An Interview with Dan Goldberg on Understanding Market Conditions and Trading in a Prop Firm
This interview conducted in February 2015 is with Daniel Goldberg. He is a partner and active trader at Futex, a London proprietary trading firm.
Straight out of college, Dan got his start as a bookrunner on the exchange floor back in 1995. His journey led him to becoming a pit trader as well as the transition to electronic markets. He currently spearheads training new traders to his firm. They primarily focus on two markets which is Bunds and Euro Stoxx.
Dan is very knowledge about prop trading, and it shows during this interview. Some of the topics that are covered include how Dan looks for trading opportunities and the types of tools he uses, like market profile and price ladders. He also goes into how macro events can have significant impacts on his trading decisions.
Some of the topics we covered during our discussion; how Dan seeks out trading opportunities and uses tools such as the price ladder and market profile. And how macro events effect have a significant impact on his trade decisions.
Dan also has some insightful points to make about the topic risk. So you definitely don’t want to miss this interview
What’s covered in this interview:
- How Dan came to base his decisions off of gut instinct and the challenges that came with it
- His start as a bookrunner and later trading in the pit
- The techniques Dan uses to analyze the market for trade opportunities
- The big picture value in understanding correlations between different markets
- Dan’s opinion on whether prop trading and risk tolerance can be taught, or it’s pre-programmed into one’s personality
- Tools Dan uses to help provide context about price actions and confirmation of trade ideas
- “Free” money available during the transition to electronic trading
- How Dan’s trading performance improved
The “free money” that was available in the transition to electronic trading, and what lead to an improvement in Dan’s trading performance. - Why Dan trains new traders for 12 weeks, and how much time he anticipates before traders achieve consistency
- Advice for traders who feel stuck and the success rate of prop traders versus the retail sector
Links and Resources:
- FutexLive.com – Learn more about Dan, his company Futex and resources he has available for aspiring traders
- Futex.co.uk – Futex’s official website
- @DMG_FutexLive – Follow Dan on Twitter
