Grab your favorite trucker hat/baseball cap, and settle in for this episode where Jeff picks Meb Faber’s brain on everything from skiing to picking an investment advisor because they can get you on at Riviera Country Club. We’ve got Meb Faber back on the show to nominally talk about trend following – but as often happens with Meb – we get into a bunch from global equity exposure, to market cap weighting, to Japan's dot-com bubble, de-globalization, investing in U.S. stocks, and the value of tren...
Mar 02, 2023•1 hr 18 min
We’re back this week bringing you the second half of our Miami event - sharing the open discussion and panel portion that focused on volatility as an asset class. The panel was quite the collective of talent, with Luke Rahbari, CEO of Equity Armor Investments, Zed Francis, CIO and co-founder of Convexitas, Rodrigo Gordillo, president of Resolve Asset Management and Jason Buck, CIO and co-founder of Mutiny Funds. In this packed VOL episode these four stir up an interesting discussion on volatilit...
Feb 23, 2023•1 hr 22 min
We're back with a new episode of The Derivative, and this time we're talking all things trend-following, Miami, and volatility with Kevin Davitt from Nasdaq. This episode starts by clarifying some questions about trend-following strategies and sharing some quick thoughts on volatility in 2022. It was a unique year for trend following, with different sectors showing up at different times and overlapping, making for a much smoother experience than we've seen in the past. We also discuss the import...
Feb 16, 2023•44 min
Despite the market being down substantially this year, bouncing around inside of bear market territory, it's been a bit of a challenging year for long-vol traders. Simply put, the Vol spikes we’ve become accustomed to getting with a down market haven’t materialized as much. While the retracement of vol on bounces higher in stocks has remained. it's hard not to think, "What is going on?!' And that's why we're putting Wayne Himelsein, CIO at Logica, in the 'Vol' seat to share what he's witnessed i...
Dec 08, 2022•1 hr 17 min
This week on the Derivative we're doing it a little differently sharing our platforms with RCM's Agriculture podcast, The Hedged Edge. The Hedged Edge is back online with a guest who could be it's podcast's most important guest of all time. At a time when inflation is running rampant through the world economy, drought conditions are drying up our rivers, and the global supply of grain is scarce. We are tasked with the question, "what the hell is going on in logistics, and is there any relief in ...
Nov 17, 2022•35 min
Jeff loves it when he sits across from someone who, like him, has been in the niche-managed futures part of the investment world for their entire career. There’s not all that many of them, and today's guest, Michael Harris( @mikeharris410) fits the bill. Michael's unique backstory began within the Sales and Product Development group at Morgan Stanley Managed Futures in 1997, continued as European trader and eventual President of managed futures behemoth Campbell & Co., overlapped with time o...
Nov 03, 2022•1 hr 21 min
How do all these smart people end up in the crypto space? Versus the hedge fund world or traditional finance, or doctor/lawyer, etc. And how do investors separate the signal from the noise amongst all the meme stock pumps, Web 3 scams, and crypto deep dives? And is Winter coming, to borrow the Game of Thrones line… We're sitting down with GenZ'er and FinTwit staple Caitlin Cook of the @deadcaitbounce handle, where she's diving into what it’s really like working in Crypto during the current drawd...
Oct 25, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Cover the kid’s ears… because we’re going back to our WTF format to ask what the actual Fingazi is going over in the UK with the bank of England raising rates, then buying a bunch of Gilts to save their pensions. The headlines say it’s some new-fangled LDI concept which led these pensions into trouble. But our guest this week, Zed Francis of Convexitas, says not so fast… the LDI actually is fine – and it was the reach for yield and adding some longer duration via derivatives which likely caused ...
Oct 13, 2022•1 hr 11 min
How do you create a new futures contract? You need an exchange. And you need something that changes in price, like a commodity market – or a financial index. This week we're diving deep into crafting an index with T3 Index's founder and CEO, Simon Ho. Simon is no stranger to the vol space, and he has worked in the options industry for over 20 years in trading, product innovation, and risk management roles. In this episode, Simon and Jeff touch base on the various unique index products at T3, lik...
Oct 06, 2022•55 min
Otherworldly forces can affect the market and hurt it just as much. Hurricane Ian continues to bring surges, winds, and flooding to Florida, and we have our own hurricane swirling around the set. That's right, we're bringing two forces together this week in a mashup of two previous pods with Hurricane Hunter Dr. Jeff Masters and Re-Insurance pro Chris Mckeown. We're revisiting what Dr. Jeff has to say on hurricanes and how you can track them, and we're also talking catastrophe bonds with Chris M...
