It's kind of a trade secret in a way, but I'll you know? but I'll let some of it out. No emotion. Automated. Yeah, Faster does what you wanted to do, not second guessing itself.

and if you have a good system, you can be in a very good position. That's one type of deal that you can do with a proprietary firm. Okay, but I would get 90 of the profits. so 90 of the profit? Sure.

Oh wow, yeah. Imagine a Trader who's traded from every done everything that's Dean Ding is an experienced construator who started his career trading for private offices and big institutions, then eventually moving to the Cayman Islands to be the managing director of a private trading firm. Dean was also the CEO of an Inc 500 technology company. For his work, he's been nominated as an entrepreneur of the Year by the Gulf Coast Business review.

Ding has since then transitioned from his corporate life to day trading full-time and practices what he preaches to his clients. His main priority now is to teach his kids how to trade and help them with their businesses In today's conversation. I'm really excited to have Dean explain to you guys what Quant trading is his favorite Quantum Trading strategies and what it means to find a balance As a Trader A business leader and a parent. Please welcome my friend Dean Foreign Welcome back to the fifth episode of Humble: Traders A podcast for active Traders I'm your host Shea AKA The Humble Trader If this is your first time tuning in to a podcast, I Interview: Share stories and trading strategies from some of the most inspiring Traders from around the world.

If that sounds good to you, please remember to smash the like button and subscribe to see more interviews like these in the future. Welcome to the show! Dean Thank you so much! thanks for having me! It's great being here! Yeah I'm so glad I met you last summer when we're doing the YouTube video. Yeah yeah that was really fun and then I think it was a great way for me to get introduced to the local. Vancouver Traders I have no idea so many Traders are here.

Yeah it was a great turnout. yeah and then I think you out of I guess out of all the Traders I've met so far yeah you are one of the most experienced like who's being in the game for the longest I think how long you've been trading. Yeah about I guess yeah close to 30 years would be from my first trade. but I started taking a look at what I wanted to do when I was in high school and I knew that I was going to be in the sports business and sports agency and when they own a pro football team or something like that.

but I also was looking at my dad introduced me the Forbes Magazine and they would list the 400 wealthiest people. So I started cutting out what these people did and put them into industry folders and I said to myself once I go through University and when I'm close to finished whatever the fattest folder that didn't have to do with biotechnology or having having to build some massive company I would look into that one and then as I after about three or four years of doing this, the biggest folders were guys who were money managers, hedge fund managers and I said no and I started looking at their backgrounds and I said ah, not all these guys are you know, rocket scientists and this is something I'm interested already and I said yeah, let's go in that direction. Oh okay, yeah. wow.

so over 30 years you're a true veteran I think so? you think so? Yeah, quite some time. and then when I get out of school and a family friend who is a mentor at the time I was representing athletes when I was in university it was something you know a lot of people work regular jobs I was representing athletes and he said well, you could probably do a lot for these guys long term if you learned how to manage their money. So I went and learned how to get it. He got me into the financial business and then from there I started reading about some of the best people in history and managing money and Traders and all that sort of thing.

and so I went down to the library talking about being in it for a long time and looked at the pulled out the microfiche. do you need? Do you know what microfacials is that like a disc? Nope, even before discs. So um, although the microfusion, it's a piece of plastic paper and you fed into this machine that looked like an overhead. so I'm looking at all these articles on the guy I've been named Warren it So I started reading about him and then I'm going wow at the time I was in Toronto and I heard about this guy named Michael Lee Chen who was doing a lot of these things like Warren Buffett and he had a small firm so it took over the next couple months and tried to get in and started studying value investing at that firm under under him and I did that for a couple years and then um had a really interesting experience and then was part of starting another firm.

That Grew Really well it started ended up having over 700 reps across the country, over 10 billion in assets. That was one of the original guys that started there. but I left early to go out on my own and start learning more and more about trading. My knowledge base started really going towards more SO trading and doing that than managing managing money in mutual funds.

Oh so you started almost a research kind of like fundamentals value investing. You move down to trading. Yes, Why? Why Why do you think you you know? instead of staying in that path, you started to get interested in actually trading more actively. So I met a lot of these money managers and as they were talking they were talking about individual names of stocks and this stock went from here to here and I was kind of dismayed in a way that the overall funds were making 10, 12, 14.

Yet these individual names if you would have a more concentrated port folio or names that you were buying and selling you could get way out size returns. So I wanted to really move towards that rather than being involved in in regular returns. Oh I See yeah? So I wanted a bigger upside and I want to do like I was reading about these guys that had read years before in Forbes Magazine Okay so that's how you then specifically did you get into Quant trading. So I was Consulting to a bunch of different companies all over the world mutual fund companies, some hedge funds I'm sitting on the board of a couple hedge funds as well and I got to meet different money managers in that genre and some of the people that I met were running a Quant fund and I started.

and actually we were out to dinner one night and they were saying oh we heard that you had a pretty good year Another guy said oh you had a good year it was the end of the end of the year like late December and the one guy said that yeah, we had a pretty good year, we're up like 281 and I thought they had made 281 million dollars which they actually made more than that but they were up 281 percent for the year. Oh wow and I went and you guys do Quan stuff I've got to learn more about that and as luck would have it, I Got recruited by this company to consult to them and then I was offered to be president and CEO and it was a systematic computer-generated trading software that they were selling to the public and to institutions and they wanted come in and help them re-reorganize a company, re-engineer it which I did and then I took it over as president and CEO and we had I think eight full-time Engineers working computer scientists and that gave me the opportunity to look all around the world and hire brilliant people to come in and try to make our trading systems better. So I learned a ton from there and then we grew that business I was fortunate to it was named the 55th fastest growing company in America the year after I started and once again the next year in the top 150 fastest growing companies in the country and I we started a internal fund and these guys were brilliant! We had meetings every week so my knowledge base in that area went through The roof pretty quickly and I left there and then started up Consulting to medium to large size firms in the states and then became director of Quant research at a about a thousand member Brokerage in the states as well and doing all of that and Consulting while I was doing that as well got me introduced to a lot of different programmers mathematicians from all over the world and that helped my knowledge base go up and up. Yeah, when I think of Quant trading I think of a lot of math numbers like flying on the screen I Love programming.

