Goldman Sachs Head of Asset Allocation Research, Christian Mueller-Glissmann shares his current investment framework with Cem Karsan and I today. It's an important conversation as it touches on so many of the most important questions that investors, individual as well as institutional, are faced with right now. How we as investors should allocate our capital taking into account the ever changing Global Macro regimes was fascinating to explore, with one of the sharpest thinkers on this topic. Lik...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Q3 is behind us, and we take stock of how is the trend following industry holding up? Is passthrough fees becoming a problem for investors in the multi-strategy space? Do we still have a bubble economy? Have we lost our imagination of what can happen in the economy? And why is it important to understand psychology when building models? Join us for this fascinating conversation with Mark Rzepczynski where we discuss this, and much more. ----- 50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES...
Sep 30, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Professor Helen Thompson of Cambridge University, author of Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century, as we take a big picture perspective on the current global macro landscape. A key focus of Helen’s work is the role of energy markets in understanding global macro developments and we delve into Europe’s energy dependence on Russia. We hear about the factors which enabled Europe avoid an energy shortage in the winter of 2022 but why energy market...
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Tune in for this week’s trend following conversation with Alan Dunne, where we discuss Barry Eichengreen’s paper on living with high public debt and how the high level of debt can be addressed, the relationship between interest rates and GDP, how Forex trading have evolved over time and why it is having a renaissance at the moment. We also discuss return expectations in markets and diversified strategies and Alan reports what he experienced from a recent investor event in Paris. ----- 50 YEARS O...
Sep 23, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode we lift the veil on China’s often secretive system for managing its multi-trillion dollar holdings of foreign assets. Guiding us through the discussion is Dr. Zhongyuan Zoe Liu, the Maurice R. Greenberg fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Liu spent years researching financial reports and conducting in-person interviews with those involved in running China’s multiple “Sovereign Leveraged Funds”. We discuss how they evolved, what purposes they serve fo...
Sep 20, 2023•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today Nick Baltas and I embark on a journey through the shifting tides of investment strategy. For decades, equities have reigned supreme as the primary source of portfolio returns, while bonds played a crucial role as diversifiers. But over the past two decades, something intriguing has happened, and the dynamic between these two asset classes has evolved in ways we've never seen before. Stay tuned as we unravel the fascinating story of this transformation and explore what it means for modern i...
Sep 16, 2023•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Join us for a captivating episode where we delve into the hidden influence of confidence in our decision-making. Discover why seemingly unprecedented events are often predictable with the right insights. Peter Atwater provides an accessible framework for understanding confidence, helping us navigate uncertainty and lack of control. Our conversation delves into how confidence impacts politics and the economy, as well as how we can nurture confidence in the younger generation to face life's challe...
Sep 13, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is the economy actually doing better than we expected? This week we are joined by Andrew Beer, where we discuss the use of replication strategies in the current economic environment and how many markets/factors you should include, how managers can differentiate themselves from each other and the outlook for growth in the CTA industry. We also discuss the challenges of the Lemming effect in investing and today’s obsession with multi-strategy hedge funds, the capacity of the trend following indust...
Sep 09, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode we are joined by a true Macro thinker, Nelson Rangel, CIO at Raven Capital. Nelson walks us through his fascinating lens of the world evolved from his formative career years where his mentors taught him chaos theory and quantitative analysis. The conversation delves in to global conflict, adapting to social media information flows, and the challenges of finding investment value in LATAM markets. Be sure to stick around to the very end where Nelson leaves us with a cliff hanger as...
Sep 06, 2023•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we welcome Katy Kaminski to the Systematic Investor Series, as we dive deep into trend following systems and how to overcome the unintended biases that can creep into CTA systems, why Katy believes everybody has to “go back to the drawing board”, why it is unrealistic to expect things to go back to “normal”, and why Katy believes we are not in a crisis but rather a correction. We also discuss how a crisis is in the eye of the beholder and shed light on the current global macro narrative. ...
Sep 02, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Chen Zhao, co-founder and Chief Global Strategist at Alpine Macro joins us today to outline why growth has been resilient in 2023 but why he sees deflation and an economic downturn as a rising risk as we move into in 2024. We hear why the best global macro trades are the hardest to hold and why he believes long fixed income is the best trade at the moment. We discuss the long term outlook for growth and inflation in the major economies and hear why Chen is dismissive of the idea that deglobalisa...
Aug 30, 2023•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Richard Brennan is back to discuss the lurking uncertainty in the economy and take a deep dive into absolute momentum. What is it, how is it used and how does it relate to trend following? How does complex systems really function and evolve over time and what role does correlation play in system design? And financial markets is in fact chaotic systems, then how do predictive modellers trade them? Is there an edge from price following techniques in their ability to trade in highly complex and som...
Aug 26, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Best-selling author and renowned historian Neil Howe joins the show to talk about his New York Times’ bestselling book The Fourth Turning Is Here. Neil believes history moves in generational cycles that last about the length of one long human life. Each cycle has four eras - Turnings - that always arrive in the same order and last about twenty years. We are now midway through a Fourth Turning which is a time of exceptional upheaval and conflict. Previous Fourth Turnings happened during the ...
