Convergent Trader Spotlight Event w/Aaron Fifield
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“If you want to have any chance of making it as a trader, you have to have an unstoppable demeanor because time and time again, you’re going to get knocked down. You need to keep pushing forward”
– Aaron Fifield
Trader Profile – Aaron Fifield
Equities Trader & Podcast Host
Style: Discretionary – price action & order flow. Algorithmic.
Podcast Experience: Launched Chat With Traders in 2015. Aaron’s goal with this Podcast was to come into contact with experienced traders in the industry and to have an opportunity to pick their minds about trading
Aaron has conducted over 162 full-featured and in-depth interviews with various candidates. He accomplished this in just 3 ½ years
Current Focus: a trader manager for a Sydney-based prop firm. Aaron is also working with a team to develop algorithmic trading strategies
Relevant Resources
Aaron’s Podcast: chatwithtraders.com
Documentary (14:42): Wall St. Code
Podcast Episode (28:48): Q1: You Don’t Know How Wrong You Are w/ Delaney Mackenzie
Podcast Episode (55:15): 139: Making way for the ‘whales’ of cryptocurrency markets w/ Bobby Cho, Cumberland Mining
Book (56:43): Fooled by Randomness, by Naseem Taleb
Key Takeaways
Key trading ideas or nuggets:
6 Ways to Emulate Talented Traders:
- To have an unstoppable demeanor
- Play the long game
- Know your strategy intimately
- Trade with an edge
- Manage your life blood: risk
- Stick to the gameplan
How podcast interviews have shaped Aaron’s trading journey:
“It’s given me a really solid understanding of how different traders make money in the markets and where they find an edge.”
Trading ideas that need to be put more in the spotlight:
“Thinking probabilistically and having a basic understanding of probabilities.
“Having an understanding of the biases that traders are subject to or prone to be victim of.
“Don’t be a victim to a sample size of 1 – when you put on a trade, it can be the best setup and it can have everything in it’s favor and it can still just not work.”
Biggest obstacle to traders in prop environment:
“Fees and deal structure. You have to make a lot of money just to break even for the month.”
Why did you get into algo trading:
“It occurred to me one day that if I had the ability to write code, I could probably put what I’ve written down on paper into code and run that over historical data and then that could actually tell me if what I was attempting to trade, did that work in the past?”
Advice to a person dear to you who wants to learn to trade:
“Be prepared to lose money. Sit there and watch the order book to understand what a market is. Don’t trade a demo account for too long. Focus on trying to make good trades on small amounts of money and when you get a little consistency, do it a little bigger.”