Is that accurate? Well I guess yes. like some Public's perception. Yeah, absolutely. and I think at first most of the people's perception was Hft that high frequency trading going off like crazy and everything that that book Flash Boys by Michael Lewis was one that really brought it to the Forefront And but the way they look at Quant trading too if I dare say dummy it down is yes, please do yeah, you're using algorithms and an algorithm is simply an If then statement and for all the engineers out there and that sort of thing I apologize if I'm making this too easy or not.

Right on. But um, the way I look at it, you're using an If then statement and they could be numbers and it could be words. Okay, um, and you're telling you're programming a computer to do the entries and exits how you want the computer to do that. So you tell it what to do and it does it on an automated basis.

And if you're really good at putting in excellent algorithms and rules, it's basically rules based if then statements. So if you have a good strategy then you will create profits. If you don't have a good strategy, you will create losses. It's the easiest way to to put it.

So you kind of compile. Let's say a bunch of rules. 10 rules for example and a Quantum Trader will turn that into a strategy that will automate the trading based on those 10 rules or more. So think about when you're when you're looking at a chart, a price chart.

there's patterns and there's identifiable pattern I can identify it and say Buy Here Sell there now I Hire programmers to program in when the price goes to this, why and when the price goes to here. So they say well, how do you know what to do right? So you have to have good information in so to do that I Use statistics and probabilities. So statistics being all we do is we take let's say the movement of a stock that's called the cues the QQQ the ETF that follows the NASDAQ 100. So we would take a look going back say for example, 100 days and we would track the movement of the cues over the last hundred days intraday end of day and we will get to know what the pattern is.

and then we would try to identify if there's repeating identifiable patterns that we can then put in a buy a cell, a short, a buy, buy to cover and continue to do that over and over. And when you have something like that, you have a winning system and then why why reduce it down to code? And why do it like that? Because no emotion automated. Yeah, Faster does what you wanted to do, not second guessing itself. and if you have a good system, you can be in a very good position.

That means does he still have to monitor the positions at all? Well yeah for sure. Like you know, I don't know anybody that puts it on and leaves like you hear a lot of stuff with YouTube just put it on, set it and forget it. so that's not true. That's not true.

Well maybe they are. but I don't think they're making the money that they're saying that they are I See right? So there's a gentleman a firm called Renaissance Technologies that I was introduced to over 20 years ago. Okay um about 25 years ago and these guys were some of the most sophisticated mathematicians on Earth award-winning Mathematicians code Breakers from the U.S and they created this company to um with to use Quantitative Systems to to trade both all kinds of different instruments in the market futures Commodities stocks and their returns were outstanding. So like to the point where um for what what's been published, their long-term returns over 30 years is above 60 annually so you're doubling your money almost every year.

Yeah, and it's it's been reported. These guys are some of the wealthiest people on Earth So one of the things I learned when I was young: emulate and duplicate and then see if you can make it your your own. and if you like winning then well that's a good Target to go after. and so that's really how I use that as a Target I wanted to go after that, but I didn't want to be involved in large large companies I See yeah.

so hence the being an individual operator. Oh, because you were involved in larger companies and you kind of kind of decided to take a step back and do your own thing. do your own trading. Yeah, so I was President too of a company.

we had 150 employees and then another company we had. we had about 200 employees and I said you know what it's I find it'd be more interesting to have a small company, especially with lifestyle. So as I was maturing I had done so much work I started working when I was 14 years old right and I'd work like crazy and I said you know what can we work smarter You know this is not rocket science. You know work smarter High Profitability Lifestyle Freedom That sort of thing and everything really ties itself into.

If you can get a good trading system going and trading complex going, you can I think it's one of the best things you can do. As you probably already know know from all my YouTube videos, most of my strategies involve scalping momentum and shorting. all those scenes will require a very fast broker platform and I have an exciting promo from one of the premium Brokers I personally use Centerpoint Securities If you're trading with over thirty thousand dollars, you can use Center Point to day trade with zero commissions for 60 days and that's not all. You'll also get access to the Astronaut Pro for one month for free.

That's the trading platform you're seeing all my videos. That's another 150 value for free to get this offer with all the freebies I Just mentioned you can sign up to Centerpoint Securities down below and now let's get back to the video. So what? how old were you do? You remember how old were you when you kind of took a step back and just go all in on your own I would say I was a bit of a late bloomer because I wanted to get really good at this stuff and I wanted to have the feathers in my cap so I wanted to work on Wall Street I wanted to work on on or near Bay Street Honor near Wall Street I wanted to get and be involved in large companies I wanted to be involved with the hedge fund. So once I had got all those things done and I'd run a research company and a consulting firm as luck would have it, some family situations changed and I decided to Pivot and said okay, no more Consulting no more selling research, no more doing this I'm going to go all in and I'm going to start.

Uh, I'm bringing in my own research and develop everything internally, not sell anything externally and start trading on my own, not just for my own account, but also I started doing something that I call Fund of Ones Fo1 so Fund of One. So basically instead of just starting where a lot of people start, they save up a little bit of money and they start trading their own capital and they grow it And they grow it and they go from there and a lot of times to get to. You know to an exceptional amount of income or money you have to save for a long time. It takes a lot of time or you get that.

