes in
Speaker 1: those patterns. So typically, I will observe a trader and
Speaker 1: what they're doing. I will have I will give them
Speaker 1: exercises to help them with self observation, and will begin
Speaker 1: to observe patterns and what they do, some successful patterns,
Speaker 1: some patterns that get them into trouble. What what's what
Speaker 1: do these exercises look like? That sounds interesting? Well, the
Speaker 1: most basic exercise that people associate with coaching of traders
Speaker 1: would be keeping a journal, so people, day in day out,
Speaker 1: will track the decisions they make and how they made them,
Speaker 1: why they made them, and the success of those decisions.
Speaker 1: They may track certain things in their personal life as
Speaker 1: far as their mood, their energy level, and so forth,
Speaker 1: and we start to look at the patterns that appear
Speaker 1: in the journal entries. So, what are some of the
Speaker 1: bad habits you see that traders engage in. Some of
Speaker 1: the bad habits that traders engage in is are an
Speaker 1: inability to turn it off, so to speak. Explain that
Speaker 1: a little bit, Yes, so they take the problems home
Speaker 1: with them. They really don't get a chance or give
Speaker 1: themselves a chance to renew themselves. And they justify that
Speaker 1: by saying they're so devoted to their trading and so
Speaker 1: devoted to markets when in fact they're in the process
Speaker 1: of burning themselves out. Sometimes you have to take one
Speaker 1: step back to go two steps forward. Well, take a
Speaker 1: step back, but also a lateral step. What the psychological
Speaker 1: research tells us is that people perform best when they
Speaker 1: have a healthy amount of positive emotional experience of their lives.
Speaker 1: And that experience could come from relationships, it could come
Speaker 1: from deeply meaningful activities, it could come from physical exercise.
Speaker 1: And so what people become overly immersed in trading, they
Speaker 1: often shut off some of these other positive avenues and
Speaker 1: that's part of what helps burn them out. What what
Speaker 1: about work satisfaction? What happens when a person's work satisfaction falls.
Speaker 1: Do they find themselves in a downward spiral that becomes
Speaker 1: challenging to break? They can, And that kind of downward
Speaker 1: spiral can become a slump, and many traders are familiar
Speaker 1: with that phenomenon. When people draw down in their trading,
Speaker 1: as happens to all of us, it's important to have
Speaker 1: other areas of positive focus. So, for instance, one of
Speaker 1: the things I work with the raiders on if they
Speaker 1: work within a team, is how they can build their
Speaker 1: team processes and how they can be more successful, more productive.
Speaker 1: As a team, we work on refining their trading processes
Speaker 1: and learning from the draw downs so that they always
Speaker 1: feel as though they're moving themselves forward, even when their
Speaker 1: accounts aren't necessarily moving forward. So let me ask you
Speaker 1: the opposite question. I always ran into trouble as a trader,
Speaker 1: not when I was having trouble, but when I was
Speaker 1: on a hot streak, when I felt whatever I touched
Speaker 1: turned to gold, and that invariably ended badly. What do
Speaker 1: you do when you have somebody who's just on fire
Speaker 1: and you want to rein them in without you know,
Speaker 1: reigning on their parade. It's very easy for confidence to
Speaker 1: become over confidence. Let me give you an anecdote. With
Speaker 1: several traders that I worked with a few years ago,
Speaker 1: we took a look at their profitability as a function
Speaker 1: of their level of risk taking, and so when they
Speaker 1: were taking relatively little risk, they were consistently profitable. Their
Speaker 1: hit rate on trades was very good. When they were
Speaker 1: taking the most risk, which is when they were most confident,
Speaker 1: they were actually losing money because their confidence had become
Speaker 1: over confidence. So what we did we created computer arized
Speaker 1: alerts that told people when their risk taking was getting
Speaker 1: into the red zone as a way of monitoring possible
Speaker 1: over confidence. What we were really saying to them is
Speaker 1: when you're taking this amount of risk, historically, you don't
Speaker 1: make money. So the baseball analogy is the difference between
Speaker 1: just getting wood on the ball and getting on base
Speaker 1: versus swinging for the fences and striking out. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right, fair way to look at it, and and
Speaker 1: my goal as a coach is to make people aware
Speaker 1: of those patterns, help them become mindful of those patterns,
Speaker 1: not tell them how to trade. So how often are
Speaker 1: you sitting down with traders? Is this a weekly thing,
Speaker 1: a daily, a monthly? What what is the usual time
Speaker 1: frame for someone like? It varies tremendously. When I've worked
Speaker 1: full time at trading firms, then it was not unusual
Speaker 1: for us to touch base to meet several times a week.
Speaker 1: There are traders even now that I meet with who
Speaker 1: will send me their journal entries on a daily basis
Speaker 1: as a way of getting quick feedback. But others times
Speaker 1: it's a monthly process. In some cases it's as wanted
Speaker 1: as needed, So it really depends on the urgency that
Speaker 1: the trader feels in terms of need for change. So
Speaker 1: there's a related question to that, the feeling the need
Speaker 1: for change, which is what makes somebody coachable if that's
Speaker 1: the right word, And the corollary, are some traders just
Speaker 1: uncoachable the coach doable? The coachability factor partly depends on
Speaker 1: the capacity for self observation. People who would be really
Speaker 1: uncoachable probably never seek out a coach to begin with,
Speaker 1: But clearly if someone is more defensive than open minded
Speaker 1: to the things that they're doing wrong, that's going to
Speaker 1: make it a difficult situation for coaching. So I one
Speaker 1: of the questions I had tied up, which you kind
Speaker 1: of answered, but I have to go back to it,
Speaker 1: is how much do you need to know about trading
Speaker 1: to be an effective trading coach? And maybe a better way,
Speaker 1: now that I know you've been trading for thirty plus years,
Speaker 1: maybe the better way to ask that question is what's
Speaker 1: the ratio between psychology and trading when you're coaching people?
Speaker 1: It's a mixed ratio because, as I mentioned before, sometimes
Speaker 1: trading problems create psychological frustrations, and sometimes psychological issues can
Speaker 1: interfere with good trading decisions, and a big part of
Speaker 1: what I do is try to tease apart the causality.
Speaker 1: Is this a trading problem that's having psychological effects, or
Speaker 1: is it a psychological issue that might be affecting their
Speaker 1: entire life that's influencing their trading. It's very helpful as
Speaker 1: a coach to have familiarity with trading, with making trading decisions.
Speaker 1: I have long contended that my greatest credential as a
Speaker 1: coach is not the three letters after my name. My
Speaker 1: greatest credential as a coach is that I have made
Speaker 1: every mistake that all of the traders I work with
Speaker 1: have made. I'm Barry Hults. You're listening to Master's in
Speaker 1: Business on Bloomberg Radio. My guest today is Dr Brett Steambarger.
