In today’s episode, we discuss if it’s possible to successfully blur the lines between Discretionary & Systematic Trading, why most of the largest Hedge Funds in the world are Systematic, results of the rolling 10-year returns of Trend Following versus the S&P 500, how diversification can prevent long drawdown periods, why forming an opinion on your stock position can negatively affect how you manage the trade, and we also explain some of the differences between Cash Contracts and Contin...
Sep 16, 2019•1 hr 11 min
The tables have turned! In this episode, Niels Kaastrup-Larsen becomes the first featured guest on Erik Townsend’s newest podcast – MacroVoices Spotlight ! In this episode, Niels and Erik discuss Trend Following, the history of the Turtle Traders, Benefits of de-correlation and conditional correlation, how CTAs have been performing, and much more. Follow Niels on Twitter , LinkedIn , YouTube or via the TTU website . IT’s TRUE 👀 – most CIO’s read 50+ books each year – get your FREE copy of the U...
Sep 13, 2019•59 min
On today’s episode, Niels Kaastrup-Larsen speaks with Dr. Daniel Crosby , Chief Behavior Officer of Brinker Capital, and the host of The Standard Deviation Podcast. Dr. Crosby came to investment management through clinical psychology and therefore has a unique perspective on behavioral economics. The discussion ranges from how human behavior is evolutionarily ill-equipped for investment management, the importance of having rules for investing during turbulent times, and what investors can do to ...
Sep 12, 2019•32 min
In our special Anniversary Edition of the Systematic Investor Podcast, we invite Peter Borish onto the show to discuss the differences between Discretionary and Systematic Investing, Peter’s journey from the New York Federal Reserve to his role at Quad Group, his experience working with Paul Tudor Jones, his opinion on the CTA industry and its current approach to attracting capital, the benefits of having solid business partners during the best and worst of times, the power of Market Cycles, how...
Sep 10, 2019•1 hr 22 min
In this week’s show, we discuss using multiple systems to further enhance diversification, the differences between a portfolio meeting expectations versus benchmarking it against an Index, Trend Following in-house versus using an experienced Systematic Investment manager, having the temperament to stay the course with your investments, and the effectiveness of trying to predict the next moves of CTAs. Questions answered this week include: Are interest rates lower than usual at the moment? Does t...
Sep 02, 2019•1 hr 13 min
Today we discuss the potential dangers of avoiding simplicity, how good Trading is counter-intuitive to Human Nature, the benefits of doing the same thing over and over, how to earn big profits through aggressive Trend Following strategies, the secrets to building wealth through investing, and how we like to approach correlations in our portfolios. Questions answered this week include: Why are complex strategies more attractive to investors? Is the phrase ‘this time it’s different’ a...
Aug 25, 2019•1 hr 26 min
Today, we discuss the potential dangers of taking time away from the markets, the importance of Investor behaviour over the ability to analyse data, Morgan Housel’s article on the universal Laws of Investing, the differences between Buy-and-Hold, periodically re-balancing your portfolio, versus a more active Trend Following approach, as well as the art of profiting from Tail Events. Questions we address this week include: is Inter-Market Analysis a useful tool or a dangerous approach? Shou...
Aug 19, 2019•1 hr 17 min
This week, we discuss the current state of the Bond market, how the larger, commercial institutions affect overall CTA Trend Following performance, how to deal with the fluctuations in currencies when performing backtests, and we also give our thoughts on various Trading exit strategies. Questions answered this week include: does the majority of CTAs get out of their equity positions when the S&P500 falls below its 200-day moving average? Should you avoid trading markets that perform b...
Aug 10, 2019•1 hr 13 min
This week, we discuss the importance of avoiding any emotional attachments to your positions, how correlated markets can affect your portfolio, how to decide which trades to execute when your signals outweigh the amount of equity available to trade, and we also give our thoughts on Margin-to-Equity related to Position Sizing. Questions answered this week include: does uncertainty in the markets have any negative effects on Trend Following strategies? Can the S&P 500 ever be a good comp...
Aug 05, 2019•1 hr 21 min
When it comes to Behavioural Finance, a few people stand out in terms of their contribution to helping us all understand why and how it works. The intersection between Human Behaviour and Quantitative Investing can be difficult to understand for even the most sophisticated investors. Today, I want to share some really important insights from one of my favorite professors, who is also a practitioner of this discipline, namely Andrew Lo of MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of ...