Capital yeah you can use leverage or whatever. So what I did was I Was once again fortunate enough to meet some people and we started a individual fund but only one person. Well, two people in the fund myself and another person and then I did it with another person. we started another fund and at one point I had about uh, four different funds going with a couple different families and then I also did deals with institutional Preparatory trading firms.

So I was trading proprietary money for firms as individual Trader but doing on my own off-site from from the tropics. I also Okay So so it's the family office money yes and you go in as the trader who trade for them with their Capital Yeah and I don't actually go in and do it I do it on my terms and my place and where I want right? So a lot of times the people are saying oh I'm you know you see on YouTube and that sort of thing I see a lot of people on Instagram saying oh I'm down on the tropics trading from a beach with a you can't even see a you can hardly see a screen I Always wondered I mean I called you actually trade on the beach Yeah, the reflection itself is just yeah. the internet connection. the reflection like there's no way.

Yeah, there's so much to actually do it and there are a lot of people that are doing it from Bermuda and Grand Cayman Bahamas that sort of thing. Um, so what I did was I set up an individual fund with a family office which is basically it's a fancy name for a private family that has a fair amount of money that wants to manage their own money or hire, uh, somebody to manage their money for them. So I was just one piece of their complex where they were. they would do their management or have their in-house people.

I was an outside person and I would do a deal with them but you're a traitor I was a Trader and now it's not like oh, this is long-term You know we're trying to hold positions for three years. you know my turnover was daily and we'd do anyway. So we were day trading. Oh yeah, absolutely.

anywhere from anywhere from one trade to hundreds of Trades a day. Absolutely yeah. So I'm just curious I don't know if you can share it. like so if it's their money and you trade for them, what's like a profit split like uh, the profit split you can usually on those.

well not usually. But what I was experiencing doing was I'm pretty fair and go 50 50. So and then uh from an Institutional proprietary trading firm. Usually what they want you to do is they want to want you to put up what's called first risk.

Capital So I would put up our own Capital let's uh, say for uh, argument's sake I'd put up a hundred thousand dollars. Okay, they would give a couple million dollars to trade against that my hundred thousand would be at risk first. I Say so. That's one type of deal that you can deal with a proprietary firm.

Okay, but I would get 90 of the profits and I would use their money. So 90 of the profits? Sure. Oh wow, Yeah, because my money's at risk, You have no risk, your money's at risk. First, the first 100K is my risk or our risk if I don't work or something like that.

Oh okay. so then the next, the next type of uh, proprietary trading firm is you come in and you become a member of their uh, limited partnership. Okay, and they give you access to their capital and those ones go anywhere from 30 40, 50, 60, 70 payout depending on how good you are and how consistent you are. Um, so I was I did my homework and I was lucky enough to get with a couple of really good firms for a good period of years.

Oh yeah, and when you were doing that for I think couple years you say you were doing that in a Tropics yeah or yeah, where is that? Yeah. So I lived in between um I lived in between Miami and also in Grand Cayman I lived in the Gulf Coast as well. Um, and but my family's up in Toronto so we'd spend our summers in Toronto and Whistler and in the winters, where would you want to be in the tropics? Yeah, so okay. I was located for several years out of Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands and I've also worked in other locations where we want to live there.

so um when everything? uh when I just when I decided to go all in and do that type of trading I also said okay Now's the Time with my children at the time my my girls I've got twin girls at the time were 10 years old 11 years old and we decided or I decided let's move every couple years give them a global education. Oh wow and let's move around the world I can do this and as long as you're consistent and as long as you've got to you know continue with a good track record then you can do it. It's not as easy as what people say. You know there's all travel from anywhere.

sorry travel and trade yeah anywhere. So yeah like my Instagram is, that is trade Dot from dot anywhere. It's just basically that's what we always talk about and it you have to be a good Trader first. yeah then you have to have the capital second.

and then there's all kinds of things you have to do without like visas and regulations and are you going to get a place? That's that. Are you live in a hotel? get a suite hotel and live there. Kids have to go to school. Yeah um so with with my kids they did uh they did a little bit of brick and mortar school and they also did online school so we could travel and do different things and they could pursue their passions.

So at the time too, it was just. uh, it was just me and my kids. Yeah, and um, so really, my most important single output measure as a man is how good of a father can I be? Um, so that was number one. How good of a father? And then you know how good of a friend and all that can that be? But that was that First and foremost.

Most important. so can we do this? And if we can, what do we want to do? So a big believer in writing the script and rewriting the script every you know every couple years if you need to. Sort of like being on the first year of a three-year plan every couple years, right? And so decided. Okay I want to live in the tropics and I want to educate the kids I want to live on an island? We'll live on a beach and in a different part a surfing town.

We want to live in the cities we wanted to travel when we could. So we traveled most Summers all over the place and every place that we lived and traveled to I traded. so we're in Rome for a couple weeks or in Italy traveling in Italy I traded pretty much every day. Oh wow, Yeah, so you have to to do that.

You know it got really good at trading on my phone with a phone app. You actually okay, absolutely yeah. and then with the times we have to go back to the hotel when we were in Rome to trade, look on my trade, look at, look at them up and do some trades that were happening. and um, yeah.

everywhere from I've traded from Planes Trains Cars, Boats? Not yet? Yes, Absolutely boats. I've changed from boats. The Internet on the boat? Yes, Absolutely. Um yeah.

I'm traded from Hawaii traded from Rome to from Toronto all over the place, all over the world. At this point when you're trading with your two kids and traveling, are you still managing the funds or are you trading your own? Capital So in the funds part of the part of the deal with that was I had a I might have had some money in there with them as well. Oh I usually have my own, eat my own pudding and put it in along with them. That's good.

