Interview with Mark Gardner - Chat With Traders Episode 132

With me on today’s episode of Chat With Traders is Mark Gardner. He worked in the field straight out of high school, at 17 years old. He started out doing back office duties before working on the floor of the Sydney Futures Exchange, or SFE. Afterwards, he was hired to work for a huge Bank Bills trader to exclusively execute trades, which he learned a great deal from.

In 2005, he then began trading by himself. In the following 10 years Mark has only two losing months. He’s actually never encountered a losing year to date, except 2015. That year, he suffered a substantial blow which led to him losing many months worth of gains within a few hours. Don’t worry, you’ll hear more about that story in this episode.

Currently Mark is the chairman and partner of Genesis Trading, one of the biggest prop firms in Australia. He’s also working on a new venture into quantitative trading called 42Trading. It’s run by himself and few others. Let’s not forget that he is also the President of the Australian Securities Traders Association.

During the interview we talk about Mark’s insane work ethic (seriously, I have no idea how he does it). We also learn about the lessons from his past as well as why he sees a future in quantitative trading, and much more.

What’s Covered in This Interview:

What Mark’s insane work ethic is really like as well as his ability to be able to trade on autopilot.
Mark’s simple three strike system he uses to keep consistently high standards.
How traders can avoid trading in a reactive mindset by creating rules in a neutral mindset and why you need to work harder when things are going well.
Mark talks about how he developed a God complex after consistently making gains with only 2-3 months of losing, and how that caused him to take a significant hit in March 2015.
Mark explains why he likes quantitative trading, his edge in short-term interest rates and how he’s noticed it’s become more slimmer.