I think the backstory of a new platform is one of the most important posts on a website, especially one where I am trying to build trust and create the impression that I know something about the subjects of trading, investing, economics, and a bunch of other related and sometimes totally unrelated topics.
I have a passion for making a difference. I don’t want to just do something many others are doing. I want to add value by leveraging my creativity, my insatiable appetite for knowledge, my unrelenting pursuit of truth, my tireless energy for working in financial markets, and finally using my knowledge and experience to help those who come on the journey to focus on what is relevant and ignore the countless distractions that come with random noise.
The journey we will embark on together is really the Hero’s Journey. We will encounter the three main phases of the journey, but what a journey it promises to be!
- Departure: the hero leaves his home community to go on a quest.
- Initiation: the hero faces trials and tribulations until he achieves victory on his quest.
- Return: the hero goes home to his community with gifts and benefits to share.
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Who is Michael Berman?
I am a South African-born 53-year-old guy living in Sydney, Australia. I have been married to the same special woman for more than 28 years, and we have a girl and a boy ages 25 and 22. We are blessed on so many levels, but we have also had more than our fair share of trials and tribulations. Life is complex and not for the faint-hearted.
I started trading the stock market when I was 13. My father was a successful businessman, but my stay-at-home mum was the one who introduced me to the markets. With my little nest egg from my bar mitzvah (the ceremony marking a Jewish boy as a man), I bought my first shares in a manganese mine based on a tip from my mum. It proved successful, and I was hooked.
From an early age, I was obsessed with the news. I read the newspaper cover to cover every day from the age of 10 and still do today. The only difference is that I now read The Australian, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, a huge Twitter feed, and a bunch of other curated news sources as part of my morning ritual. I do this at Bondi Beach at one of my favourite local cafes’. I love immersing myself amongst the locals, where I pick up the vibe of what is going on in the lives of a diverse cross-section of society.
My day starts reasonably early; I am usually up before 6:00 a.m. I go through the most important messages on my phone and then pray, and I usually start working by 7:30 a.m. I typically work until 10:00 p.m. (with some breaks along the way) and then watch an episode of a TV series on Netflix before calling it a day. I am pretty disciplined; I stop at one episode. I also set aside time every day to study things that interest me outside of the markets.
If you are still reading this, I am impressed. I was afraid I had bored you to tears.
I was an average student at school. I was naughty, unmotivated, and much more interested in mischief, sports, and girls. At university, this changed. I became engaged in the subjects I was studying and became a much better student. I focused on economics, eventually getting to the level of a Ph.D. in economics with a focus on behavioural finance. I did, however, remain interested in sports and girls.
Michael’s Work Experience
- In 1996, I was the founder of the first online grocery business on the African continent.
- I worked for a number of major institutional property companies in development and asset management.
- I was a director of a public company in my late 20’s and was involved in pioneering a number of innovative structured and corporate finance initiatives with a commercial property focus.
- In 2001, I was part of the early pioneers, being among only 5 long/short REIT hedge funds in the world.
- In 2012, I co-founded and was CEO of one of the world’s first online emerging manager/trader incubation platforms, RAPA. We innovated in that we developed a proprietary algorithm that scored the traders ability, and we allocated capital (more than $50 million) to about 10–15 traders based on our scoring algorithm. This business was later acquired.
- In 2016, I co-founded and became CEO of PsyQuation, the world’s first robo-trading coach. PsyQuation was an analytics platform that had a proprietary skill scoring algorithm, which we trained on more than 50,000 trading accounts. We also ran a successful incubation platform for traders on the back of PsyQuation Analytics, incubating more than 150 traders. PsyQuation was acquired by a large broker in 2018.
- In 2021, I co-founded two businesses. Ditto Trade and True Alpha Ventures.
- Ditto Trade was a CFD broker, with its main focus being an innovative approach to copy trading (managed accounts). The business was acquired by FXTrading.com in 2022, and I became the CEO of FXTrading.com for a year before I fell out with the shareholders of the business.
- True Alpha Ventures is a high-frequency market-making business focused on the crypto futures market. True Alpha is currently in final negotiations to be acquired by a large crypto firm. I will continue to consult with the new owners, where I maintain a financial interest in its market-making operations success.
Michael’s Philosophy
I have been writing a daily journal for more than 30 years. Not to say that I write every day, but the intention is to write every day. A psychologist suggested this to me when I was around 20 years old, based on centuries of research: that writing is a good way to organise one’s thoughts and emotions. I have found this to be an amazing therapy with so many benefits.
I have also been a big believer in psychoanalysis. I have spent more than 30 years in therapy and hope to spend another 30 if I am blessed with the opportunity. For me, therapy is a committed way towards becoming the best version of myself. I see no stigma in saying this; I see strength in owning up to one’s weaknesses and not being afraid to show vulnerability. To use some Freudian language, walking around with a permanent erection is simply not healthy. I will leave the analogy at that. I also subscribe to the Stoic philosophy of focusing on becoming the best version of myself. A lot of its teachings manifest in my approach to life.
I have always had bosses or shareholders in my businesses, which has somewhat halted me from being as open as I would like to be when I communicate with our customer base. Many will say I have no filter, which is true to some extent. I also know that there is some wisdom in the advice, “fake it until you make it.”. However, I am allergic to this notion of making out as if I am an expert in an area that I have not fully grasped. I actually cringe when I use those words, “fully grasped.”. I don’t think we ever really fully grasp. The more we know, the more we realise how little we know. Of course, this doesn’t take away from the fact that I might be a complete idiot in an area and have successfully fooled myself into believing I know something about it.
With all the above said, I believe most of the news and price action in the financial markets is random noise. I know enough to know that forecasting with any high degree of certainty is a fool’s errand. I want Signal 2 Noise—News to be a platform where we seek out informative signals from the vast sea of noise. To do this successfully, one has to always be questioning and intellectually honest.
I welcome those brave souls out there wanting to embark on an exciting quest for financial and personal success to join me on a hero’s journey and together see how far we can go.
Warm wishes.
Mike