So it is a fund with only one person so it's I Call it a fun to one, but it's really just a partnership between me and another person. so you also have your own money. Yeah, and um, yeah. absolutely.

so be trading my own Capital which is it's just co-mingled with theirs. It's just a fair way. Like if I can ask you to eat this food along with me, I may as well eat it as well. right? Yeah, So yeah as Warren Buffett say we eat our own pudding.

As you can see from my conversation with Dean Quons Trading and automated Trading is definitely getting more and more popular. Is that a topic that interests you? Let me know if you want to see more, you can comment Quants Trading down below. So at this point, um, our all your strategies automated at this point? Like before or like right now? Uh uh, they've been automated for years. Oh okay, yeah so recently like before I had to go and um, hire programmers.

So if we can go back 20 years. I was getting in touch with um, individual programmers, mathematicians from um, different top universities in the states. Okay, and they would know somebody would know somebody and I would get together with them. Either bring them into where I was living at the time or meet them somewhere to go over their credentials and try to help get them to help build build something.

So recently I discovered this company called Shark Indicators. Okay now they make a piece of software. They have two pieces to the software. one is called Bloodhound the other one's called Blackbird.

Don't know why they're called that but good for them. But the important thing is the Bloodhound piece of software. It allows you to test your theories, test your strategies. So let's say everybody has like a strategy that they want to follow in the market.

so they do in the markets. So let's say buy the S P E-mini above when when the price closes above the 100 period moving average. Okay right. hold that instrument for 20 points or one percent when it goes up 20 points or one percent.

Sell So and let's say we do the opposite for when it goes down, it goes down and we want to short it. Okay, okay so if the price of the S P closes below the 100 period moving average, then sell it short on close and hold that position for a 20 point profit. Okay, you can put that in and let's say you follow any type of indicator you can think of or any type of number rule you can think of. If you can think of the rule by just clicking the button, you don't need to know programming.

You don't have to be a programmer. You can put that in. It took me about an hour and a half to learn it. That was it.

Yeah, and so something that would have taken me a couple thousand dollars in hiring a programmer to do a couple years ago. Now I Took lessons on it for about an hour, two hours and I'm off to the races creating strategies that worked just like other coin strategies that I had built by software programmers. The other part of the software um is in Advanced Trade Management System So if you wanted to buy for you sell for you, put in the trailing stop. it'll Trail for you, put in a hard stop and you can be as sophisticated as you want or as unsophisticated and just put in simple stops.

but this I think the the software is revolutionary if you learn how to use it and it's for individual Traders A thing right is that it works for Ninja Ninja Trader Okay, which is a software program that a lot of um a lot of Futures Traders use but it's all over the world so but I think it's a I've been using that and it's fantastic and this is only for Futures Trading You can't do this for let's say options stocks if you if you can trade it on on Ninjatrader I believe that you can program in the buys and sells for that as well. Oh wow, not 100 sure, but you can look it up. They've got all kinds of videos and all that both on YouTube and on their website I think it's I've discovered that and I think it's fantastic I Know you say it took you an hour to learn everything, but you're a very smart guy I think an average person like me I will need like maybe a couple days to learn it, but I'll check them out. um I think for what it does, it's more than worth it.

Worth it to take the advantage and take the time and learn it. and seriously, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to I Understand programming I understand working with programmers and that sort of thing. but I'm not a programmer by trade. Oh, so what's your actual like? formal um, education.

Formal education is undergrad and economics? Um, okay, yeah. Economics? Yeah. Did Monogram played football at Acadia University at Nova Scotia shout out to Katie Axman and then um and I somehow got into the University of Waterloo okay and went there for a semester and played football there. and um, yeah, oh my.

God Everyone from there is so smart, especially engineers. Incredibly, Yeah, yeah, and yeah. I remember my first day in class looking around going. if you don't know who the dumbest person in the room is, it's probably you.

Yes, yeah, and uh, so that was uh, evident right away. but I'm probably playing down a little bit. but um, yeah. I think if you if you take the time like when it comes to trading, I believe that you know you should be professional about it.

and um, that's one of my favorite quotes that I've been that I read recently. Uh, was by a guy the name of DJ Shipley he's a former Navy SEAL Team Six uh Dev crew operator. Okay, and he he put out this quote a couple months ago or a couple weeks ago and it's about being a pro and it's so anal analogous to Trading do you work? Do your studying, learn, learn, Like do your studying. Find somebody where you can like go to school basically not and you can do everything online.

and then from that point, get a coach. You know it's uh, hearing some guys saying that you can read a book about golfing. golf doesn't mean you can golf. No.

But if you read the book, you understand some of the fundamentals. but then if you get somebody you can learn from yeah and say hey, that's why you're not doing it and they can correct your swing. And the same thing with this. be a pro at what you're doing, put the time in, do the learning, do the practicing, practice hard, do deep practice.

There's another book um, that I read. It was just brilliant. the Talent Code and talks a lot about deep practice and doing slow practice and then getting better and better and then layering on and Scaffolding up your your learning and then going from there when you're ready, then getting in and then jump into the waters. and I think that's the way to do it.

I Think a lot of people be way more successful in this because the statistics are brutal. If they're right, yeah, they're brutal. So I Think doing the work and doing the studying is is imperative. So how would you describe energy like one of the strategy has automated? How would you describe it at a high level? explain it to our audience? a high level or at a very easy and simple level? Which one would you like? Okay, a very easy simple level.

So one of the things that I found in doing all the research and working with different companies and different money managers Simple is best. Simple works. Now there's some companies that are phenomenally complex that run their trading strategies. Phenomenally complex.

I Really gravitated towards simple. Okay, and I would say that All right. So we know that when you're when you're trading, we know that Trend Following works. Sometimes we know that breakout Momentum trading works.