Speaker 1: He is a clinical psychologist and a trading coach who
Speaker 1: graduated from the University of Kansas with a PhD. In
Speaker 1: Let's jump right into some of the things you do
Speaker 1: coaching traders. How does a firm go about deciding we
Speaker 1: want to work with the trading coach. We think there's
Speaker 1: some gains to be had from that. Often the initial
Speaker 1: request or demand will come from the traders or the
Speaker 1: portfolio managers themselves. Maybe they have known someone who has
Speaker 1: worked with me, maybe they've read my trader feed blog,
Speaker 1: or they've read one of my books, and so they
Speaker 1: will bring it to the attention of management. Then I'll
Speaker 1: typically go into a firm and do a talk for
Speaker 1: the traders and talk with them about trading, talk with
Speaker 1: them about psychology, talk about working on performance, and they
Speaker 1: make a decision from there. So someone decides they want
Speaker 1: to work with you, And at that point, isn't mandate?
Speaker 1: Is voluntary to people? How do people start filling up
Speaker 1: your calendar? How does that work? Totally voluntary? This is
Speaker 1: something that is available to traders, but not required of them.
Speaker 1: What I typically find is that in the beginning there
Speaker 1: are the early adopters, and then there are a few
Speaker 1: tire kickers along the way, And as the results come
Speaker 1: out and it goes well, then more people here about
Speaker 1: it and get interested, and so the interest can grow
Speaker 1: over time. So we talked earlier about hot and cold streaks.
Speaker 1: But the question I have you is, Hey, sometimes you
Speaker 1: flip a coin and you get ten tales in a row.
Speaker 1: How challenging it is it to tell the difference between
Speaker 1: someone whose process has some issues and someone who, hey,
Speaker 1: sometimes you know the dice, just don't don't go your
Speaker 1: way for a while, and eventually that will turn around
Speaker 1: on its own. It's a very important distinction, and obviously, Mary,
Speaker 1: it's one of the reasons why risk management is one
Speaker 1: of the most important psychological tools for traders, because there
Speaker 1: are going to be random streaks of losing trades and
Speaker 1: you have to be able to survive that risk of ruin.
Speaker 1: What we typically look at or two things when someone
Speaker 1: has a series of losers. The first is have markets
Speaker 1: themselves changed? Is there something different about the market that
Speaker 1: we need to adapt to? The second is has your
Speaker 1: process changed? Are you doing something differently than when you
Speaker 1: were winning? And those two questions usually will help us
Speaker 1: figure out whether we need to take adaptive action or
Speaker 1: whether it's just bad luck. So you mentioned winning and losing,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go off script a second ask you
Speaker 1: a question that I've always been fascinated by, which is
Speaker 1: you're looking around Wall Street and the traders that are there.
Speaker 1: Forget the algorithms, but the actual human traders historically have
Speaker 1: come from a um collegiate athletics background that seems to
Speaker 1: be rifle of Wall Street any thoughts on that. I
Speaker 1: think that's common. I I think it's far from always
Speaker 1: the case, especially lately. People with athletic backgrounds or backgrounds
Speaker 1: in performance fields in general tend to be competitive, tend
Speaker 1: to be interested in winning and losing, and so it's
Speaker 1: a natural transition in that respect to trading. Uh. That
Speaker 1: being said, I believe that trading is a much more
Speaker 1: analytical game now than it was let's say, twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: and so we see people who have some of the
Speaker 1: analytical background going into financial markets a little bit different
Speaker 1: than when it used to be mostly the jocks. Makes sense.
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk a little bit about ego. How important
Speaker 1: is it to have a healthy ego and when can
Speaker 1: that run them up. You have to have some ego
Speaker 1: to believe that you can outperform all of these other motivated,
Speaker 1: talented participants in the marketplace, and you have to have
Speaker 1: an ego to be resilient to the inevitable periods of losing.
Speaker 1: It's when the ego becomes dominant when people feel the
Speaker 1: need to make the big calls. In a sense, it's
Speaker 1: about them being right rather than them following what markets
Speaker 1: are doing. That traders can run into some real problems.
Speaker 1: That's funny you say that. A few weeks ago in
Speaker 1: a column I referenced a Ned Davis book whose cover
Speaker 1: I love. The title I loved, which was being right
Speaker 1: or making money? And it's just well, you can choose
Speaker 1: you Is it the ego or is it the P
Speaker 1: and L that matters? Yes. The way I sometimes have
Speaker 1: put it is that if you're engaged in a dance
Speaker 1: with the market, you have to let the market lead.
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that a lot. So what
Speaker 1: is more to follow up on the athletic theme. What's
Speaker 1: more important? Offense or defense? Well, clearly both are important. Um,
Speaker 1: if you don't have good defense, you simply don't stay
Speaker 1: in the game. And so what we typically find is
Speaker 1: beginning traders often their greatest problem is overtrading, becoming too
Speaker 1: eager and trading way too much and not managing their risk. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to Masters in Business on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is Dr Brett steam Barger.
Speaker 1: He is a clinical psychologist and trading coach who has
Speaker 1: worked with some legendary firms and traders out there. Let's
Speaker 1: let's talk about the modern era of trading, we've seen
Speaker 1: a number of traders replaced with effectively software. High frequency
Speaker 1: trading has made it much more challenging. How much more
Speaker 1: difficult is it to be a trader today then when
Speaker 1: I began twenty five years ago, Well, when you began
Speaker 1: over thirty years ago, it is more difficult and more
Speaker 1: complex in a number of ways. And I'll mention too.
Speaker 1: The first is the respect that you are talking about.
Speaker 1: There are an increasing number of market participants, particularly algorithmic
Speaker 1: that are making decisions upon high frequency data. What's being bought,
Speaker 1: what's being sold each transaction, is it occurring nearer to
Speaker 1: a bid price, nearer to an offer price, and it's
Speaker 1: quickly aggregating all this information to tell them our buyer's dominant,
Speaker 1: seller's dominant, and making rapid decisions. And so a lot
Speaker 1: of the market movement is not occurring because of quote
Speaker 1: unquote fundamental reasons. Traders of old would look at the world.
Speaker 1: They would look at a company and its earnings and
Speaker 1: predicate their decisions on that basis. An increasing amount of
Speaker 1: market movement is coming from other directions. So that's the
Speaker 1: first way in which trading is challenging in the modern era.
Speaker 1: The second way, as you and I know, the world
Speaker 1: is a much more global place, and it's no longer
Speaker 1: the case that the major influences on markets occur only
Speaker 1: during New York hours. So much is happening in Asia,
Speaker 1: so much is happening in Europe. Headlines from over there,
Speaker 1: events from over there, um, global economic conditions from over
Speaker 1: there really affect how assets in the US behave, and
Speaker 1: so that's created a complexity that traders have had to
Speaker 1: adapt to. That's that's interesting. Let's let's talk about something
Speaker 1: that hasn't changed, and that's human emotions. How can you
Speaker 1: teach people to keep their emotions in check? What I
Speaker 1: work with traders on is not simply controlling their emotions,
Speaker 1: which is helpful, but using a emotions as information, becoming
Speaker 1: more mindful, more aware of one's emotional reactions, because many
Speaker 1: times there can be information in what we process emotionally.
