054 - Kieran Duff - Trading for a Living

So, yeah, look, obviously that frames a discussion.

You know, we've chatted a couple of times.

You obviously know Martin Tinsley well.

I just had a great pod with him, talked to him a lot about all the interesting things that he's doing and building and the way he trades.

You both trade on DarwinX, so I'm definitely keen to chat about that because commercializing trading, I chatted to Martin briefly about this on the show, you know, is something that I think all traders could be thinking about.

So keen to get into that.

But of course, Being the show that it is, I have to talk to you about your trading and what you do on there and how you do it.

So you found systematic trading.

What were the first steps out of the gate once you got involved?

So it actually come at a really interesting time for me.

I was trading kind of an assessment for a prop desk as a discretionary trader.

So I had a risk manager.

I had more experienced traders around me.

And it was fantastic because I just lapped up the experience and the knowledge from these guys, which I will, again, forever be grateful for.

But when I was in that environment, I...

I kind of felt like something wasn't clicking.

I'd had the processes that I'd had for seven years, and then all of a sudden I have this guy who's managed funds down in London telling me that a lot of what I'm doing is not wrong per se, but needs adjusting.

And so I was a little bit kind of on the ropes with how I was trading anyway.

So it was a bit of a reality check.

And actually, funnily enough, it came from me recording a podcast and being the host.

And I recorded two podcasts on the same week.

And actually...

Today, they are both my team members at DarwinX.

Both of the guys I interviewed, I ended up hiring, and now they work in the growth team with me, which is just fantastic.

They're both amazing people.