Yeah, Sometimes we know that relative strength with breakouts and momentum works. Sometimes we know that. Also, on the opposite side, that breakdowns work and you can really catch you know, a move down. Yes, so all these things work.

The problem for everybody is none of them work all the time, right? Yep. So I took a look at that and said okay, once again, are there patterns to this? I Believe there are. Can we prove those patterns? Yes, how using statistics by taking a look at the movement of price and out of when you get the statistics to be from there we have probabilities. Now when you take the information from the research that you do, can you build a system around that? well you just test it.

So how would I describe my system I Probably have to edit some of this. So what I did was I combined a trade a trending system with a breakout system. Okay, so prices trend and we know that prices say move on a monthly basis NASDAQ stocks on a monthly basis range 10 up 10 down. Now they don't always just come back to the mean.

Sometimes they break out and they go for a run. They go to the moon. So when they do, I create a system that buys the trend. Where is the trend? Identify the trends above a 50 period, 100 period, and a 200 period moving average, right? Okay, so it would buy a little bit above a 50, a little bit above 70.

a little bit above 100 and it'll take a big chunk at 200 period moving average. we know that now the expectation of move might be 10, 15, 20 depending on that instrument. Now if it starts coming back down, well, that's reversion to the mean trade. so the system will short that trade.

It'll take the profit and short it because it doesn't think that it's going to go to the moon right now. What happens if it's wrong and it goes and starts going to the moon at that point, then becomes a breakout trade or a momentum. Trade It identifies it pretty much right away and says I'm wrong with no emotion Now let's get back on that Trend trade and go with it. Oh okay, and then it does the same thing to the bottom so it or on a short trade.

So it's a trend system that becomes a breakout system that becomes a reversion to the mean system which becomes a breakdown system and a shorting system which becomes now a total breakdown if it starts going if the market starts puking like it did you know a couple months ago. Okay so it it gets in on a trade and it fails fast and it's very simple system using indicators and levels that everybody that's watching here can can use as well. We just happen to automate it so it takes it I have one. The other thing that I do that's different.

So my strategy that's different is I call what's I do what's called stacking trades stacking. So I trade on a on a 30 second bar 30 seconds bar. Okay, so one is trading on a 30 second button and it's looking for these moves in the market. Okay, another one is trading on a five minute bar and it's looking for movements in the market, another one is trading on a 60 Minute another one on a 240 minute and another one on a 480 minute and another one on a daily.

So the systems are watching each one of these time intervals on individual instruments on a real-time basis. And when it hits the buy point trading is really simple and when you think about it, we want a good entry. Yeah, a good access. Yeah, we want to get in, get out, get paid.

Yes. So why do I use all these different time intervals? So if you and I were playing, do you follow any sports at all or anything like that? No. Sports Not really. Okay, we're playing uh American Football.

Okay, I I I I I can understand football? Okay, so football has two halves and has four quarters. Yes, okay, each one of their 15 minutes long. So if we can play that game over a 60 Minute period and win and make money When somebody come and came and said hey, we can shrink this game and now we can play a 30 minute game. Okay, and you can make money.

Okay, what happens if we can play a 15 minute or a five minute game and we can make money and you can be good at each one of those time intervals. Oh, so all these intervals are separate trades? correct? Oh I See one's not following another. Oh, they're all working independently. Okay, yeah, because like one of the systems that I built.

Um, it takes. Yeah, Okay, thank you. Yeah, so if one one system, it takes maybe one or two trades a day based on a very short time period. But when it hits that, we've done the research and we know that whenever it hits that entry point that get in point, the get out point is only a couple points away.

It happens twice a day like clockwork. But you have to do the research. You have to do the homework. You have to be a pro right? You have to do the work, do the research, and make and test it.

And this thing does two trades a day and depending on what you it's right. It's got a very high win rate and if it's wrong, it either stops out quite quickly or the reversal takes precedent over a stop so it doesn't need stops. The reversal isn't the stop so that works on a 30 second bar. another one that works on once again, a five or a six or seven minute bar and you can run those concurrently.

A couple days ago a lot of people didn't catch the move from the NASDAQ going from 13.5 up to almost 14. Well 14 000 today. All right. The system caught it because it's always looking.

It's not looking around looking at different time frames. so we're going. Hey so does that mean you can have that's a all these different time frames, Five different trades. Some will.

Some will take profit assuming that soon. Candles? Yeah Oh I See yeah. So if you ask my kids because I have a setup and you know set up in the house for years. And if you ask my kids one thing that it just always ringing in their head is Order filled.

Order filled Stop filled Order filled. Oh yeah, all all day. interesting and sometimes at night as well depending on what we're trading. Oh yeah and you can do this on different instruments, not just future.

Do this on stocks stocks. Futures Yeah yeah, everything if it moves. If so, the three things we look for three things you wanted a good trade obviously is liquidity. That's goes yeah Next thing is Trend persistence.

okay and range. So if you can identify something that has Trend persistence that Trend persistence. if we're a little you know Honey I Shrunk The Kids people that Trend to them might be this big now other people a trend might mean oh we're looking for a couple month Trend a couple hour Trend couple minute Trend So all we're looking for is Trend persistence that we can identify okay with range that we is worth it to take the money out that we identify the downside risk to it and so if we know what the downside risk is if we're wrong, how many times we need to be right like you supply one of the things you supply is the risk reward ratio for your followers. It's fantastic and we actually use that in some of the things.

some of the research that we do and we identify that and that's how we build. So when we get those things, put all this information put together. I Build We're called models so we have a fast trading model for the cues, a fast trading model for the NQ which is a NASDAQ E-mini We have a fast trading model for oil we have faster for gold, the faster involved for the S P 500 and so then we have all these time intervals that we trade on and we stack them So okay. the machine won't won't miss that long-term trade where you can make the really big money and just you know, buy it and hold it.

it won't miss the swing trades. does a lot of the homework for you or a lot of the work for you. and you're monitoring the system every day. Yes, maybe not every minute.

