Shows
Off The ChartsJeff Macke Is On Target With RetailStrap in. When Jeff Macke is driving the conversation, you need to pay attention. The wisdom, wit, and one-liners fly by fast.
While other seven-year-olds spent their weekends playing with Lincoln Logs and Wiffle Ball, Jeff was riding around town in a station wagon with his dad, visiting Target stores. He wasn’t just tagging along—he was analyzing end-caps, product presentations, and the cleanliness of the floors and staff.
As the son of a future Target CEO, he learned early that “a dirty store is an F-you to the customer.” And with that, a future retail stocks analyst was born.
To...
2025-02-141h 04Off The ChartsIT DOES NOT SUCK TO BE TOM BASSOWe talk to a lot of traders. Not just on this podcast, but across everything we do. And one thing that is common to most of them is some level of stress which must be routinely navigated. And it’s often a real struggle. Many of them are emotionally damaged and scarred by it.
In fact, many of our conversations get into discussions about how to best navigate ourselves out of these negative spirals.
This is not the case with Tom Basso.
In fact, if Tom didn’t tell you that he makes his money from trading and managing other peop...
2024-12-201h 03Off The ChartsAnthony Crudele: WITHSTAND THE STORM“I don’t need to kill it right now, I just need to make sure I’m around for the next cycle that is favorable to my style of trading.”
According to Anthony Crudele, most traders who struggle do so because they are too short-sighted. He believes most successful traders think longer term—not about time frames but about how each individual trade, day, or week fits into the bigger picture of what the trader is looking to accomplish.
Meanwhile, outside distractions can be too much to overcome if we don’t have our “houses” in order. “A lot of my success comes w...
2024-12-121h 01Off The ChartsDavid Hale: Cash RulesFrom an early age, David Hale had hustle in his DNA. At just 10 years old, he was sneaking into casinos to play slot machines. By 11, he was betting on horse races. And before long, he was hunting for arbitrage opportunities in baseball card values. Inspired by his bargain-hunting mother, David developed a “value-player” mindset that would eventually spark a deep fascination with trading the markets.
Born in England to an American mother, David’s journey took a pivotal turn when his family moved back to Texas during his teenage years. It was there that he cut his teeth in high-velocity day tr...
2024-12-051h 03Off The ChartsDenise Shull: Minimizing Our Most Powerful Emotion — RegretIt’s hard to believe Denise Shull is a product of parents and grandparents who believed in “buy and hold” and wouldn’t even know how to sell a share of stock if asked to.
Today, Denise is well known as a Performance Coach to big Wall Street traders, specializing in modern psychoanalysis.
Before this, she traded in Chicago and ran a proprietary trading desk in New York City. All of which became fodder to help her publish a book on her expertise — for which she went to school. Later, her book caught the attention of Hollywood in the crafting of stories...
2024-11-2257 minOff The ChartsSteven Place: Finding ConvexitySteven Place has been around the block. He’s been through the ringer. And he has the scars to prove it.
A former Rocket Scientist, Steven is a self-taught options trader who’s been plying his craft for nearly two decades.
He has spent a lot of time studying options analytics and “hacking” execution strategies to create better outcomes for himself. And one big thing he’s learned over the years is: “If you’re going to be stressed anyway, doing the same amount of work, why not shoot for the fences once in a while? You’ve got to find some convex...
2024-11-151h 11Off The ChartsJason Leavitt: Learning How to Grind“I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
There’s a profound simplicity that can only be reached by working through complexity. It means that deep understanding is often simple, but achieving it requires grappling with and overcoming complexity.
Jason Leavitt believes this wholeheartedly. And this was his path.
When he first got involved in trading, everything seemed simple: buy low, sell high, make money.
But as he dug into it, his research and experience led him do...
2024-11-011h 02Off The ChartsAndrew Moss is Open to New PerspectivesReinventing your career after 20 years is no small feat. Now, imagine trying to do that by becoming an active trader. That’s exactly what Andrew Moss is doing—but he isn’t going in blind.
Andrew’s fascination with the markets began as a teenager when his father introduced him to point-and-figure charts. From there, he pursued a career in brokerage and wealth management at a major Wall Street firm, gaining deep insight into the industry.
“We all have to follow our own path,” Andrew reflects.
Blazing his own trail, however, hasn’t been without its challenges. Transitioning from nearly two decades of...
2024-10-1858 min
Off The ChartsMatt Kenah is Building Positive Momentum Every DayIf we only learn one thing from Matt Kenah, I hope it would be this: “The only goal we should have every day is to live to fight another one.”
Matt has lived this ethos and he has been repeatedly put to the test. And passed.
Starting out on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange trading floor as a runner just out of high school, Matt quickly rose the ranks to Arb Clerk and was earning great money as a young man in his early twenties.