Speaker 1: The old joke about George Soros's back there you go,
Speaker 1: acting up when he was in a position. As soon
Speaker 1: as he got out of a bad position, the back
Speaker 1: ache went away. There's information in that back ache, and
Speaker 1: and that's true for many people. They experience emotions and
Speaker 1: that it's information about what's happening in markets and what's
Speaker 1: happening to your portfolio. There's one portfolio manager I work with,
Speaker 1: for instance, who uses his emotional reactions to gauge the
Speaker 1: likely emotional reactions of other participants, and so expand on that.
Speaker 1: So how does how does one's own emotional reactions help
Speaker 1: you gauge other people's emotionally? If the market sells off
Speaker 1: and he starts to feel some panicky emotions, the first
Speaker 1: thing he thinks about is, that's interesting, maybe other participants
Speaker 1: in the market are feeling this kind of panic and
Speaker 1: what does that mean? And how has that market behaved
Speaker 1: when we've gotten into panic times. So he's aware of
Speaker 1: his emotions, but he's not being reactive relative to those emotions.
Speaker 1: That that that's quite fascinating. Here's another example. Sometimes when
Speaker 1: in my own trading, I'll have a series of winning trades,
Speaker 1: the sort of the way you described when you're on fire,
Speaker 1: and I'll have the thought I've got this figured out.
Speaker 1: How you laugh because you know what happens? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I become aware of that overconfident thought, and I realize
Speaker 1: that that's a warning signal. So the mindfulness, the awareness
Speaker 1: of your emotional reaction can help you trade better. It's
Speaker 1: funny when I started on a trading desk, the head
Speaker 1: trader who was a former Marine jungle combat instructor, so
Speaker 1: I'm not a guy to mess around with. Occasionally, would
Speaker 1: someone would have their ego get a little unchecked and
Speaker 1: and his responses, Hey, you don't want to piss off
Speaker 1: the trading gods, and it was it was a good
Speaker 1: way to say, all right, to take it, take it
Speaker 1: down a notch a little bit. I read a nice
Speaker 1: quote recently that said, for proper perspective, every person should
Speaker 1: have a dog that adores them and a cat that
Speaker 1: ignores them. That puts confidence in humility in the right perspective. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: so that raises a really interesting question, how do you
Speaker 1: prevent people or repair it when it happens from learning
Speaker 1: the wrong lesson from a positive experience or theoretically from
Speaker 1: a negative experience. One of the things we emphasize and
Speaker 1: working with traders is the idea of this too shall pass.
Speaker 1: Trees don't grow to the sky and losses don't continue forever,
Speaker 1: and so we try to approach markets with fresh eyes,
Speaker 1: fresh thoughts from day to day, week to week. Markets
Speaker 1: have no memory is that the thinking or well the
Speaker 1: thinking is that a risk reward the opportunity set typically
Speaker 1: changes over the course of time, and we want to
Speaker 1: recalibrate ourselves with respect to that altered risk reward. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, we're investing in a stock of the stock
Speaker 1: moves our way, Well, it's not necessarily the same value
Speaker 1: that it was when we first put on the position.
Speaker 1: Is the risk reward compelling here? And now? If this
Speaker 1: were January one and I had no position in this name,
Speaker 1: would I be taking along position right here? That really,
Speaker 1: those kind of questions recalibrate us so that we don't
Speaker 1: allow the past, either the gains of the past or
Speaker 1: the losses of the past, to unduly color our current judgment.
Speaker 1: What about superstitions, I recall a number of I want
Speaker 1: to spreak out the myths from the superstitions. We we
Speaker 1: keep referencing sports, but uh, certain people would not change
Speaker 1: their socks or wear the same hat, or you still
Speaker 1: encounter that sort of stuff. Where have we moved past that? Now?
Speaker 1: Every so often you definitely encounter that where people feel
Speaker 1: it's like certain things are lucky and certain things are unlucky. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think it's still a common practice as it
Speaker 1: was years ago. If you come up behind a trader
Speaker 1: who's made money and you packed them on the back
Speaker 1: and say you're doing great, they will look at you
Speaker 1: as if you're trying to jinx them and and get
Speaker 1: away from me, Get away from it. So I think
Speaker 1: that touches on some superstitions. How do you force people
Speaker 1: to be rational and evidence based? Do you ever bump
Speaker 1: up against the situation where the data is overwhelming but
Speaker 1: the trader just doesn't want to pay any mind to it.
Speaker 1: We all have blind spots, myself included, and you can't
Speaker 1: force anyone to make a change. But what you can
Speaker 1: do is process the information as thoroughly as possible and
Speaker 1: encourage people to look at the information with fresh eyes
Speaker 1: from different perspectives. So it's not an uncommon, for instance,
Speaker 1: in a conversation with a trader, that they'll mention to
Speaker 1: me they're along the dollar, and so I'll mention positioning
Speaker 1: and sentiment data that suggests that lots of moody managers
Speaker 1: are along the dollar. Out of trade, it's a crowded trade.
Speaker 1: Do you still like it? What? What? What makes you
Speaker 1: think that it's going to continue? Now? I'm playing Devil's
Speaker 1: advocate as a way of getting people to look at
Speaker 1: new information and make sure that they're making decisions for
Speaker 1: the right reasons. I always love the argument of inversion.
Speaker 1: Make the case for me for the other side of
Speaker 1: the trade, because it's a two sided trade. What is
Speaker 1: the other person thinking and what might they know that
Speaker 1: you're unaware of or or what is what is coloring
Speaker 1: their views that you might not have considered a great point.
Speaker 1: I think it's very helpful to do what if scenario
Speaker 1: planning and what if news comes out this way? What
Speaker 1: if the stock moves against us in that way? What
Speaker 1: would how would you respond? What would that mean to you?
Speaker 1: What would tell you your idea is wrong? Criteria A, B, C, D.
Speaker 1: And mapping that out in advance so that if those
Speaker 1: things should unfold, you're prepared psychologically to take property. We've
Speaker 1: always discussed what is the line in the sand you
Speaker 1: have to have any time I've had a conversation with somebody,
Speaker 1: and this tends to be true with the gold bugs
Speaker 1: and the fed haters, and there's a whole ideology behind
Speaker 1: the trade where you say what would make you wrong
Speaker 1: and they say nothing. I know there's a person whose
Speaker 1: career in trading is soon to come to an end.
Speaker 1: That's right. If nothing can make you wrong, then you're
Speaker 1: not basing this. Would you really want to entrust your
Speaker 1: capital with that person? Right? For sure? And the question
Speaker 1: that pops up every now and then, we've been talking
Speaker 1: about process. But something that's a little related is and
Speaker 1: you hinted it this earlier, is a routine. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the trading diary or a trading lock. What sort of
Speaker 1: routines are healthy for traders or investors for that matter.
