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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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 24, 2019•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode, guest host Ranjan Bhaduri continues his conversation with John Fidler , Senior VP and Director of Alternative Investments at Commonwealth Bank and Trust, Christopher Vogt , Director of Equity Strategies at Margaret Cargill Philanthropies, and Jonathan Miles , Managing Director of Ascent Private Capital Management of U.S. Bank. Listen in as our guests talk about management fees and how they have changed over the past decade, the importance of constantly checking your assumptio...
May 02, 2019•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast I often see the press write that too much money is chasing the same trends, and this being the reason that Trend Following strategies have been performing a little under par in the last few years. So who better to ask if this really is true, than my friend Kathryn Kaminski, who of course co-wrote the bible on Trend Following with Alex Greyserman… as well as a book with me, that you can find on my website. We also discussed how they conducted their research for their book, w...
Apr 30, 2019•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, we invite special guest Wayne Himelsein onto the show from Logica Capital Advisers, in Los Angeles. Wayne explains his journey into starting a Hedge Fund, some of the lessons he has learned over the years, and some of the rules that keep him from repeating past mistakes. He describes why he loves Trend Following, why embracing ‘uncertainty’ can have a positive effect on Trading, and how he typically constructs a portfolio. We also discuss why Wayne prefers ...
Apr 29, 2019•2 hr 52 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode, guest host Ranjan Bhaduri speaks with John Fidler , Senior VP and Director of Alternative Investments at Commonwealth Bank and Trust, Christopher Vogt , Director of Equity Strategies at Margaret Cargill Philanthropies, and Jonathon Miles , Managing Director of Ascent Private Capital Management of U.S. Bank. With these experts on managed futures, we will discuss how managed futures is being incorporated into institutional portfolios, illiquid versus liquid investments, and wha...
Apr 24, 2019•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Are CTAs giving the wrong message by charging low performance fees? Is there a perfect amount of AUM to aim for? Can Systematic Trading keep you happy? How accurately can we predict future returns? We discuss whether Trend Following is easy enough to do at home, or if you should do it through a reputable fund instead. What sort of things can be found in a ‘Research Graveyard’? Should you use Stop Losses, and if so, how and where should you place them? We...
Apr 22, 2019•2 hr 32 min•Transcript available on Metacast For those of us who have been on the manager side for a while, you’ll know that investors love to analyse decades of performance data before deciding which manager they are going to invest with, and that makes a lot of sense. But we also come across investors who subsequently redeem based on just a year or two after they invested, which is usually just down to bad luck and unfortunate timing. This does not seem logical, but it does relate to the short conversation I want to share wit...
Apr 15, 2019•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Does Systematic Trading completely eliminate all emotions from the process? Is it wise to use Stop-Losses? Should CTAs target low-volatility & average returns, or high returns with higher possible volatility? Can a finely-crafted Trading System be considered in the same way as a fine piece of art? Are all Trend Following systems essentially the same? We also discuss if intricate rules are better than ‘broader brush-strokes’, if it really is ‘difficult times’ for...
Apr 15, 2019•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kathryn Kaminski is one of my favorite people to discuss Trend Following with, because she has a great way of simplifying and explaining some of the key concepts of the strategy. Today, we talk about the phrase Crisis Alpha, and how it may be better to think about these strategies as Divergent strategies, because in reality we don’t need a crisis in order for Trend Following to do well. Years like 2014 and 2017 are great examples of this. Q1 of 2019 is perhaps a more recent example t...
Apr 10, 2019•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is it wise to adjust position-size according to recent volatility? Can back-testing a Trend Following strategy end up as just being a form of curve-fitting? We discuss the merits of Long-Term evidence over Recency Bias, the importance of Sharpe Ratios, the significance of price gaps, and whether leverage is a necessity for all CTAs. You will hear our thoughts on the idea of risking 1% per trade and how diversification affects this, the pros and cons of a crowded Trend Following market, and we to...
Apr 07, 2019•2 hr 34 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
