A Passion for Trading

A Passion for Trading – Nick Radge learnt a valuable (and expensive) lesson during the stock market crash of 1987. It knocked him out of the game for a while.

What led you back into the markets?

After 1987 I gradually started working my way into the business; I moved from the back office to the trading floor of the Sydney Futures Exchange. Down there were many different kinds of traders. You had the scalpers and the day traders, and then you also had a lot of institutional traders – bank traders coming in mainly putting hedges on, and that kind of stuff. And then you also had the big funds.

The late 80s and early 90s was the early days for the hedge fund industry, or the CTA (Commodity Trading Advisor) industry as it was back then. We used to see their business come into the pit, and I was quite intrigued because they were 100% systematic in what they were doing, and I’d never been exposed to that before. And that really interested me because they were obviously running computer models, and that’s where I started doing a lot more work, and a lot more research.

We had a gentleman, Gordon Manning, in our office who had a computer that you were able to back test on. I remember going in after work each day, and sitting in this room, and plugging stuff into the computer. Back then you’d push the button, and close the door, and have to come back in the morning, sort out all the paper because it would just spit out paper, and then go through all the back test results.

So it was the combination of seeing these big systematic trend followers come into the market, and what they were doing, and also having access in the office to a computer that you could do some back testing with, and that’s how I got involved again.

Were you self-taught?

Yes, absolutely, 100% self-taught. I have no formal qualifications. I didn’t go to university. I’ve never done any kind of technical analysis courses or any trading courses, or anything like that. I am 100% self-taught. It’s all from being involved in the business both personally and professionally, and with a passion. I think that’s the key difference right there. I think you’ve got to have the passion because if you have the passion for something you will find a way to make it work.