Speaker 1: One of the important routines that successful traders engaging and
Speaker 1: are routines of preparation. When markets are open, they need
Speaker 1: to be prepared for the different possibilities that may unfold.
Speaker 1: We've been speaking with Dr Brett Steambarger discussing all things
Speaker 1: coaching and psychology regarding traders. If you enjoy the conversation,
Speaker 1: be sure and check out the podcast extras, where we
Speaker 1: continue chatting about all such things related to trading. Check
Speaker 1: out my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com or
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at rid Halts. I'm Barry rid Halts.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. Um Brett, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing this. I have been reading you for a
Speaker 1: long time, and you and I have been swapping emails
Speaker 1: over the years, but this is really the first time
Speaker 1: we've ever met. That's right, so thank thank you for
Speaker 1: doing this. I find this stuff endlessly fascinating, and I
Speaker 1: was taking notes, which I normally don't do, because so
Speaker 1: many of the things you said touched on just just
Speaker 1: jo memories from my own personal experience when I started
Speaker 1: on a trading desk, and I just have to go
Speaker 1: through some of them. Um, you said, one of the
Speaker 1: portfolio managers you work with, UM monitors his own reaction
Speaker 1: to the market in order to anticipate other people's restrections.
Speaker 1: One of the things I started to take note of.
Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes the patterns are evident after they
Speaker 1: beat you over the head a hundred times. I noticed
Speaker 1: if when I was on the cell side, if I
Speaker 1: would bring up a stock that was wildly out of
Speaker 1: favor and for whatever reasons, I thought was really attractive,
Speaker 1: and the general reaction of anybody I showed the name
Speaker 1: to was that's just, oh, what a piece of junk.
Speaker 1: Why would I want to that is now a giant flag.
Speaker 1: And when you you see that, right, like back in
Speaker 1: the days when Apple was fifteen with thirteen cash, when
Speaker 1: that new fangled iPod came out, Oh they're going out
Speaker 1: of business. That toast. Why would I everyone to own that?
Speaker 1: I wish I was more sensitive to what a great
Speaker 1: contrarian indicator that that is. You are so right, Barry.
Speaker 1: And once in a while I'll write a blog posts
Speaker 1: or tweet something and it may have a bullush or
Speaker 1: a bearish tinge to it, and immediately the haters come out.
Speaker 1: And the more defensive the reaction, the more I developed
Speaker 1: confidence in that view, because people don't get defensive if
Speaker 1: they are secure with their view, right. It's when they're
Speaker 1: nervous and it's starting to go against them and they
Speaker 1: become the wishful thinking pops up. There's there's no doubt
Speaker 1: about that. By the way, I kept coming back to
Speaker 1: the athletes on trading desks. I have a pet theory.
Speaker 1: I'd love to I'm gonna get on your couch and
Speaker 1: you could you could psychoanalyze some of my own foibles.
Speaker 1: But the pet theory with that has been, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're a college athlete and you're playing Division one
Speaker 1: or Division two or even Division three. Pick a sport, baseball, football, Um,
Speaker 1: basketball almost doesn't matter. The skill level is high enough
Speaker 1: that other than whoever won this year and whoever was
Speaker 1: in the pits last year, pretty much any team on
Speaker 1: any given Saturday can beat any other team. Um. It's
Speaker 1: only the real powerhouses that go fourteen and one or
Speaker 1: whatever that are that are almost unbeatable. And even them, uh,
Speaker 1: someone eventually comes along and beats them. Uh what. I
Speaker 1: can't help but notice that very often it's a lucky bounce,
Speaker 1: a surprise call that went the wrong way the officiating,
Speaker 1: where the outcome is somewhat random, and despite having a
Speaker 1: work you off all season all week, you lose on
Speaker 1: the weekend, and then Monday you gotta get up and
Speaker 1: start all over again, fresh and put the loss out
Speaker 1: of your mind and look forward. That seems to be
Speaker 1: pretty parallel to trading, and sports have that similarity, although
Speaker 1: I certainly could just be making something up after the fact. Well,
Speaker 1: there are definitely random and lucky influences in any of
Speaker 1: these endeavors. So, for instance, with trading, one trader may
Speaker 1: hit their best ideas relatively early in the year, during January,
Speaker 1: another trader will go through a draw down during the
Speaker 1: first weeks of the year. The first trader, now has
Speaker 1: banked some profits, has some cushion, feels more confident in
Speaker 1: taking risk. Later on, the second one is afraid of
Speaker 1: digging too deep a hole because they don't want to
Speaker 1: be fired, so they restrain their risk taking. So that
Speaker 1: random period of January performance ends up potentially shaping a
Speaker 1: year's worth of performance. I had a conversation with a
Speaker 1: friend who runs a hedge fund who had three or
Speaker 1: four pretty mediocre years, flat years, I want to say,
Speaker 1: July or August. Last year, he's up high, double digits,
Speaker 1: almost triple digit returns. And I sent him, why you
Speaker 1: still here? Why don't you close up shop? You know?
Speaker 1: And and which, by the way, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that would have been good advice or bad advice. His
Speaker 1: portfolio looks very different than mine. But you're up nineties
Speaker 1: something per cent ring the bell. Call it a year,
Speaker 1: and and right, and and take the next four how
Speaker 1: much more do you think you're you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: to gain? And his thoughts were, listen, I've had these
Speaker 1: positions on for three years. They're finally paying off. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I have to see this to its end. And I
Speaker 1: was kind of surprised by that. What so, So, what
Speaker 1: would you say to somebody who's like, Nope, uh, I
Speaker 1: died bond it last year, I'm living on it this year,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm going to run it out. Well. I
Speaker 1: would applaud the staying power, that's for sure. But the
Speaker 1: question I would ask that trader is, Okay, you're up
Speaker 1: N how much of that N do you want to
Speaker 1: put at risk right here, right now to make how
Speaker 1: much more? What is the risk reward right here, right now?
Speaker 1: And how much do you want to make sure you
Speaker 1: go home with at the end of the year. So
Speaker 1: I would encourage them to think of risk taking fresh,
Speaker 1: not keeping it all on, not taking it all off,
Speaker 1: but recalibrating that that makes perfect, perfect sense. And and
Speaker 1: you referenced keeping Score. I'm moving some pages. You referenced
Speaker 1: Keeping Score. I was at a sell side firm that had, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a thousand plus employees, and I think it
Speaker 1: was something like six or eight hundred bro ers and
Speaker 1: I was the market strategist and I used to have
Speaker 1: brokers come to my office and say to me constantly,
Speaker 1: you know, I have all these winners, but I can't
Speaker 1: figure out why my portfolios are down. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a simple spreadsheet analysis. What do you mean you
Speaker 1: have all these winners, Well, I have X y Z,
Speaker 1: and I have ABC, and I have one to three
Speaker 1: And so I would get a print out of their
Speaker 1: entire book and I would say, well, you have these winners,
Speaker 1: but your ABC is your biggest winner, and it's your
Speaker 1: fourteenth position. You know, X y Z is your second
Speaker 1: biggest winner, and it's your nineteenth position. You have a
Speaker 1: whole lot of stuff that's flat or maybe up marginally,
Speaker 1: and look at position number two and number seven and
Speaker 1: number nine. These are big losers. So I was always
Speaker 1: astonished that people didn't do a And again, you know,
Speaker 1: as a trader, you get a you get a daily
Speaker 1: P and L. So you know exactly by the way,
Speaker 1: when I be and it was sneaker net, you would
Speaker 1: download your it would export the trading program to the spreadsheet.
