Get Our Research Sent Directly To Your Inbox
There are manageable and scalable trading ideas everywhere. But spotting the real edge can be a challenge. Join our intensive 6 week program (that really lasts 12 months) to go from average trade to professional trader and have a plan for life.
I’ve done a lot of things in my life, but there’s one that has consumed me the entire time.
Trading.
When I got out of the US Marine Corps in 1999 I knew I wanted to do one thing. That was trading. I didn’t know how to go about it, so I tried to work at a brokerage firm as a broker.
Turns out being a broker meant I had to make 200 calls a day asking people to invest in the big idea and I’d be the guy to help them.
Even if I did get people to join, I wouldn’t be trading. I would be a salesperson representing a big named Wall Street firm.
Now remember this was 1999, we didn’t have access to YouTube. The Internet was still fairly new, many people didn’t even have a computer, there was no iPhone.
So I kept at it trying to figure out how I was going to become a trader.
At a networking event, I met a fellow Marine who was the CEO of proprietary trading firm, and realized that this was the opportunity I was looking for.
I was 26. I had no college degree. Which was a requirement.
But I was scrappy. Resourceful. I was going to make this work.
I asked him what the hardest part about running his business was.
He told me, in a firm like his everyone there has great ideas for the business, but no one wants to do the actual work.
That was all I needed…
“So you need someone who will do exactly as you say, without questioning it, and will work their ass off no matter how annoying, boring or challenging the project is?”
As a former Marine infantryman, I was uniquely qualified to do everything I was told to do, without questioning it, spending days without sleep, in horrible conditions to get the job done.
I didn’t even have to say it, he said “Be at this office address tomorrow morning at 5am.” (he actually said zero five hundred)
He handed me his card and that was when it all began.
Our deal was. I would do all the work he needed done. He would teach me everything I needed to know about trading.
The first, and most important thing that he taught me was how to build a trading system.
He taught me how to present my system to him for review, to include a full trading plan, business model, and tracking system.
When he was satisfied he gave me a demo account to trade the system on.
I was lucky, for a bunch of reasons. But the biggest was that he taught me how to build a trading business.
He didn’t teach me about indicators, or how to interpret news or other tactics. I learned a systematic way to know what doesn’t work, and what does.
Without a doubt, luck was involved in my success. But that early research I did early on, it played a huge role in my success.
And for the last 24 years I’ve refined the process. I’ve traded at prop firms, a hedge fund, ran a hedge fund and now my own trading business.
I never knew how best to pass this stuff on, until November 2022 I ran the first cohort of the Trading Thunderdome.
The Trading Thunderdome is where I show you, and work with you my systematic way for building trading systems, building your trading business so you can it scale up to what ever level you decide.
The goal? Build a long term successful trading business.
I am looking to work with traders who have experience, who’ve been in the game for a while.
I’m looking to work with traders who’ve had success but are struggling with consistency.
I’m looking to work with traders who are sufficiently capitalized and want to take their trading to the next level.
I’m looking to work with traders who know that there are holes in their trading, that despite getting it right sometimes, they are missing consistency.
I’m looking to work with professionals.
To be clear, this isn’t for everyone…
If you’ve never traded before, this isn’t for you, yet.
If you cannot pay for this without going in to debt, this isn’t for you, yet.
If you question whether you’ll be able to pay rent next month because you’re spending next months rent, this isn’t for you, yet.
The Thunderdome isn’t a place that you can just pay a chunk of money to, in order to get all the knowledge you need to be a successful trader.
But if you are looking for that next level, looking to tighten it up, looking to take your trading to a level that you know you can achieve then try the Thunderdome.
You can’t get somewhere unless you know where you want to go. We need something to reverse engineer.
We need to know what constraints we have (time, compliance, budget) so that we can figure out how to work with them or make a plan to remove them.
And most importantly we’ll be building (backtesting), your systems.
You’ll have access to everything before we begin (and forever):
This part will change your trading, but it’s really about changing your life.
Mindset. Having the right mindset, knowing how to deconstruct problems, organize the chaos, deal with issues, and play the game you want to play.
Creating your six month plan. From the work we did in week 1, we’ll reverse engineer long term plans in to shorter pans, and build a system to track them.
Risk Management: planning for the unknown, preparing for mistakes and building a framework for adapting and recovering or adjusting.
Tracking and monitoring. Breaking down our big goals to smaller goals and habits, we build a dashboard (the Trade Operating System) to monitor progress, identify whats working, what isn’t and know the health of our trading business (and ourself) all in one location.
Financial Plan. Putting all of our plans, goals, habits together in to a live operating P&L to run our trading business from. This is where it all clicks!
Trading Plan. Taking our system, our goals, our mindset, our constraints, our risk management, our monitoring and our financial plan and putting it all together in to our business plan aka Trading Plan. (Don’t worry, it won’t be 52 pages, single space #6 font document that you have to update every few hours).
Dialing the process down in to a systematized approach to go from trading idea, validation, planning, implementation and follow through.
As your business grows, as you grow, as the markets change, this system will be the framework. When you are analyzing bringing in new systems, swapping old systems, or analyzing opportunities.
One on One session with me to discuss your trading business in depth, your plan, make adjustments and follow through in the future.
You’ll have lifetime access to the Trading Lab and a private slack channel for Thunderdome members forever. It’s a great way to collab with other traders who have gone through the process.
You’ll have access to every system and program we have.
You’ll get early access to any updates or NEW systems before anyone else gets them.
We’ll have follow up Thunderdome sessions that you’ll have access to as well as access to any new Thunderdome cohorts that go through.
Once you’re in, you’re in!
This course is self paced.
Each session there will be homework that’ll be needed to continue to work forward through the program.
We only want to work with traders who can financially afford the commitment, who have the proper skills to not hold other members back and are ready to move forward.
That doesn’t mean you won’t learn anything new, each session will be a teaching/coaching session. But you’ll need to know how to trade and have traded enough to not be left behind on basic market knowledge.
You can be an individual trader, work for a firm, family office, fund or a professional golfer (what?), as long as you have the knowledge…and of course the financial ability.
The Trading Thunderdome costs $6997 (for now).
The Thunderdome is a self paced intensive professional trader program. It is designed to be two sessions per week but you can go as fast (or slow) as you like. You’ll have access to everything forever.
In addition, you’ll receive…
And on top of that you get access to all the other Thunderdomes cohorts (if we do live cohorts again, whenever you need it!)
An Unparalleled Investment Research Community For Traders and Investors.
All content in this page, on our website, all emails, social media posts, comments on other websites or other material generated by Macro Ops is intended for general information and educational purposes only. NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. Click here for full disclaimer.
Brandon has been a professional investor focusing on value for over 13 years, spending his time in small to micro-cap companies, spin-offs, SPACs, and deep value liquidation situations. Over time, he’s developed a deeper understanding for what deep-value investing actually means, and refined his philosophy to include any business trading at a wild discount to what he thinks its worth in 3-5 years.
Brandon has a tenacious passion for investing, broad-based learning, and business. He previously worked for several leading investment firms before joining the team at Macro Ops. He lives by the famous Munger mantra of trying to get a little smarter each day.
AK is the founder of Macro Ops and the host of Fallible.
He started out in corporate economics for a Fortune 50 company before moving to a long/short equity investment firm.
With Macro Ops focused primarily on institutional clients, AK moved to servicing new investors just starting their journey. He takes the professional research and education produced at Macro Ops and breaks it down for beginners. The goal is to help clients find the best solution for their investing needs through effective education.
Former trade desk manager at $100+ million family office where he oversaw multiple traders and helped develop cutting edge quantitative strategies in the derivatives market.
He worked as a consultant to the family office’s in-house fund of funds in the areas of portfolio manager evaluation and capital allocation.
Certified in Quantitative Finance from the Fitch Learning Center in London, England where he studied under famous quants such as Paul Wilmott.
Founder and head macro trader at Macro Ops. Alex joined the US Marine Corps on his 18th birthday just one month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He subsequently spent a decade in the military. Serving in various capacities from scout sniper to interrogator and counterintelligence specialist. Following his military service, he worked as a contract intelligence professional for a number of US agencies (from the DIA to FBI) with a focus on counterintelligence and terrorist financing. He also spent time consulting for a tech company that specialized in building analytic software for finance and intelligence analysis.
After leaving the field of intelligence he went to work at a global macro hedge fund. He’s been professionally involved in markets since 2005, has consulted with a number of the leading names in the hedge fund space, and now manages his own family office while running Macro Ops. He’s published over 300 white papers on complex financial and macroeconomic topics, writes regularly about investment/market trends, and frequently speaks at conferences on trading and investing.
Macro Ops is a market research firm geared toward professional and experienced retail traders and investors. Macro Ops’ research has been featured in Forbes, Marketwatch, Business Insider, and Real Vision as well as a number of other leading publications.
You can find out more about Alex on his LinkedIn account here and also find him on Twitter where he frequently shares his market research.