But there was a growing discomfort within him that questioned what value he was bringing to the...
2024-10-111h 02Off The ChartsAndrew Menaker: Negotiating Bank Robberies and Market HaulsTo say Andrew Menaker took an unusual path to Wall Street would be a severe understatement.
While negotiating with an armed bank robber to de-escalate the situation and ensure the safety of customers and bank employees, he had to let Wells Fargo know he wouldn’t be making it to his first interview that day and, therefore, would have to pass on an opportunity to work with the firm.
Nevertheless, the circumstances of his armed conflict made the local news and caught favorable attention of the necessary people at Wells Fargo and he was quickly hired anyway to work with pe...
2024-10-0455 minOff The ChartsDavid Lundgren: Going Until the Wind ChangesAmong the many things that stood out during our conversation with David Lundgren, it was this quote: “I want to find a way to listen, and learn, and get a little bit better every day.”
This is a mindset that every trader, every human, can benefit from.
In his early days, David described himself as a “systematic researcher.” This process of discovery held sway for him, and when striking out on his own, he employed the same systematic philosophy to portfolio management and trend-following trading.
David firmly believes that “the best teacher I have ever had is the Market itself,” and “the onl...
2024-09-061h 11Off The ChartsTRADING THE NEWS with Milton MarmanidesMilton Marmanides does the hard work that traders don’t have the time to do. He sifts through the firehose of headlines, news releases, data points, and social media to cut through the noise and deliver only the market-moving information active traders need to make smarter decisions.
And in his nearly 25 years in the business, first as a trader, and now as a market data provider, he’s seen a lot.
From his seat, he’s seen how traders overreact to insignificant news items and how that can be detrimental to their performance. He’s also seen how getting timely and accu...
2024-08-231h 11Off The ChartsLessons From a Volatile Two WeeksThey are only losses if we don’t learn something from the experience.
When traders woke up on Monday, August 5th to the VIX at 65 and the Nasdaq index down 5% overnight, they didn’t need a cup of coffee to snap into high alert.
The easy first question to ask was: “What happened?”
Many ideas were tossed around in the media and on the socials that morning, but nobody seemed to pinpoint the real cause. The narrative eventually coalesced around the gradual, then sudden unwind of the popular Yen Carry trade; but to many of us, that didn’t quite sound like...
2024-08-1635 minOff The ChartsANNE-MARIE BAIYND HAS THE FEVERIf there’s one thing Anne-Marie Baiynd learned after making the transition from a business owner to a trader, it’s that she’s no longer in charge.
The market, unlike her employees, doesn’t do what she asks it to do.
She needed to learn to give up control. And it wasn’t easy.
In fact, it was so hard that she almost lost all of the hard-earned money she had salted away from years of successfully running her business. To say this would be stressful for a family and a marriage would be an understatement.
But from the fire, Anne...
2024-07-261h 01Off The ChartsFor Nik Lentz, Being Scared is Not an OptionIt wasn’t until Nik’s father suggested he get involved in High School Wrestling that he began to learn what drives him: Discipline, Regimen, and Humility.
For the first time in his life, wrestling gave Nik recognition. He liked it and knew the only way to maintain it was to go all-in.
From high school and into college at the University of Minnesota, wrestling taught Nik how to become the man who would soon enter the ring of Mixed Martial Arts and the UFC tour circuit.
And through it all, being scared was never an option. “I was fighting for su...
2024-07-231h 04Off The ChartsMichael Nauss is Our Kind of GeekWhen Michael Nauss first sat down at a trading desk, his computer had a keyboard and a screen. But no mouse.
And his screen displayed an order book. But no charts.
Thus began his career as a scalper working the order book, who paid no attention at all to trends or technical analysis. He was simply trying to find spots to buy ahead of large buyers and flip the position out for a quick couple of ticks. Do this a couple hundred times per trading session and perhaps he’d have a successful day.
This was all part of Michael’s jo...
2024-07-121h 09Off The ChartsChasing Waves With Ian CulleyWhen you are chasing a wave, you can’t be anywhere else. You have to be present.
Similarly, you can’t be anywhere else when you are chasing trends. You have to be present.
Ian has worked hard to create the right mental and physical environments to increase his odds of presence. The places he’s lived would surely inspire envy in anyone who cherishes beautiful natural surroundings and ocean breezes: San Francisco, Hawaii, and the underrated Gulf Coast of Florida.
Ian said it best when we said: “Find what brings you joy, then do it!”
When he was introduced to a book...