Speaker 1: You downloadload that to a three point five floppy and
Speaker 1: you would have to walk it into the head traders office.
Speaker 1: And so you can engage in fraud for three days,
Speaker 1: but eventually the trade wouldn't clear. It would kick out.
Speaker 1: I always thought that was like a really deeply flawed methodology,
Speaker 1: but I think that I guess the thought process was, hey,
Speaker 1: we have three days for you know, before the trade bounces,
Speaker 1: how much havoc? And can anybody anybody reek um? But
Speaker 1: that keeping score side, I'm astonished that more people don't
Speaker 1: do that. It really is astonishing, and it's astonishing how
Speaker 1: much can be learned by keeping score and tracking the
Speaker 1: various elements of your trades and your decision making. But
Speaker 1: one of the patterns I think you're referencing is that
Speaker 1: many times people will be profitable on a majority of
Speaker 1: their trades, but the losers go too far, and so
Speaker 1: the average size of their losing trades becomes much larger
Speaker 1: than the average size of the winners, and that drags
Speaker 1: them down. So it seems like they're winning, they have
Speaker 1: more winning trades and losing trades, but in fact the
Speaker 1: pan l is not winning. That conversation is what led
Speaker 1: me to the world of selective retention, selective perception, and
Speaker 1: and just the wait, how do you not recall you
Speaker 1: have this giant, flaming whole in your portfolio because they're
Speaker 1: conscious or subconscious has suppressed it and they don't even
Speaker 1: want to. It's too painful to think about amazing people
Speaker 1: only only remember the winners. Which leads me to an
Speaker 1: interesting question. Have you ever worked with any individuals who
Speaker 1: were not professionals with just UH investors or or private
Speaker 1: UH I don't want to say private traders, but family all.
Speaker 1: It's just things like that where it's essentially a non
Speaker 1: professional managing their own assets. How have you done much
Speaker 1: of that? I haven't done much of that, And many
Speaker 1: times with the non professional, the ratio of what's a
Speaker 1: trading problem and what's the psychological problem becomes skewed, and
Speaker 1: they make many more trading problems precisely because they're not professionals.
Speaker 1: And so what they really need, in my view, typically
Speaker 1: is mentoring. They need someone to teach them the ropes
Speaker 1: about financial markets and decision making rather than a psychological coach.
Speaker 1: That that's really interesting. I gave a presentation at this point,
Speaker 1: it's now years ago, called Romancing Alpha and Forsaking Beta.
Speaker 1: I won't mention the organization, but they're not. They claim
Speaker 1: to have a huge wealthy base of clients, but they're
Speaker 1: notoriously cheap about um about paying outsiders to come in
Speaker 1: and present. They like they dangle. Look, here are billions
Speaker 1: of dollars. Come give a speech, um, But was what
Speaker 1: was fascinating was the beforehand. I did some research about
Speaker 1: all these people with thirty million dollars minimum massets. What
Speaker 1: are they investing in and how well have they done?
Speaker 1: And everybody could tell me we have this much private equity,
Speaker 1: we have this much hedge funds, we have this much
Speaker 1: venture capital, and none of these people could give me
Speaker 1: an actual forget audited, how have you done relative to
Speaker 1: your benchmark? Not a single person can answer that question.
Speaker 1: So that's where where the phrase romancing alpha forsaking beta
Speaker 1: came from. If you are so busy chasing out performance
Speaker 1: but you have no idea what your actual benchmark is,
Speaker 1: it's astonishing. And to me, that's an individual era. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine any institution could tolerate that sort of basic
Speaker 1: flaw for very long and and business true. And as
Speaker 1: you know, in the professional world of finance, we look
Speaker 1: at risk adjusted return. How much are you making per
Speaker 1: unit of risk that you're taking? And it says something
Speaker 1: about professionalism when someone can't can't answer that question. Answer
Speaker 1: the question right if if if you are unaware of
Speaker 1: forget risk adjusted returns. If you're unaware of your relative performance,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? And and that's before you get
Speaker 1: into and what are you paying in fees for this
Speaker 1: relative performance or under performance? It's really um, it's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: So do you you reference mentoring? That's one of the
Speaker 1: standard questions. Um, we talk talk about what why don't
Speaker 1: we jump right into that? Did you have any early mentors,
Speaker 1: either on the trading side or on the psychology side. Well,
Speaker 1: definitely on the psychology side. In graduate school, give us
Speaker 1: an uh. One of the clinical supervisors I worked with
Speaker 1: who has since passed on was Dr Thomas Riley, and
Speaker 1: he taught an approach that was not common at the
Speaker 1: time but has become more so recently. That looks at
Speaker 1: how the different approaches to psychology and psychotherapy are doing
Speaker 1: things in common rather than being different for each other.
Speaker 1: On the surface of what a Freudian does and what
Speaker 1: a behaviorist does quite different, But in fact he was
Speaker 1: looking at the common elements and helping mentor graduate students
Speaker 1: by making the most of the common effective ingredients of psychology.
Speaker 1: You can tell me they're still Freudians. There still are Freudians. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I was unaware that that's right there, there definitely are
Speaker 1: and um, that was a big influence on me. So
Speaker 1: in other words, fine, what what the common ground is
Speaker 1: that works, regardless of the ideological silo it may have
Speaker 1: come from. Yes, So, for instance, a common effective ingredient
Speaker 1: across different approaches to therapy would be the quality of
Speaker 1: the helping relationship. We find that what what is the
Speaker 1: helping relationship? Helping relationship is as a psychologist, your relationship
Speaker 1: with the client and how you engage and how you
Speaker 1: interact with them, and whether you're using a behavioral approach
Speaker 1: or a cognitive approach or a psychoanalytics approach, the quality
Speaker 1: of that relationship ends up being the best predictor of outcome.
Speaker 1: And so by focusing on those common ingredients, we can
Speaker 1: become more effective whether we're using approach A approach, B approach, c.
