The Purely Systematic Wizard Trader · Marsten Parker

Published 2024-05-21
EP 281 | The Purely Systematic Wizard Trader | Marsten Parker

Starting in classical violin and computer programming, Marsten Parker's path took a transformative turn when he ventured into trading. Despite a rocky start, his disciplined, algorithm-driven approach led to consistent returns, earning him recognition in Jack Schwager's book, "Unknown Market Wizards". We get to learn about his transition from discretionary trading to systematic trading, emphasizing the importance of statistical analysis over emotional decision-making. Marsten used his programming skills to create fully automated trading systems to take advantage of breakouts, mean reversion, IPO opportunities, and other strategies.

About Marsten Parker:
Marsten has been a full-time individual systematic trader for over 20 years. He is featured in Jack Schwager's book, Unknown Market Wizards.
Marsten is also the designer and developer of RealTest, a multi-strategy portfolio-level backtesting software. He has continued to evolve RealTest over the years as his primary tool for researching trading strategies.

Disclaimer:
Trading in the financial markets involves a risk of loss. Podcast episodes and other content produced by Chat With Traders are for informational or educational purposes only and do not constitute trading or investment recommendations or advice.

Time Stamps
Please note: Exact times will vary depending on current ads.

0:00 Introduction and Background
7:55 Early trades and market exposure
10:22 Targeted annual goals
12:45 Marsten hates trading
16:30 Early algo trading
20:09 Long short Algo strategies
25:25 Statistical sweet spot of trades
31:30 Changing strategies due to a new market
36:12 Mean reversion strategy issues
42:00 Avoiding the Meme stocks
49:11 How to avoid curve fitting
56:00 Why don’t more traders go systematic?
58:43 How to reach Marsten

Links & Resources
X (Twitter): @mars10p
Website: mhptrading.com/

#systematictrading #backtesttrading #stocktrading

All Comments (14)
  • Love Chat with traders I miss you!!! Please keep in touch ❤❤❤❤❤
  • @u2b83
    Real treat to get a Schwagger Market Wizard!
  • @u2b83
    RIP Jim Simons. Pity we never got a CWT interview, that could have been pretty cool. I've heard his method was essentially arbitrage of mean-reversion of groups of statistically correlated and anti-correlated financial instruments.
  • @u2b83
    What we need is a back-testable system that switches/cycles-through multiple strategies when one is failing. Say, switching from trend-following to range-trading/mean-reversion. But in a statistically sensitive way, before obvious large loss stop-outs.
  • @user-dv5gm2gc3u
    Tnx for this one. As a programmer myself, i recognise a lot what marsten is saying, just not the profits 😅 Gave me some ideas to check out!
  • @jonthomas1438
    Great interview, so many great nuggets of useful information.
  • @carlossouza5151
    What’s the name of the community he mentioned he is a part of?
  • @q-q-qiah
    He is pretty much an algo trader