You're not like sitting there watching, but it's just you know, same same way that other people do. Yeah, you want to sit it and you want to be a pro. It's sort of like you watch it on your phone or um if I'm away. like if we're traveling or something like that.

yeah and I won't have that many trades on if you know we're traveling usually. um but yeah, if I'm at the office or at home or something like that. Yeah, I'm gonna have multiple positions on. but usually when I you know because I teach my kids how to trade you know and their Traders and learning and all that.

um I tell them trade one instrument, get really really good at that one instrument okay and then start going out from there. But thank you. That was okay that I'm just saying this so much more now. Thank you.

I I'm not saying I understand it completely, but what you how you explained it was very very helpful. So one of the systems that you you do is V1 right? You teach a lot about using V1 yeah. so I could take that shark indicator, say right? or take that software. yeah and build a system with the view up indicator.

So you you buy Above The View up and you sell below the V1 right? And then you probably take a look at what's a market sentiment. the market sentiment's up. This thing's going this now. It's above the V-wop and everything.

Let's go and buy it. What's what does it usually run? Oh, it usually runs a dollar fifty. Okay, great. I would just go in there and say what do I want I want the V-wop in there and I want buy Above the V WAP sell below the V WAP I connect it and press a button and it it'll buy Above the V-wop It'll look for a dollar fifty profit like it might even scale it I could put it in to scale out 50 cents 75 cents a dollar dollar fifty.

scale out and wait for their to either come down, bounce off or go Below close and get a short out of it as well. All based on if you can say it I can put it in, program it and then it can do what you're thinking but it won't change its mind. Now if you want to change mine, just go kill children. Just kill the trade.

So how often do you modify your systems I It's kind of a trade secret in a way, but no. but I'll let some of it out. Okay, um I August 23rd or 28th 2003. Okay I came up with the framework of the system that I'm still using today.

Oh wow, Up to 20 years? Yes, Okay, so um I was I was developing a system. prior to that, it was was okay I met I was trading through a company in Chicago at the time and I told the owners and the guys that ran the company and built the software for the trading platform. If you know anybody who is really good at programming I want to meet some new programmers and if not only just good program but understand the markets. They introduced me to a gentleman uh, shout out to Austin on the west coast who um said okay, you guys are both in this Quant stuff.

You both have good track records we want to put you together and I talked to him about what I was doing. He took the information, the buys and the cells and the pattern recognition that I was looking at and he was on his way to go fly fishing that weekend in. New Mexico from he lives in the high desert in California he went down when fly fishing in New Mexico on a Thursday Tuesday Morning sent me an email hey Dean and there was attachment to it. This guy's brilliant.

He was a multiple Phds Physics mathematics Stanford and USC and he helped me in that weekend he goes. You're really onto something here. It was really fun working on it I built you an automated platform with these rules and it brought up the efficacy of the and the profitability of the system by about 30 percent. And I've been using that framework until now and I've had people when I was leasing the system to professionals.

these are Wall Street professionals. um I think my longest serving client was 13 years. Oh wow, using that system so it makes you smarter. Um, you can.

it helps you identify entries and exits, makes you smarter, and then then you can click a button. It'll trade automatic for you as well. Oh wow, yeah, it's kind of cool. That's pretty cool.

that's what I said too. Yeah and my friends will sit there and go. Dean How do you like? how'd you like huh? you know I'm going I'm not as stupid as I Look, you know, like come on now, give me give me some credit, you know. Um, yeah.

so um yeah, it's something you know. I Had some really, really sophisticated and talented people work with me and I think breaking it down to make it really simple to understand was a key to you know, getting it out. Oh so since you're so knowledgeable and very experienced with Quant trading and using these systems and nowadays like AI is like the hardest thing that everyone's talking about. Yeah, how do you think artificial intelligence is gonna change the the market or change this trading industry? Well I'm in no way shape or form an expert in that.

Um I believe. However, the amount of information that people are like that are watching this right now. the amount of information that my children that my friends can get from YouTube and from different places. and now with AI and Chachi BT and the different different models and AI models that are coming out absolutely brilliant What you can do with it and the information you get from it.

Um I think it's going to help people get better, smarter, more profitable, faster. Okay because of the amount of information you can stuff in your brain. So if you have the capacity to take on the information and be good at it, um it's It's incredible. Where before let's say you're reading through some information and it comes up and says take a look at the viewab what's view app you'd have to go back to the internet Go to say Investopedia Google look it up, see if it brought up the right thing for you or now just oh, keep chat GPT open or one of the University Gpts open and just put in hey, what's Vwap? Please explain it to me as a fifth grader and tell me how this works and it'll boom.

Give you an outstanding explanation. So it's like a super tutor. So um my daughter said I told you they're 21 years old now. One of them has a tick tock channel that she teaches girls to trade and it's called stock Talk for the girls with a Tok not a T-a-l-k and in her she gives away some information does like a Minute Clinic every day on that and then some of the education systems that she makes available to people.

it has a super tutor in it and you just click on all the terms and terminology. So before when you were getting started the terms and terminology are really difficult because it's a new language. Yeah and you have to get through that with Chachi BT It's unbelievable. Now on top of that, people are going oh I can use this Dakota Trading's a winning trading system.

No you can't It doesn't work that well. You can put it in I saw you took it, took a shot at it. Yeah, you have to know coding. You have to know how to correct this.