Speaker 1: So that was a big influence on me. In graduate
Speaker 1: school of psychology. In terms of markets and trading, a
Speaker 1: big influence on me was around the year two thousand
Speaker 1: when I began inter acting with the UM fund manager
Speaker 1: Victor Niederhoffer and education of a speculator there you go, yes,
Speaker 1: and he really introduced me to a more quantitative and
Speaker 1: scientific approach to markets. And it was as a result
Speaker 1: of interacting with him that I began conducting my own
Speaker 1: studies and supplementing the discretionary decision making that I had
Speaker 1: done with more quantitative information. So what's fascinating about him
Speaker 1: is he's a guy who who amasses a fortune and
Speaker 1: then blows up regular every cycle, like regularly. I don't
Speaker 1: know how he manages to do it. Um. There was
Speaker 1: a very infamous Malcolm Gladwell column in The New Yorker
Speaker 1: that he was the I think, I'm sure I'm missing
Speaker 1: remembering this, but he is the um, the foil on
Speaker 1: the other side of the trade from not seem to
Speaker 1: lab if if if I am, I'm remembering that correctly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do recall something sort yes, So two totally different styles.
Speaker 1: One is taking very little risk other than the insurance
Speaker 1: premium for the outside black swan performance, and the other
Speaker 1: is capturing the rent and hoping the house doesn't burn down. UM.
Speaker 1: So when one's losing the others, they very much a
Speaker 1: mirror images of each other's um trades, or at least
Speaker 1: way back when they are exactly exactly uh. And it's
Speaker 1: a shame that he's become known for those blow ups,
Speaker 1: but he's been wildly successful. I mean, he's a squash champion.
Speaker 1: I believe he was a chess prodigy, and maybe he
Speaker 1: has multiple talents. He's a renaissance sort of guy, isn't he? Yes? Yes,
Speaker 1: And I was just going to mention that that one
Speaker 1: of the things I learned from him was that you
Speaker 1: can learn a lot about markets by studying areas that
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with market. So he would look
Speaker 1: at ecology, he would look at, you know, the world politically,
Speaker 1: and he would be able to derive patterns and of
Speaker 1: human behavior that he could apply to markets. And and
Speaker 1: so it broadens my thinking in many ways that that
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. Um, is he still trading? Is he's
Speaker 1: still active? I believe his own capital. I'm not familiar
Speaker 1: with what he's doing commercially. Um. I think you're right
Speaker 1: from from what I've heard through the grapevine, but always
Speaker 1: been fascinated by him. I think he's one of these
Speaker 1: guys that are just so multifaceted. I find that intriguing. Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: all right, so we we discussed your psychology and trading. Uh, mentors,
Speaker 1: what investors influenced your approach to trading and what investors
Speaker 1: have impacted the way you look at the world psychologically.
Speaker 1: Probably the greatest impact on my practice has not been
Speaker 1: from an investor. It's been from philosophy. Um Early in
Speaker 1: my college career, I read the novel The fountain Head
Speaker 1: by Iron Rand, and what struck me about the novel
Speaker 1: was the portrayal of a character as an ideal who
Speaker 1: was doing something unique and special with integrity and making
Speaker 1: the most of who he was. And my immediate thought
Speaker 1: when I read that novel was what if psychology could
Speaker 1: help people not just deal with mental illnesses and problems,
Speaker 1: but what if psychology could help people become what they're
Speaker 1: capable of becoming. And that influence ended up steering my
Speaker 1: work with medical students and residents when I did counsel
Speaker 1: with them, and then subsequently with traders and portfolio managers.
Speaker 1: The fountain Head, well, yes, and and the not is why,
Speaker 1: I asked, because that's the one that comes up so frequently,
Speaker 1: and I fountain Head was yeah. The fountain Head was
Speaker 1: the first book of hers I read it. I did
Speaker 1: read Atlas Shrugged and others, but what really inspired me
Speaker 1: was the portrayal of an ideal, and I sometimes refer
Speaker 1: to my work now as therapy for the mentally well,
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to help sense help normal people, people
Speaker 1: like you, like me, who may not have diagnosable mental disorders,
Speaker 1: but who are capable of becoming much more than they are.
Speaker 1: And so that was a major influence on me. That's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I read un Ran backwards. I started with Atlas Shrugged.
Speaker 1: Hated it. It's like a nineties seven page speech in
Speaker 1: the middle that's long and tedious and pedantic. And I
Speaker 1: should have, in hindsight, if I go back in time,
Speaker 1: I would have started with fountain Head, and maybe I'd
Speaker 1: have a different perspective. Most of my criticism of her
Speaker 1: is from Atlas Shrugged, and I know people love that book.
Speaker 1: I just like, oh my god, this is Warren Peace,
Speaker 1: only not as interesting. But but you know, I respect
Speaker 1: people who have of a totally different take on it,
Speaker 1: and maybe, uh maybe maybe I have to revisit it
Speaker 1: when I have time. For eleven I believe it was
Speaker 1: like eleven pages memories. It's a huge book. And one
Speaker 1: of the takeaways the positive takeaways for me about that
Speaker 1: book is outlining the philosophy in terms of the importance
Speaker 1: of respecting objective, reality, objectivity, self reliance. I mean I
Speaker 1: I certainly recall there's a lot of positive positive don't
Speaker 1: wait for the government to rescue you, don't wait for
Speaker 1: the community to save you. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: things in there that certainly are applicable to traders. Hey,
Speaker 1: if you're waiting for a bailout, unless you're you know,
Speaker 1: City bank, it's coming. So so that was certainly an
Speaker 1: interesting thing. Since since we um any other investors we
Speaker 1: want to talk about as as being influences or we
Speaker 1: want to jump right into the book segments of a book,
Speaker 1: portion of art. Well, well, I'll mention one of the investors.
Speaker 1: I have worked for a number of years at Tutor
Speaker 1: Investment for Tutor Jones, Yes, who founded the firm famous
Speaker 1: for calling the seven crash and trading. There's a video
Speaker 1: somewhere out there of him. Actually I don't recall if
Speaker 1: it was the day of Black Monday, it was basically
Speaker 1: him all right, this has gone far enough, let's start
Speaker 1: buying him here. And I think people look at him
Speaker 1: like he has two heads with that, but really really
Speaker 1: interesting guy, really interesting background, and he certainly has evolved
Speaker 1: over that time period. But has been an inspiration for
Speaker 1: many traders. But one of the things he said to
Speaker 1: me early on during my time at Tutor that really
Speaker 1: resonated was if it's not in your calendar, it's not
Speaker 1: part of your process, meaning meaning meaning that if something
Speaker 1: truly is part of your process and what you do,
Speaker 1: then it has a place in your calendar, in your life,
Speaker 1: in your daily skin. Yes, that our processes, when they're
Speaker 1: developed to the fullest, really are positive habit patterns. There
Speaker 1: are things we do repeatedly in the same way with fidelity,
Speaker 1: and so by putting something in the calendar, you're cementing
Speaker 1: it as part of your process. And that resonated with
Speaker 1: me because many times people have good intentions, they set
Speaker 1: a goal, they write in their journal New Year's resolution, yes,
Speaker 1: but they never get down to the specifics of implementing
Speaker 1: it on a day to day basis. And so that
Speaker 1: was a piece of advice and a perspective that I've
Speaker 1: found very helpful at working with traders. So so let's
Speaker 1: talk about books a little bit. You mentioned on Rand's
Speaker 1: fountain Head as a book that positively influenced you. What
Speaker 1: other books do you enjoy, be them fiction, nonfiction, market
Speaker 1: related or or anything else. Well, certainly, like many traders,
Speaker 1: I've found UH influence and inspiration from Jack Schweger's Market
Speaker 1: Wizard's Books. First first book I was ever given as
Speaker 1: a trader, and I reread it every five years. YEA,
Speaker 1: love it, love it. And what it really cemented for
Speaker 1: me was that there was no one formula for success.
