Chat With Traders

James is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Azoria Partners, a global macro investment firm. Prior to Azoria, he served as the Head of Macro at Greenlight Capital, a two-billion-dollar hedge fund led by David Einhorn. He is also the founder of Incubate Debate, America’s fastest-growing high school debate league. As a former national high school debate champion and volunteer debate coach, he launched Incubate in 2019.

James was fortunate to have the opportunity to display his talent and strategies to the well-known billionaire hedge fund manager David Einhorn, which also resulted in James getting exposed to new ideas and ways of looking at economies and markets. Unwilling to repeat the same mantra commonly put out by the financial media, James presents a fresh look at why the economy and the markets have multiple silver linings.

Please note, Chat With Traders does not endorse any specific political viewpoint on our podcast.

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Chat With Traders End of 2023 Message

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Growing up poor and living in violent neighborhoods didn’t stop Erik Smolinski from being motivated and curious. Erik only needed to hear a few words about investing including the power of compounding from his high school instructor to light the passion and determination to take ACTION. The discipline, responsibility, accountability, and patience he cultivated as a Marine Corp officer strengthened his ability to stick with his well thought out trading plans and persevere. His use of derivatives strategies help him to minimize painful drawdowns while creating consistent, long term market-beating returns.

About Erik

Erik is a Marine veteran, options trader, real estate and angel investor. He is a strong advocate for authentic investing information. Erik became a first generation millionaire before 30 through hard work and unwavering dedication to his Outlier mindset. He started investing in 2007 and has spent more than 30,000 hours honing his skillset.

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Experiencing the brutal bear market of 1973-74 impressed upon Tom the necessity to find ways to hedge risk. This began a multi year long quest to find the right combination of uncorrelated assets, technical indicators and adjust the weightings as needed to provide enough protection to fill in the potholes of equity drawdowns while retaining the bulk of upside potential. Having a sweet balance between risk and reward both in the financial markets and in his personal life has enabled Tom to maintain a serene disposition.

Tom Basso’s Background:

Tom Basso is an American hedge fund manager. He was president and founder of Trendstat Capital Management. He has authored two books, Panic-Proof Investing and the self-published The Frustrated Investor. In 1998, he was elected to the board of the National Futures Association. Basso graduated from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York in 1974, where he majored in chemical engineering. Prior to his career in trading, Basso worked as an engineer for Monsanto Company. He became a registered investment advisor in 1980 and a registered commodities advisor in 1984. Basso established Trendstat Capital in 1984 and served as its CEO until his retirement. Having retired from active trading in 2003, he now manages his own portfolios and provides guidance to aspiring traders.

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Every now and then, we like to switch things up and take a break from our usual program. Today, we present a special episode for that purpose. So, what keeps you in the trading game? The voices you hear in the podcast introduction belong to our listeners from all over the world. We share these voices with you because we believe you will be able to relate to them, just as we do. These voices mirror those of many traders like us who are on similar paths. They also serve as a reminder that we are not alone on this journey. We also reflect on the key messages and valuable lessons learned from the amazing guests we have interviewed, as well as the common threads that distinguish them from the rest.

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The shock of his first major losing year in 2004 as a discretionary trader, propelled Rob Hanna to find quantifiable statistical advantages that would help mitigate the fluctuations in his equity curves. Knowing the dangers of curve fitting, in trying to find that ‘perfect’ system, Rob zeroed in on simpler approaches that would combine seasonality, overbought, oversold and Federal Reserve days. The result is a system that helps minimize anxiety and drawdowns while keeping him invested for the bulk of bullish moves.

Rob Hanna’s Bio:

Rob is a Registered Investment Adviser Representative for Capital Advisors 360. He has worked as a full-time market professional since 2001. Prior to joining CA360, Rob managed his own private investment fund from 2001–2019 and has also run Quantifiable Edges since 2008. Quantifiable Edges offers a subscriber letter and other services focused on quantitative market analysis. Over the years, Rob has spoken at major conferences for the Market Technicians Association (MTA), the National Association of Active Investment Managers (NAAIM), and the American Association of Professional Technical Analysts (AAPTA) among others. Rob is a 1992 graduate of the Boston College Carroll School of Management. He lives and works in Massachusetts but serves institutional and individual clients across the US and Europe. You can find Rob through Quantifiable Edges, or on X (Twitter) @QuantifiablEdgs

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Paying to take and pass the Series 7 license as a teenager in the 1980’s led Bryan Holdford into the high commission world of stocks and options without mentors or the internet. Starting with investment newspapers Bryan tried many trading ideas without any risk controls. Despite frequent and numerous losses, he was hooked on the game of trading. Obsessive determination drives him to stay in the game despite a boom bust performance. Recently he seems to have found the right balance.

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Stinging losses with mutual funds in 2008 drove Dan to become an active manager of his portfolio. Enticed by the legalization prospects of marijuana, he dived into learning the fundamentals and technicals of the sector. Learning how these stocks traded relative to each other, he cultivated an awareness of the correlations between these companies. These interrelationships would later be applied to large cap stocks, Commodities and Crypto across different time frames to give insights on when to participate in Bull and Bear runs, and when to back away.

Feeling the pain of big early profits evaporating over months, Dan was forced to cultivate a mental flexibility in trading by considering both Bull and Bear signs in every stock he follows. Combined with correlations over multiple time frames with other stocks in the same sector, influences from Commodities, the dollar and various sectors, he flushes out nuances with scalpel-like precision and is ready to flip bullish or bearish without attachment.

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An engineer at the core, Mark Bennell, a Private Trader who has been trading full-time for 15 years breaks down what it really means to “Treat Trading As a Business” and why this mindset was incredibly important in turning his trading around and why it has kept him in the game for this long.

About Mark Bennell

Mark Bennell is a Private Trader who has been trading for the last 18 years, 15 of those being as a full time trader. He holds a Diploma in Technical Analysis, a Diploma in Share Trading and Investment and the International Accreditation as a Certified Financial Technician (CFTe). His trading preferences include discretionary swing trading, scalping Australian equities, and swing trading and scalping the Forex markets. 

Mark is also a trading mentor and enjoys utilizing his knowledge and experience to conduct live daily analysis on the Forex, Commodities and Indices markets, weekly workshop sessions and assisting others on their journey to become consistent traders. He has also been on stage and presented for the Australian Technical Analysts Association – Victorian Chapter and National Conference, and appeared in Trader’s Edge magazine in Australia, ‘Traders Story’ article.

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Seeing and feeling the intensity and chaos of the trading pits back in the 1980’s, Pete knew immediately that trading was the career he had to have. Starting as a floor runner making $5/hr to later trading full time for a living Pete discovered the importance of finding stocks with relative strength during the bear market of 2002. Pete uses a top down 3 step methodical process which helps him zero in on stocks to go long or short. From longs to shorts, conservative credit spreads, high leverage options to occasional Lotto trades, Pete fine tunes his versatile strategies to match current market conditions.

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