Sep 29, 2022•1 hr 13 min
We have a little saying over here on The Derivative, The More, The Merrier, and on this week's episode of The Derivative, we're not chatting with one guest, but THREE! Class may no longer be in session, but we are taking a trip down the SIG/Susquehanna memory lane and having our own class reunion with Kris Abdelmessih, Michael Steiner, and Tina Lindstrom. If you're interested in learning how big trading firms find and teach their traders, hold on to your seat because these three give you the ans...
Sep 22, 2022•1 hr 20 min
In the chaotic world we’ve endured since 2020, it turns out all you needed was an outlier-loving strategy to get you through the storm. We’re talking managed futures and trend following in particular, which tend to thrive in periods of turmoil. But how can you effectively prepare for a wide range of market environments while still producing returns that allow for the investor to stick with the investment. Eric Crittenden, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Standpoint, sits down with Jeff to...
Sep 15, 2022•1 hr 23 min
It's not every day you get to sit down with a Volatility veteran with over 30 years of experience…..Well, maybe it’s a bit more common here on the Derivative than elsewhere, but we’ve got a special treat with Ari Bergmann( @AriBergmann ) joining Jeff on this week's Derivative episode. Listen in as they dive into where to find convexity, why that’s not the same thing as buying lottery tickets, how there’s a difference between a low price and a value, and the processes needed to maintain portfolio...
Sep 08, 2022•57 min
For those lucky few who’ve sold a business, inherited wealth, or otherwise find themselves in the enviable position of staying wealthy, not getting wealthy – the investment game can be more about playing defense than going on offense. But how do you go about that, who do you partner with to figure out complex tax and estate issues. This week, Jeff is sitting down with Homer Smith( @HomerSmith_KWP ), the founder of Konvergent Wealth Management, to dig into just how investment advisors like him go...
Sep 01, 2022•1 hr 5 min
Summer’s nearly over and class is definitely back in session for this episode, as we're about to get schooled on options and trying to separate the scams from the science. This week we're delivering the long-awaited episode with Dr. Benn Eifert, a Derivative appointed Jedi of Volatility from QVR Advisors, and Dr. David Rhoiney, who overcame being homeless to become a robotic surgeon who is learning the financial ropes and sharing his journey on Twitter from Surgifi. David has questions: what do ...
Aug 23, 2022•1 hr 17 min
We’re breaking the law...the laws of trading, that is! On this episode of the Derivative, we're joined by Agustin Lebron, who started his career as an engineer and turned prop trader (you'd be surprised how common of a story and skill set that is) before writing his book The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone Today, Agustin is the co-founder and manager of Esselin Research, where he helps growing tech companies make better decisions using his trading knowled...
Aug 11, 2022•58 min
This week we're adding a different twist to our typical episode, and we're diving into WHY Commodities can be accretive in your portfolio with Tim Pickering ( @AuspiceTim ). Tim is the Founder, President, and CIO of Auspice Capital Advisors and leads the strategic decision-making and the vision for Auspice's diverse suite of award-winning rules-based quantitative investment strategies. In this week's episode, Tim illustrates why the current environment could be very bullish commodities long-term...
Aug 04, 2022•57 min
Will the real Portnoy please stand up? This week's guest may not be rating pizzas worldwide in one bite, but he is an expert at simplifying the complex world of money — we're sitting down with the one and only Brian Portnoy, Ph.D., CFA. Brian( @brianportnoy ) is the founder of Shaping Wealth, a coaching and content platform inspiring financial well-being globally. He also has multiple bestselling books on the psychology of money, most notably The Geometry of Wealth (which has been published in 8...
Jul 28, 2022•1 hr 9 min
It's not every day you get to talk about investing and food in the same conversation, and this week, refinancing, restructuring, and investing in niche businesses is on the menu with Adam Tkaczuk( @Adam_Tkaczuk ). Adam is a tax consultant, project CFO, and private equity investor. He raises debt, equity, and government subsidies for projects and helps business owners reduce the tax liability on the sale of their business. In this episode, Adam and Jeff get into " The Greatest Show on Earth" and ...
Jul 21, 2022•1 hr 8 min
You may know this week's guest as a Kansas City Chief and sometime Royals fan on Twitter, but he has more than one connection to Kansas City. Jay Soloff ( @jsoloff ), an options volatility analyst, former CBOE market maker, pirate, and seller of uncapped forward variance swaps, joins us this week to discuss covering calls and charting curves. Jay brings an exciting twist to this episode and talks about options education and where to find the premium, is the VIX broken (did we create a monster? +...