Speaker 1: That many of these very successful traders were successful because
Speaker 1: they had unique, distinctive skills and they found a way
Speaker 1: to implement those skills in financial markets. And so that
Speaker 1: led me to a strengths based approach where I tried
Speaker 1: to figure out what are the trader's greatest strengths and
Speaker 1: how could they make the greatest use of those strengths
Speaker 1: in the trading they're doing. Interesting? What what else? Tell me?
Speaker 1: What else? You've really enjoyed reading UH books in general
Speaker 1: in the field of what's called positive psychology, and of course,
Speaker 1: the the first researcher, the first writer who started all
Speaker 1: that was Abraham Maslow, whose sty of Needs studied what
Speaker 1: he called self actualization. But in recent i'd say in
Speaker 1: the last ten fifteen years particularly, there's been an emphasis
Speaker 1: on studying mental health, on studying the positive aspects of
Speaker 1: human behavior and performance understanding strengths, and there have been
Speaker 1: some very thought provoking pieces of research that have been
Speaker 1: conducted under this rubric of positive psychology. Martin Seligman is
Speaker 1: a key resort, key researcher in that area who has
Speaker 1: looked at strength and how those impact physical health, how
Speaker 1: those impact emotional well being. Uh So, those are some
Speaker 1: of the directions that I've found from recent reading. Has
Speaker 1: Seligman put out a book or is it most as
Speaker 1: a number of them? Yes, he give us the one
Speaker 1: that you think people might find accessible. Um, I would
Speaker 1: say there is probably the most accessible is there's a
Speaker 1: website on positive psychology and if you google positive psychology
Speaker 1: you'll find it and it summarizes his works in addition
Speaker 1: to the works of other psychology researchers, and that's a
Speaker 1: great way of finding an introduction to the field. Any
Speaker 1: of the books you want to mention before we move
Speaker 1: on to the to the next few questions, No, I
Speaker 1: think I'm ready for the next question. Um. So, since
Speaker 1: you've joined the industry as a trading coach, what what's changed?
Speaker 1: What do you think of the most significant changes? Um?
Speaker 1: Since you became a coach, one of the biggest changes,
Speaker 1: particularly in the hedge fund world, has been altered risk
Speaker 1: tolerance among investors in the post two thousand eight world,
Speaker 1: meaning decreased risk, much decreased risk tolerance. If you read
Speaker 1: the market Wizard's books, it was not unusual for people
Speaker 1: to have double digit losses and then they have double
Speaker 1: digit and triple digit returns. No One, no one, no
Speaker 1: one talks in those terms anymore. The focus is much
Speaker 1: more on risk adjusted returns than absolute returns. And if
Speaker 1: someone is risking only a few percent and can make
Speaker 1: five to ten percent, they're happy with that, particularly in
Speaker 1: a zero interest rate world. So the demands of investors
Speaker 1: have changed, and that has altered the risk mandates for traders,
Speaker 1: and that has affected coaching because it's no longer about
Speaker 1: making as much as you can. It's as much as
Speaker 1: as you were saying before, it's as much about the
Speaker 1: defense as the offense. That that that's really uh, that's
Speaker 1: really quite interesting. I I have a friend, a different
Speaker 1: friends from the one who was you know, up um,
Speaker 1: who every time he gets a major clients redemption or
Speaker 1: a series of inquiries and questions, and you know, like
Speaker 1: a lot of hedge funds, they're gated. He says, typically
Speaker 1: when a position I've had on that has been making
Speaker 1: money or has been losing money, Um, but is still
Speaker 1: sound when there's like a crescendo of redemption, he says.
Speaker 1: Back to the response from other people, he goes, invariably,
Speaker 1: that's the nature of the trade and it's all upside
Speaker 1: from there, he goes, I've had redemptions every few years.
Speaker 1: Is I'll hit a streak like this and I'll send
Speaker 1: money back. And so my answer is always questioned him,
Speaker 1: is always, well do you let them know, hey, by
Speaker 1: the way, you missed an extra note. Once they redeem
Speaker 1: they're gone and there's no reason for me to rub um,
Speaker 1: you know, add insult to injury. Not only did they
Speaker 1: not make money, but they missed the upside. That's right,
Speaker 1: that that's pretty fascinating. UM. So we talked about the changes,
Speaker 1: the risk of justed changes. What do you see as
Speaker 1: the next shifts that are coming along. I think the
Speaker 1: next shifts are going to be a continuation of what
Speaker 1: we've seen recently in UH longer term investing investing through
Speaker 1: UH maximizing returns from different factors as opposed to active
Speaker 1: timing of markets. So you're talking more factor investing in
Speaker 1: smart beta than management as opposed to the active trading.
Speaker 1: I think there will always be a niche for active
Speaker 1: traders and for people who are talented at active trading.