2024-07-0652 minOff The ChartsMichael Martin: A Tribal Inner GameMichael Martin: A Tribal Inner Game by Sean McLaughlin & Steve Strazza
2024-06-281h 07Off The ChartsTodd Gordon is Hyper FocusedFrom the Slopes to the Screens: Todd Gordon is hyper-focused.
Flying down a mountainside on two skis while negotiating tight turns and ever-changing microclimates would be a terrible time to lose focus.
Todd Gordon knows this. If he hadn’t quickly learned this skill in his journey to competitive ski racing, he would’ve likely landed himself onto a stretcher and an air-lift back to base.
There was no other choice.
But for Todd, he’d have it no other way. From a young age, when he found an interest in something – whether skiing or finance – he’d go all in. Nothing...
2024-06-211h 00Off The ChartsCaleb Franzen Can Figure It OutCaleb Franzen Can Figure It Out by Sean McLaughlin & Steve Strazza
2024-06-1443 minOff The ChartsJason Shapiro Should've Been a LawyerAs a Trader with zero to negative correlation to traditional assets, managing money on behalf of institutional investors is exactly where Jason Shapiro is supposed to be.
But if you were to ask him, he’d tell you he probably should’ve been a lawyer. And anyone else who comes to him asking about how to break into the world of full-time trading will likely get admonished with: “Go to Law School instead. Become a lawyer, then trade on the side with the money you make.”
Why would a highly successful trader say this?
Because Jason agrees with us that trading...
2024-06-0758 minOff The ChartsLearning is Jason Perz' New DrugThis episode of Off The Charts may become one of the most important episodes we ever publish. Please give it a watch (or a listen).
Jason Perz has grown comfortable with risk.
His whole life has manifested risk in every form. From being an adopted child who was teased at school for being "different," to riding BMX bikes and performing "shows" and dangerous stunts professionally, to living with and battling through drug and alcohol addiction, to trading on behalf on investors -- very little in Jason's life did not entail some forms of risk. And much of it was life...
2024-05-3150 minOff The ChartsThe Road Led Jason Krutzky To The MarketWe've all been there.
Think about the time you first got interested in trading. It was exciting thinking about all the potential money we could make.
But then we were quickly overwhelmed with the reality of all the things we didn't know. Former aspiring traders never made it past this moment. The mountain they had to climb just looked too daunting.
When Jason Krutzky left the road after spending years touring with a rock band through North America and Europe, he decided he wanted to try his hand at full-time trading. "I was just throwing darts and hoping."
He found...
2024-05-2954 min
Off The ChartsBrian Lund Won't Tolerate Our BSIf there’s one thing Brian Lund learned about himself over the past 30 years in the markets, he must write. Without a doubt, without even thinking about it, he knows that to express himself and to complete his thoughts into productive trading, he needs to sit down and start writing.
And this makes sense. We hear this a lot from our smart friends.
Barry Ritholtz once wrote: “I write to find out what I’m thinking.”
In this conversation with Brian, we get into the importance of sleep hygiene and how it’s so important for us to be at our best...
2024-05-2956 minOff The ChartsBrian Shannon Gets What He DeservesIf there is one thing that stands out from any conversation with Brian Shannon about the trading process, it is this:
For discretionary traders, there are no rules. Instead, there are “guidelines.”
And because Brian is human, he occasionally breaks his guidelines and suffers the same consequences as anyone else. Everyone gets what they deserve. Even a trader of 30+ years like Brian Shannon.
If a trader buys the dip or sells the rip without a plan to control her risk then she, too, will get what she deserves. Eventually. The market is always on the hunt for our weaknesses.
This is o...
2024-05-2953 minOff The ChartsWho’s Having More Fun Than Kenny Glick?Nobody is having more fun than Kenny Glick.
He’s found the perfect outlet for combining his myriad passions of risk-taking, education, and entertainment to the benefit of anyone who gets caught in his orbit.
Kenny’s unorthodox path to Wall Street is proof.
In the early 1990s, Kenny was plying his craft as a fledgling standup comedian when he was spotted by a stockbroker who was impressed with his ability to “sling bullshit” onstage. The stockbroker offered him a job on the spot at his firm.
Turns out, the “firm” was a stereotypical Boiler Room that soured Kenny’s opinions of th...
2024-05-2950 minOff The ChartsJay Woods is the Most Popular Man on Wall Street.In the first episode of our new podcast interview series, Off the Charts, my co-host Steve Strazza and I interviewed one of our favorite people on Wall Street, Jay Woods.
But he’s not just our favorites, he is a favorite of many. I would argue he’s the most popular man on Wall Street!
One thing I’ve heard repeatedly over the years is some version of: “Have you gotten the Jay Woods tour of the New York Stock Exchange?” Gratefully, I can say I have. And the breadth and depth of Jay’s NYSE history is quite literally off the char...
2024-05-291h 01