It's not as easy as people think. Not yet. Anyway, not yet. It will get there I'm sure but at the moment it's not.

so. um, you have to know what information to put in. Yeah, so as long as you know when to buy, when to sell, when to buy, when to scale out, when to short, when to scale out, then you can put that information in I think in time, it's going to be phenomenal. Yeah, so you think it's a tool that Traders can use to help build their systems? I think that it's a tool that people can use to learn faster.

Okay, so not so much for trading. I've tried to get it to write different types of code for different types of platforms and there's mistakes. so if you're if you're a coder, if you're a programmer I think it's phenomenal. If you're not a programmer once again, you should probably look into some of these uh, platform that that can do the programming for you.

I See So chat GPT or I guess the a lot of the AI trading nowadays. the algorithm, the the system, the language model they provide. It's not I Guess what you're saying is it's not ready for people to just take what they spit out and turn it into a strategy. correct? Now with the chat part of the AI right? So I've been using AI since late 90s, early 2000s and that is just once again using Intelligent Systems and that will do the statistics and do the testing and do do all the research for you right and get do it and crunch down.

Do do something in minutes. it usually take days or weeks right? Um Now by saying please write this code if you're a if you're a developer I think it'll be I think it's phenomenal already. And if you're a developer and you know what works and you know trading and you know trading then great. If not, you better learn.

You better learn a strategy. You better get a coach. if not garbage in Garbage out. you know it's true garbage in the Chachi PT Garbage out.

Yeah because I think lot of people are like at least in the trading industry and I'm sure there's a lot of other industry are a little bit worried about AI thinking that oh the the once AI becomes more popular or technology develop, it's gonna eventually replace all retail trading. So what do you think about that? Fear or worry, No I think that there's um I I Don't think so Well mutual fund managers and a lot of hedge fund managers. A lot of hedge funds are just mutual funds with a lot of fees attached to them in performance fees. Yes, um, a lot of those guys are and people are getting very average returns.

So if they take their same strategy and put it in use AI to write some code and do that. they're still going to get the same output right. So you need good input to get good output. If you have excellent input, you can get excellent output.

I Don't think they're going to get rid of a lot of things I Think with a lot of these Robo Traders and that sort of thing you take a look at there's you Don't see a lot of Articles saying hey, these people put their money into these Robo Traders and the returns are phenomenal. You don't hear that, it's just it's just not happening. What's happening is there are some excellent Traders And there's a lot of good Traders and a lot of them being getting a lot of exposure on the internet. Now it's amazing and you can learn from them.

Um, but I really? I Don't think just yet. I Think in time probably. but right now I haven't seen it because the input still still correct. Yeah, the AI is not all they're trying our successfully discovering new strategies for you.

Yeah, yes, discovering new research for you. You have to tell it what to do. Yeah, and you know I've taken a look and I've tested with it and and done. Just make me a winning strategy and it comes back with a lot of apologies.

Garbage. Yeah, garbage. Yeah, it's so yeah. Um, I'm not a believer in that yet, but have I have I used it for an assistance in a lot of things? Absolutely 100 Yeah! So you've traveled pretty much around the world, traded and lived there.

Yeah, you, you're pretty much living like a trade. the trader lifestyle I think so Yeah, and that was the plan too. That was an absolute plan. There was a method to the madness without question.

and you took your kids with you. Took my kids with me, my daughters at the time um uh, lived on the beach in the Gulf Coast in Florida first and then from there I Wanted to introduce them to living in different places both vibrant cities, huge cities that are phenomenal and also I wanted to introduce them to living offshore. Um, so we lived in Miami Toronto Vancouver or Whistler for the last several years last three years and prior to that we lived in the Cayman Islands oh, where's kinda so far your favorite place to live? uh Whistler and the Cayman Islands you get the mountains and you get a beach. Absolutely.

I Think it's the the absolute complement to one another. Live in the tropics in the winter and in the summer, come up and spend the summers in the winter. I Don't think there's a better place to do it. but Grand Cayman is phenomenal.

It's safe, beautiful weather, amazing people. You couldn't be safer I Don't think it's got everything you want? You're only 463 miles from Miami less an hour flight. As soon as you get up, you're on the way down and it's um, so it's an easy place to get to the waters. Absolutely pristine and amazing.

I would love to see you should go and it's into Mecca for um, people with a lot of brains and successful people. so it's a great place to be. A lot of Traders there? Yes, really? yeah a lot of Traders I think there's 9 000 hedge funds are registered in uh Grand Cayman but I also wanted to do my get my ski bum years in and I hadn't. Um I came out here when I was 16 years old and I always wanted to come back and spend a couple years and we spent our summers here since the kids were two and we wanted to come back up here and so I put my kids in for high school in Whistler for grade 10, 11, 12 and to live the Whistler lifestyle with life and to ski and to do all the summer stuff and the Boating and and hiking and all that sort of thing.

and I got him a 100 day skiing. My first year was phenomenal. Yeah, it couldn't be better. Amazing! Yeah with certain I think is the best place on Earth So yep.

two twin daughters. Yep, Oh and they've been watching your trade since How old. Uh, since they were about 10 11, 12 years old? Okay, yeah, do you think you're teaching them how to trade? Absolutely 100 I did it starting when they were younger on purpose to get them used to charts and graphs and uh, the markets and everything. We talk a lot about the markets all the time.