Jul 31, 2019•15 min
This week, we discuss whether commodities are more risky to trade than equities, if a stocks-only Trend Following strategy can be profitable in the long run, if a deep drawdown is worse than a long drawdown, and the importance of over-estimating any possible drawdowns implied by a backtest. Questions answered include: should all Trend Following funds be required to provide Crisis Alpha? Is there ever a good time to override your system and trade outside of the rules? Should you always execute tr...
Jul 29, 2019•1 hr 17 min
It has been said that: ‘The biggest room of all, is the room for improvement’, and one thing that is clear to see in the amazing careers of today’s guests, is the continued hunger for learning in the quest for an improved investment process. This has led to an unprecedented success for this trio. Today, I share the last key insights from my conversation with Michael Adam, David Harding and Marty Lueck, also known as the founders of AHL. In this post, we don’t just discuss t...
Jul 23, 2019•13 min
In this week’s episode, we discuss Ray Dalio’s recent article on Paradigm Shifts and his comments on the safety of Gold. We also touch on the perils of having too many filters that keep you from entering a trade, why you should avoid ‘sure thing’ trade recommendations from others, the importance of having a plan before entering a trade, the benefits of incorporating what you’ve learnt from others about Trading into your own strategies, and the reasons for buying at the 52-week high as...
Jul 21, 2019•1 hr 18 min
In 1987, 3 scientists, 1 from Cambridge and 2 from Oxford, were brought together by their shared passion for the markets and for computers. Little did they know, that over the next 3 decades, this passion would lead them to build 3 world-leading multi-billion dollar Systematic Investment businesses. Today, I would like to share another Golden Nugget with you, from my conversation with Michael Adam, David Harding and Marty Lueck, also known as the founders of AHL. In this post, we foc...
Jul 17, 2019•25 min
On this week’s episode, we discuss the resurgence of ‘boutique’ funds, the new Austrian bond which promises a yield of 1.2% over 98 years, why having new markets to Trade can be good thing, and the differences between Volatility Targeting, versus adjusting overall risk exposure according to market conditions. Questions answered this week include, should you really trade a strategy that suits you? What is the ideal sample size when backtesting data, and should you pay attention to val...
Jul 15, 2019•1 hr 20 min
One of the great Investment books of all time is Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, which is the fictionalized biography of perhaps the most famous Financial Speculator of all time: Jesse Livermore. There is no doubt that even today, 100 years later, we can all learn from of the experiences of successful Investors. In this Best of Top Traders Unplugged, which I have appropriately titled Reminiscences of 3 Trend Followers, Michael Adam, David Harding and Marty Lueck, also known as the founders of...
Jul 10, 2019•14 min
In this episode, we discuss the recent article from AQR Capital’s Cliff Asness on the difficulty of sticking to a strategy through volatile periods, why we may never know if a particular system is broken, the differences between different Trading timeframes, and we give an update on the upcoming live event in New York in October. We also answer some questions such as: Is there a ‘Holy Grail’ of Stop Losses? What is a good way to backtest a Trading system? Is there a ...
Jul 08, 2019•1 hr 1 min
Today we’re joined on the show by Salem Abraham, a legendary Trend Follower, and President of Abraham Trading Company based in Canadian, Texas. We discuss if Bitcoin has any real value, how Jerry Parker influenced Salem early in his career (and how he was able to help Jerry), why we don’t need to understand the reasons for a price going up, how looking at your returns too often can affect your performance, if Stanley Druckenmiller and David Harding are right about the effectiveness of Tren...
Jul 01, 2019•2 hr 33 min
On today’s episode, we give our thoughts on the recent Bitcoin rally, the possible benefits of trading single stocks rather than indices, how spending less time looking at the markets can benefit your Trading, and we also offer some other suggestions for better Trading Discipline. Questions answered this week include: what are the main characteristics of a successful Trader? How often should you change your parameter combinations? How short-term did The Turtles trade, and ...
Jun 23, 2019•2 hr 34 min
This week, we’re joined by Corey Hoffstein from Newfound Research, who also hosts the Flirting With Models podcast. We discuss his journey into Systematic Investing, why the year you enter the markets will likely impact how you invest in the future, and why random returns can actually be worse for your system than bad returns. Corey explains the term ‘Sequence Risk’, why investors should avoid being too short-term, why risk can only be transformed and not destroyed, and if past perfo...
Jun 16, 2019•2 hr 40 min
In the previous Best of Top Traders Unplugged, we went back in time to re-visit some of the key lessons that many investors learned during the Financial Crisis of 2008. It was my way of reminding myself, and you, of something that we as investors must never forget. Today, Robert Carver goes much deeper into the human psychology that makes us ill-equipped to deal with our emotions in a rational way when it comes to making good investment decisions, and also, how you can overcome this b...
Jun 11, 2019•21 min
Can the VIX index be traded as part of a successful Trend Following strategy? Do CTAs have the edge over traditional Hedge Funds by being invested in the less popular markets? Should some parameters be adjusted according to the market being traded, and can you expect returns from Long Positions & Short Positions to be equal? We also give our thoughts on MorningStar’s recent ‘Bubble Index’ experiment, as well as Real Vision’s recent interview on the subject of ‘selling volat...
Jun 09, 2019•1 hr 12 min
The financial crisis back in 2008 is slowly fading from the memories of investors. But for those of us who lived and traded through it, many important lessons were learned, and usually the hard way. For many investors, it was a period that can be best described as an Emotional Roller-Coaster, where billions of dollars were lost by investment decisions which were primarily driven by emotions. In my hope to make sure that these lessons are not forgotten and wasted, I wanted to sha...
Jun 06, 2019•16 min
This week, we discuss the importance of process over outcome, how sports can be related to Trading, and whether mistakes are to be avoided completely or something we should look forward to learning from. Questions answered this week include: is Ray Dalio’s suggestion of 15 uncorrelated return streams the ultimate way to diversify your portfolio? Are some markets more tradable for Trend Followers than others? Is market ‘noise’ making it harder for Trend Followers, or is the volatility...
Jun 02, 2019•2 hr 33 min
I get a lot of questions about ideas to help build the best Trading Model, and I understand why many aspiring managers feel that this is critical to their future success. There is though, a lot of truth in the saying: “Most people overvalue ideas and underestimate execution”. What I mean by that is, when you want to start and build a business such as a Hedge Fund or CTA, I’m not so sure that the real challenge lies within the design of your investment approach. Nowada...
May 28, 2019•19 min
Is ‘Buy & Hold’ the S&P500 index the perfect investment strategy? Should you apply Equal-Weighting across all of your Trading positions? Are long-term strategies the only way to avoid market noise? Also, we give our thoughts on why you should avoid ‘Fat-Tail Distributions’, Volatility versus Risk, how Trend Following strategies tend to ‘melt-up’ rather than crash down, and our upcoming Systematic Investor Series Live Event. ----- 50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEH...
May 25, 2019•1 hr 6 min
Regardless of the investment strategy that you apply to the markets, your strategy or approach needs to evolve over time. The way we did Trend Following back in the 1970s, 1980s & 1990s is not exactly the way we do it today, and I think this can be said about most, if not all strategies. Now with some strategies, the model decay is so rapid, that if you don’t adapt quickly you can lose your edge. I think short-term strategies are good examples of this. Trend...
May 21, 2019•22 min
In today’s episode, we discuss whether or not Trend Following is more effective with Volatility Targeting, how cautious you should be of outlier events, how to use stress-levels as an indicator of how good your trading strategy is, and we give our thoughts on the concept of ‘Risk of Ruin’, in relation to the plight of Long-Term Capital management in the late 1990s. Questions this week include: Should you trade in a style that suits your personality? Can 10 years of financial data sti...
May 19, 2019•1 hr 9 min
Today, we discuss how to go from managing personal money to third-party money, in this current regulatory environment. We clear up some confusion surrounding the VIX market, touch on stocks vs commodities & how they affect on Trend Following strategies differently, as well as how to avoid a single driver from overly correlating your portfolio. We also answer the questions: how do you define long-term versus short-term? Did Richard Dennis’s Turtles ever add to winning positio...
May 12, 2019•1 hr 26 min
In today’s episode, we discuss how much central banks or political events, can prevent or create market trends in the future. We also discuss AQR Capital Management’s recent study on Trend Following performance in the current decade, and whether or not we have seen the end of large market trends. We wonder if technology prevents Commodities from having bull runs like Equities have had in the last decade, and we answer questions on scaling in and out of trades, where to get back-adjusted da...
May 05, 2019•2 hr 33 min