Speaker 1: But as you alluded earlier, it's difficult to justify the
Speaker 1: fees when the performance is not exceeding the average performance
Speaker 1: of the more passive asset management approaches. So you keep
Speaker 1: referencing the algorithmic side of it, and software is eating
Speaker 1: the world? Are our traders are endangered species? Is Are
Speaker 1: we going to ever get to a point where it's
Speaker 1: just computers trading or or is there always going to
Speaker 1: be a slot for for humans exercising judgment to try
Speaker 1: and figure out a way to to capture some profits. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I think already we've seen, particularly with respect to
Speaker 1: market making, that the lions share of that business has
Speaker 1: gone to the machines. They're simply able to process more
Speaker 1: information quit more quickly than human participants. Now, as we
Speaker 1: widen the time frame and we go from higher frequency
Speaker 1: trading to investment, then I believe there will continue to
Speaker 1: be a role for human judgment algorithmic trading. At the
Speaker 1: root of it is science. It is studying the historical
Speaker 1: patterns and financial markets that recur and profiting when those
Speaker 1: occur in in the present. At certain junctures, the future
Speaker 1: becomes unlike what it's been in the past, and the algorithms,
Speaker 1: by definition, only know the past and the patterns from
Speaker 1: the past. I think there is a role for human
Speaker 1: judgment in determining when a unique future is occurring, but
Speaker 1: I do believe that's becoming a more specialized world and
Speaker 1: and the issue is machine learning. Theoretically, these machines can
Speaker 1: identify when when the market structure or the conditions change,
Speaker 1: that's right. What I'm finding is that many of the
Speaker 1: most successful discretionary portfolio managers are ones that have quantitative
Speaker 1: aspects to what they do. So it's not all machine
Speaker 1: and it's not all subjective judgment. It's using the machine
Speaker 1: for enhanced information and then making better decisions based on
Speaker 1: the information provided by the machine. My analogy for that
Speaker 1: would be a fighter pilot who has all sorts of
Speaker 1: computerized equipment on board and is able to gauge very
Speaker 1: quickly weather conditions and where the enemy is located. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's the pilot who
Speaker 1: ends up making a decision about attacking not attacking. So
Speaker 1: what do you do to keep mentally fit as a
Speaker 1: traitor and as a psychology what do you do outside
Speaker 1: of the office for relaxation. How do you you referenced
Speaker 1: earlier the balance that's needed. How do you personally make
Speaker 1: sure that, uh, you don't become overly um either burnt
Speaker 1: out or overexposed to anyone aspect of your job. Well,
Speaker 1: And to get back to what I was mentioning earlier,
Speaker 1: in terms of the psychological research on positive emotional experience, uh,
Speaker 1: those four areas of positive experience. Happiness doing things that
Speaker 1: you have fun with, Satisfaction doing things that are deeply
Speaker 1: meaningful to you, Energy doing things that are stimulating, maybe intellectually,
Speaker 1: maybe physically. And affection doing things that bring you closer
Speaker 1: to the people that matter. Give me those four again, Happiness, happy, satisfaction, energy,
Speaker 1: and affection, and those are the four big drivers of
Speaker 1: positive emotional experience. And so I want to be firing
Speaker 1: on all those cylinders every week out of the year.
Speaker 1: And I want the traders I work with to be
Speaker 1: firing on those cylinders, to be doing some activities that
Speaker 1: bring them happiness, to be doing some activities that bring
Speaker 1: them fulfillment, to do some energizing activities, to do some
Speaker 1: activities that bring them closer to people that they want
Speaker 1: to be close to, and that keeps people fresh, It
Speaker 1: keeps them alive and energized, even when the profits aren't coming.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go off script from my my usual ten
Speaker 1: favorite questions to to bring something up. The past year,
Speaker 1: I've read a million articles about meditation and traders meditation
Speaker 1: on Wall Street. How much of that is hype and
Speaker 1: how much of that is is real? Do you do
Speaker 1: you see a lot of traders meditating. Yes, you do, Yes,
Speaker 1: you and you find it valuable. Yeah, I've seen it
Speaker 1: be very helpful to traders. And the way in which
Speaker 1: it's helpful is that it induces a state of calm focus.
Speaker 1: So it's a way of gaining self control, and in
Speaker 1: a meditative state, people are able, for instance, to mentally
Speaker 1: rehearse different what if scenarios to prepare for the day ahead.
Speaker 1: When you've meditated day after day, week after week, you
Speaker 1: become very good at those skills. And so during the
Speaker 1: trading day you can take some deep breaths, get yourself
Speaker 1: very centered, very focused, and it helps with making more
Speaker 1: dispassionate decisions. I reference the jungle combat instructor I worked with.
Speaker 1: There was another former Army range year I worked with.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I found fascinating because I
Speaker 1: was always curious, Hey, tell us about some missions, tell
Speaker 1: us what I was always fascinated about the prep work
Speaker 1: they did. And one of the things that I learned
Speaker 1: from them was it wasn't just UM, what's planned, B,
Speaker 1: what's plans? CE, what's planned D? There was there was
Speaker 1: always that. It was the process of envisioning your emotional
Speaker 1: response to when things go wrong. What happens when we
Speaker 1: were going through the door A, but the egress is blocked,
Speaker 1: Not just what does my plan be to get out?
Speaker 1: But how am I going to feel about that? If
Speaker 1: you can anticipate your emotional response, you can manage it
Speaker 1: when it actually comes. I thought that was fascinating. And
Speaker 1: the meditation is sounds somewhat similar to it's a tool
Speaker 1: for mindfulness to be more self aware, and so it
Speaker 1: can be very helpful for traitors in that respect. Interesting
Speaker 1: and and now we're down to our two favored questions.
Speaker 1: So if if some millennial came to you and said,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in a career as a trading coach or
Speaker 1: as a psychologist. What sort of advice would you would
Speaker 1: you give them? Well, Uh, if they were interested in
Speaker 1: working as a performance coach, whether it's with traders or
Speaker 1: other performance professionals, I would encourage them to get the
Speaker 1: best grounding in psychology possible and start with that and
Speaker 1: then apply to the populations of interest. And I would
Speaker 1: encourage them, in particular to to develop a grounding in
Speaker 1: that positive psychology that I referenced earlier and the research
Speaker 1: there and as well as traditional approaches to psychology. And
Speaker 1: and our final question, um, what is it I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say that again, And our final question, what is it
Speaker 1: that you know about performance coaching today you wish you
Speaker 1: knew when you began all those years ago. Probably the
Speaker 1: greatest le uson that I've learned is that performance is
Speaker 1: every bit as much a function of maximizing your strengths
Speaker 1: as addressing your weaknesses. And there certainly is a role
Speaker 1: for correcting our weaknesses, for identifying what we do wrong
Speaker 1: and and learning from that. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, what makes people distinctive are their strengths, what
Speaker 1: they do superlatively well. And it's surprising how people are
Speaker 1: often unaware of their greatest strengths and they don't tap
Speaker 1: those regularly in their personal lives or in their decision
Speaker 1: making in financial markets. And so by focusing on who
Speaker 1: this person is and what they're really good at, it
Speaker 1: allows me to help them leverage those talents in their
Speaker 1: financial decision making. Brett, this has been really quite fascinating.
Speaker 1: I know it's a subject that people don't get to
Speaker 1: hear about a lot, and I suspect people are really
Speaker 1: gonna enjoy listening to this. And for those of you,
Speaker 1: for those of you who are still with us here
Speaker 1: at the end, UM, be sure and check out the
Speaker 1: rest of the other hundred plus podcasts we've done over
Speaker 1: the past few years. Look up an Inch or down
Speaker 1: in Inch on Apple iTunes and you'll see all the
Speaker 1: rest of the conversations we've had. Uh, be sure and
Speaker 1: check out Dr steam Barger's blog at trader feed dot
Speaker 1: blogspot dot com. Is that UM, I would be remiss
Speaker 1: if I did not thank Michael bat Nick, our ahead
Speaker 1: of research, Taylor rigs are booker, and Charlie Volmer, our producer.
Speaker 1: Be we love your I forgot to say this during
Speaker 1: the broadcast portion, so I'll say it now. We love
Speaker 1: your comments, feedback and email. Be sure and write to
Speaker 1: us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I'm
Speaker 1: Barry Ridolts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio