The AlphaMind Podcast - #6 Prop Trading & Market Making

#6 Prop Trading & Market Making

07/13/19 • 43 min

This week’s episode of the AlphaMind Podcast sees co-host Steven Goldstein musing over a webinar he gave to a group of Students from some of China’s Top universities.

The students are preparing their applications for US graduate programmes and were keen to explore more about the world of Interest Rate Trading,

Originally, we were aiming to record the webinar and release it directly as a podcast. Unfortunately, the sound quality was not strong enough. Instead in this episode, Steven shares his responses to the questions from the students. These covered a wide range of topics which will be of interest to new as well as seasoned traders.

Questions asked include:

What is the difference between a Market-Maker and a Proprietary Trader?
Do traders at hedge funds also do Market-Making?
Do Market-Makers just make Bid-Offer spread, or do they also take risk?
What is the role of a Salesperson? Why can’t Market-Makers act as Salespeople?
What criteria do clients consider, before deciding to trade with a Bank?
If clients get good prices from traders, does that mean they will find it harder to make money?
What are the different Trading styles used by traders?
Is being in an analyst or research role dull?
Is there too much Maths in investment banks?
How do traders stay within the rules needed to execute effectively?
What is the career path like for traders? Do you have any advice to students going for interviews?

Thank you to Jing Liu for arranging the webinar. Jing coaches college students in china through the graduate application process.

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Driven by a deep understanding of how markets work, and how people and businesses function within them, we partner with clients to create personal performance improvements that elevate returns across their trading activities.
Go to the AlphaMind website to know more.

This week’s episode of the AlphaMind Podcast sees co-host Steven Goldstein musing over a webinar he gave to a group of Students from some of China’s Top universities.

The students are preparing their applications for US graduate programmes and were keen to explore more about the world of Interest Rate Trading,

Questions asked include:

What is the difference between a Market-Maker and a Proprietary Trader?
Do traders at hedge funds also do Market-Making?
Do Market-Makers just make Bid-Offer spread, or do they also take risk?
What is the role of a Salesperson? Why can’t Market-Makers act as Salespeople?
What criteria do clients consider, before deciding to trade with a Bank?
If clients get good prices from traders, does that mean they will find it harder to make money?
What are the different Trading styles used by traders?
Is being in an analyst or research role dull?
Is there too much Maths in investment banks?
How do traders stay within the rules needed to execute effectively?
What is the career path like for traders? Do you have any advice to students going for interviews?

Thank you to Jing Liu for arranging the webinar. Jing coaches college students in china through the graduate application process.

Previous Episode

#5 Steven Goldstein - Trader Performance Coaching

Steven Goldstein, one of the world’s leading trader performance coaches is interviewed by the podcast Co-Host Mark Randall

In this podcast Steven shares his journey from his early days Trading Rates and FX in a Japanese banks in London in the mid-80s, to his time working on the proprietary trading desk at Credit Suisse and later Commerzbank and American Express, before opting to start a career as a Performance coach working with Traders and Investment Professionals.

Steven shares his philosophy on how he helps traders to break past the self-imposed barriers we put which hold us back.

In this interview Steven discusses:

How coaching had helped him make a mid-career leap in trading performance.

What is ‘Inner Game’ performance coaching.

How does it differ from conventional forms of coaching?

How Non-Directive coaching powers performance.

Working with teams

How the more successful traders are more likely to ask for coaching.

Coaching as a tool to develop Growth Mindset.

Understanding the Systemic context of traders.

The limits of learning trading Psychology, versus working in your own personal Psychology.

How he helped traders recover from negative mindsets.

How Relationships, Belonging, Ego.

Why Mindset is everything and developing and Mindset for Alpha is vital.

Lessons from sports. – British cycling and micro improvements.

Embracing the complex.

To know more contact Steven – [email protected]

Next Episode

#7 FX Trader Mark Hutchinson Interview : Growth Mindset in Action

Mark Hutchinson is an outstanding FX Trader who has achieved great success over the past few years.
In this excellent interview, Mark shares his journey into trading with AlphaMind co-hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall.
Mark talks about the struggle of the early years, the trial and error processes, his dyslexia, and the learning process he went through over 4 1⁄2 years before finally starting to succeed.

Mark’s passion for trading shines through in this interview, a passion he has also turned into a very successful mentoring and training business, Falcon FX, with over a thousand members across the world.

This interview is a great discussion on topics to vital to trading success, including: