Leveling the Futures Market Playing Field with Pete Mulmat

Episode Summary:

This special 100th episode of Limit Up! Is chock full of goodness. Ever wish you could trade on the futures market but didn’t have big enough contracts to make it work? Today’s guest on the Limit Up! Podcast, Pete Mulmat, talks about his new start up, The Small Exchange, which is democratizing the futures market for retail level traders. Tune in for Pete’s tips on making money in futures.

Full Show Notes:

It’s our 100th episode today and we’re going back to talking about what TopstepTrader does best: futures trading. The futures market is notoriously inaccessible to small scale traders. Today’s guest, Pete Mulmat, stopped in to talk about how his new start up, The Small Exchange, is looking to level the playing field of the future’s market.

With a simplified trading process and small product offering, The Small Exchange is empowering retail level traders the opportunity to make trades on futures that were previously only available to large companies able to front the risk. Pete discusses why the futures market is so lucrative and his best advice for making money in futures.

Pete and Jeff end by sharing hilarious stories from the trading floor, such as the time that Olympic silver medalist Bob Berland stopped a fight between Pete and another trader. 

• [00:38] – 100th episode of Limit Up!
• [02:52] – Economic calendar
• [06:56] – Sleeping in
• [08:18] – Jeff Carter Interviews Pete Mulmat, Chief Futures Strategist at Tastytrade and Executive Vice President at Small Exchange, Inc
  • [08:43] – The Small Exchange
  • [10:13] – Pete and Jeff’s history together at CME
  • [15:18] – How Pete trades today
  • [19:48] – First in first out
  • [21:57] – Never abandon the retail guy
  • [24:27] – Barrells, bushels, & bars
  • [27:42] – Dollar-wide ticks
  • [29:40] – Transparency of futures
  • [31:11] – Where am I getting out if I’m wrong?
  • [32:01] – New and proprietary products
  • [38:32] – Developing markets
  • [40:25] – Crude oil & onions
  • [42:30] – Disrupting the monopoly
  • [53:15] – Platform shoes
  • [54:54] – Keeping it when you make it
• [1:01:44] – Community Questions Interlude
• [1:10:27] – Jeff Carter Interviews Pete Mulmat
  • [1:10:27] – Funniest stories from the floor
  • [1:19:58] – Clairvoyant moments
  • [1:21:31] – Vegas
  • [1:24:54] – The Small Exchange Pre-launch Subscription Offer
• [1:27:50] – Ask a question at the TopstepTrader Community on Facebook
• [1:28:14] – TopStepTrader on Instagram

Pete Mulmat is the Executive Vice President of The Small Exchange, a new exchange that democratizes the future markets and makes it accessible to small scale traders. Pete began trading in the 80s and has been an industry leader in bringing trades to the digital age.

This episode of Limit Up! is hosted by Jeff Carter. Jeff is a general partner at West Loop Ventures. In April of 2007, he co-founded Hyde Park Angels and spearheaded the growth and development of one of the most active angel groups in the United States. He has consulted on the startup of several other angel groups. He is a former independent trader and member of the CME Board of Directors and was part of a small group that transformed CME from an open outcry exchange to the largest electronic exchange in the world. In 1998, CME was worth $182,134,000 in membership enterprise value. Today it’s worth $55 Billion.
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Podcast episode production by Dante32.