Oh, so you're a proponent of having kids start early, learning about trading and learn to make their own money? Yeah, make money, make more money and learn something that's going to get them way ahead a lot faster than a lot of kids getting out of University and after four years or going to a regular job with regular money if they do this and Advance themselves and learn a phenomenal vocation which trading is, they can come out making lawyer money, doctor money right out of University if they take the time. If not, and they make it their profession, they can learn for a couple years and it's sort of like they say like on Wall Street when you get a Goldman Sachs type of education you can do it from your home now. and I think it's a fantastic for young young, fantastic thing for young people to do and an amazing profession to to learn. Oh I guess if they're a lot younger, well they're 21 now so it's okay.

but if they were younger, they need like a custodial account right? Yeah, I believe. So like before 19 or something like that, you have to have a custodial account, you can let them mess around and they can do practice accounts as well. Okay, yeah and one of them you know my one daughter. She's uh, doing her MBA online and um, and She's trading part-time as well on the side and when she has the time and the other one is finishing up her last year university and I fully expect them to become Master Traders Oh wow, absolutely.

So at the age of 21, they're probably better Traders than a lot of it's smarter than me, faster than me. Yeah, all that stuff. Oh wow. I wish I started younger too.

Same here and over the last 20 30 years are you being involved with trading? Have you ever thought about giving up? Well, have you ever thought about quitting? Like maybe after a bad drawdown? I've had some doozy of drawdowns, some dues he's like good enough that I would say that would make many, many many people just puke. Um, it's part of the game. Yeah, you make a lot you you have much higher risk. Yes, yeah um yes and no.

If you take big chances you you can. Yeah, if you don't cut your losses quickly, yeah um have I thought of it I was really Intent no not a quitter. No, it was really intent. never I never like took a break.

oh absolutely take breaks. Yeah so usually what I do is I I would work for a couple years okay or for two three years and take some time off and then I'd work and put in a good two two three years again and take some time off and build up experience. build up a new portfolio, information, meet with different people, increase my knowledge and move around and learn different things. Okay, yeah, what's the longest break you ever been on from Trading Uh, several years? So I look at it as taking sabbaticals and sabbatical is just a fancy word for taking a break to recharge and everything.

I think yeah, for me, it works and for me, it's important and then getting back into it with renewed invigoration and that sort of thing. But yeah, I've done that. Yeah, absolutely yeah. but you're still trading.

Yeah. Do you think you will retire anytime soon, trading or from and from other business? I think right now. I'm I'm I'm been on a sabbatical now for a couple years and I've been helping my kids to build their businesses and then one night like I said, it's got that one uh Channel where she's helping educate girls to trade and the other one together. They also have a an apparel business just for Traders and actually brought you a present from them and it's called called not Now I'm trading not now I'm trading so it's not now Perfect.

Not now on trading.com and you can go and buy T-shirts hats. so if everybody has if they have a Trader in their life and and they sit there and go like not now I'm trading I'm back front. all this sort of things on both sides. Yeah, no one disturbs me.

Yes, absolutely like mine's on my backs and then just don't leave me alone. Um, and uh. so I'm helping them mostly. So I've been on sabbatical for a while.

but I oversee trading every day oversee their trading. Yeah, and there's phenomenal ways for new traders to to get involved in the business now in the business or get involved as a Trader Now there's all these different things where they can practice Trading with real real time, fake money, but real time real data. It's phenomenal. These different companies that are out there to do that.

so it's I don't think there's ever been a better place than a better time than now. So on that topic, do you have any tips for let's say new? Traders Well traders who are interested in getting the Quan's Trading in the Quant trading I would before I did that I would probably I would let you have to learn the fundamentals. Like anything, you've got to learn the fundamentals. So I would tell them.

learn the fundamentals of trading first, learn the fundamentals of the markets, learn the fundamentals of technicals, learn the fundamentals of fundamentals as well. So do it as if you're starting in while you're starting from scratch. And if you're a new Trader learn what works. You have to learn systems at work.

and then a lot of people say well develop a system that works for you. There's hundreds and thousands of different Traders I'm not sure how valid that comment is, but um, there's different strategies that work, so learn the terms in terminology. Be a professional about it. Take everything very seriously.

You're dealing with money. There's a huge upside to being really good at this and it can change your life. So be a pro once again. I Said earlier, be a pro.

You know you the better you get at this, the better you're going to do understand different softwares, understand how to enter and execute trades now when you start getting from there. if you want to have want to learn more about Quant Trading just read up on it. Um I Once again, it's not as difficult as people say. It's an if then statement using numbers or words or instructions and then putting that into a computer and have the computer run it automated.

There's all kinds of things that we use automation for and it's just using that. As long as your information in is good, there's a chance that you're going to be be okay at it and survive. and then if you're really good at it, you can make some money doing it and have a have an exceptional career. Thank you for all the tips today! Dean Oh my pleasure how can um how can audience find you on social media? Um I don't do too much on social media the the stuff that is more so on social media is my my kids stuff that not now in trading if they want to buy a t-shirt or something or a playbook for trading Instagram things trade Dot from dot anywhere okay um because he literally traded from everywhere and pretty much it's not a lot about trading I've got a few like maybe one or two different things but um sometimes people get in touch with me and ask questions and then through there.

but um okay that's about it and then um from time to time I'll I'll make some of the things that I have available I have a site called My Private Trader.com and that discusses some of the Quant things that I do oh and um and can make some of the people my kids are running that now. so I think they lease some of the strategies that I've made in the past as well. Thank you very much Dean thanks for having me I really appreciate it. Very exciting, very exciting! Oh my God that was so good I finally understood what constraining is.

Thank you guys so much for joining my conversation today with Dean Hopefully you learned a lot about Quants Trading AI trading like I had I felt so stupid going to this conversation and I would say like Dean really taught me a lot today so thank you so much Dean Hopefully you guys also learned a lot. If you want to check out all of our other podcast episodes, you can check out this playlist over here and remember to subscribe to see more in the future. Thank you guys so much for watching As always I'm the humble Trader and this is Dean and we'll see you guys next time. Thanks Foreign.