Jul 14, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Are the Fed’s hikes starting to dampen inflation? Oil, grains, and metals have all fallen from their highs. But the rarely spoken of Cotton market was one of the first to crack…falling from 1.58/lb to 0.95/lb in just a few short days. We're digging into this sharp drop and just why and how Cotton is involved in seemingly everything with RCM's very own cotton king, LOGIC Advisors Ron Lawson. In this episode, Ron is giving us the low down on how and why he believes it’s not Dr. Copper which acts a...
Jul 07, 2022•1 hr 25 min
What should we make of the recent crypto crash? A sign this is all a scam? Or just another dip in the cycle? Gather round; you're in for an interesting chat with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Disciple on Twitter @LDrogen . A Long Island surfer turned quant turned crypto fund manager who shows us how you have to be able to hold two separate thoughts in your head to succeed in the wild world of crypto. We're hanging ten and talking Crypto with Starkiller Capital's Leigh Drogen. In thi...
Jun 30, 2022•1 hr 16 min
This week's guest may be new to Twitter ( @nancy__davis ), but she's certainly not new to the wide world of volatility in all its wonderous “fruit” forms, including of course rates and fixed income volatility. In this Derivative episode, Jeff sits down with one of the "100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance," Nancy Davis. Nancy, who started her career at Goldman Sachs, is the founder of Quadratic Capital, portfolio manager for the IVOL and BNDD ETFs, and a frequent finance commentator on Blo...
Jun 23, 2022•1 hr 12 min
In this week's episode, Jeff talks with StoneX's Global Macro Strategist, Vincent Deluard @VincentDeluard , who authors weekly research reports on global macro trends, asset flows, European capital markets, and quantitative topics. We catch him literally right after the Fed hikes 75bps, and learn quickly that Lagarde was an accomplished synchronized swimmer and that having a French accent sure helps selling “French” wine in China. But what about that Fed hike? Are we saved? Are we doomed? Who’s ...
Jun 16, 2022•1 hr 28 min
We're taking flight and zooming over to the big bend for a cheerio chat with Charlie McGarraugh, an ex-midwesterner turned londonite. Charlie is the Chief Strategy Officer at Blockchain.com and has an impressive resume as a former mortgage-backed securities trader, head of metals at Goldman, founder of an algo sports betting company, and more. In this episode, Charlie dives into living across the pond (in the metals and commodities space), starting the world's LARGEST Bitcoin wallet (and selling...
Jun 09, 2022•1 hr 8 min
Viva Las EQ Derivatives... This week Jeff journeys back to the Windy City from Sin City, where he is joined by a special guest, Mutiny's very own Jason Buck @JasonMutiny . In this episode, they give essential insight into this unique conference for options traders, hedge funds, and insurers. They break down everything you need to know about the event and key takeaways like what was being said, what wasn't said, and what caught their attention. Jason and Jeff dive into topics like; the vibes at E...
Jun 02, 2022•58 min
You're driving down the winding roads of Napa Valley, visiting the countless wineries, taking in the beautiful scenery, and enjoying the various pairings of meats, cheeses, and palate cleansers... But that’s not all that pairs well with wine. This week Anthony Zhang, an ambitious entrepreneur who created Vinovest, gives us the inside scoop on how wine is so much more than just those ‘soft’ descriptors, and can actually be considered an asset class. Even if Jeff asks… really? Is it really scalabl...
May 26, 2022•1 hr 11 min
We're back for part two with Noel Smith – where we dig into the types of options and volatility strategies, he employs for his Convex AM hedge fund. For the background on why he’s worth listening to on that front, listen to Part 1 about marketing making on the CBOE floor, Getco, and more here: https://youtu.be/XCeN56HgT68 Noel’s deep options expertise has led Convex AM to a four pillars approach to volatility trading: Vol Arb, Dispersion, Risk Premium, and Bond Vol Arb. In this episode, you will...
May 19, 2022•1 hr 8 min
We’re talking with the purveyors of one of the best performing mutual funds thus far in 2022, the dynamically shifting asset allocator, RDMIX (past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results). It hasn’t all been rainbows and lollipops, however, for the ReSolve Asset Management Global team of Rodrigo Gordillo and Mike Philbrick, and they explain why and when a core of Risk Parity should work, and exactly what is and isn’t a Risk Parity approach (hint: it’s not just levered stocks...
May 12, 2022•1 hr 25 min
This week, we're painting the picture of what life on Chicago's option trading floors was like at the CBOE...but there's a catch — we put it all on the table and needed two episodes! Today's guest came into asset management in a round-about way – trading his own money for decades before venturing into the world of other people's money…We're talking to the one and only Noel Smith @NoelConvex , Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Convex Asset Management. In this two-parter, we're talk...
May 05, 2022•58 min