Aug 23, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Cem Karsan joins us for a wide ranging conversation where we discuss the current volatility environment and if vol trading can actually be predictable, the current Fourth Turning and how this will impact the level of volatility and where Cem’s outlook differ from Neil Howe's, why demographics is “destiny” and the current tug of war between flows and macro. We also discuss why Cem is watching NASDAQ so closely and the historic rotations that are happening in markets at the moment, why Cem believe...
Aug 19, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Peter Berezin, Chief Global Strategist and Research Director at BCA Research joins us today for a wide ranging discussion on the outlook for global economy and global capital markets. We hear why Peter has been more upbeat than the consensus on the outlook for the US economy but why he continues to believe that the outlook is for recession next year. He outlines why US stocks may continue to make gains in the near term but the outlook is much more challenging on a five-year view. We discuss his ...
Aug 16, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Rzepczynski is back to tackle some important topics relating to systematic trading. We discuss whether there is a best time of the year to trade and what has been driving the markets recently, how high interest rates and uncertainty affect investor behaviour, dispersion within markets and how it influences your trend following return. We also discuss quant research, the motivated reasoning bias and the importance of being open minded as a researcher to find better ways of being a trend foll...
Aug 12, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Mills joins us to discuss his new book The Cloud Revolution: How The Convergence of New Technologies Will Unleash the Next Economic Boom and a Roaring 2020’s . Mark is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a faculty fellow at Northwestern’s engineering school and a strategic partner in energy-tech venture fund Montrose Lane. In our conversation Mark explains how advances on three fronts - information, machines and materials - are converging in a way that is going to propel a surge in ...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Today, I'm joined by Alan Dunne to discuss the ‘treasury tsunami’ and the current challenges that the economy faces, the state of the Japanese and Chinese economy and the fear of ‘Japanification’, what is a reasonable return expectation for the different asset classes and why you should allocate to trend following despite the scepticism surrounding it. We also discuss how we are witnessing a slow burning Minsky moment in terms of debt and the refinancing risks that will emerge in the coming year...
Aug 05, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Do you ever have that feeling someone is staring at you? You turn around and find someone looking at you. What causes that? We get the answer in this episode of our Galactic Macro series as we sit down with Mark Gober, author, and board director at Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell’s Institute of Noetic Sciences. Mark explains to us the science behind extra sensory perception, near death experiences, UAP and then shows the one thing they all have in common - consciousness, the ultimate technolo...
Aug 02, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jerry Parker, Founder of Chesapeake Capital is perhaps the most successful of the famous group of Turtles, and today we discuss what he has learned from his 40+ years love affair with Trend Following, and how he has evolved his CTA program. We debate the challenges of using the Sharpe Ratio and what improvement really look like, how he uses volatility in his trend following process and the conflicts that can arise when working with clients. We also find out why Jerry believes you can be a good m...
Jul 31, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nick Baltas returns to discuss single stock trend momentum dynamics and more. With his usual academic elegance, Nick dives into Portfolio Construction and Risk Management, Static vs. Dynamic positioning, how to apply each type in your trading, and why one is not “better” than the other, the key factors of portfolio construction and why the difference between cross-sectional and time-series momentum is important to understand. We also discuss trend following in single stocks and why it is a compl...
Jul 29, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Christopher Zook, Founder, Chairman and CIO of CAZ Investments joins us for fascinating and thought-provoking conversation on the outlook for the economy and the investment opportunities in current markets. Christopher explains why he thinks the risk-reward is so poor in public equity markets at the moment and why investors are being offered poor prospective returns for the risk. We discuss private markets and the areas where CAZ is focused on allocating capital, particularly sports franchises a...
Jul 26, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we are joined by Andrew Beer and Jerry Parker for a fascinating conversation about the different approches to trend following within the ETF landscape. We discuss what the role trend following should play in a portfolio, the best approach to staying diversified, and where the growth might come from in the ETF space. We also discuss a few more controversial topics like fees, and why Jerry view trend following and managed futures as 2 different things and much more. ----- 50 YEARS OF ...
Jul 22, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast When it comes to global conflict and understanding the limits of Earth's resources the man to turn to is Dr. Paul Sullivan. Paul is a seasoned professor that has taught at several of the world's leading universities and influenced the thinking of students that are now some of the DOD's top brass as well as world leaders. His depth of understanding and commitment to a lifetime of learning is uncommon in a world of short attention spans. We sit with Paul in this conversation to understand his curr...
Jul 19, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rob Carver joins me to reveal some surprising news about his new “job”. We discuss portfolio optimization and why you should be concerned about certain types optimization techniques, why Rob believes trend following a trend following ETF is a bad idea, when is the best time to buy trend followers and how to use factors when applying an exponential moving average. We also discuss safe trading and how to achieve the most diversification for your portfolio, the dodgy behaviour that exists in the cr...
Jul 15, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast HSBC Senior Economic Adviser Stephen King joins the show to discuss the most important long-term issue facing western economies: inflation. Stephen’s new book - We Need To Talk About Inflation - is an FT “book to read in 2023” for good reasons. He explains why inflation is not just about money creation, it also depends on public perceptions and the fatal temptation of governments to usurp central bank independence (what he calls the Richard Burton - Elizabeth Taylor rule). Stephen ex...
Jul 12, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Richard Brennan returns for a true trend following conversation where we dive deep into the construction of models and systems. We discuss why long-term trading are often preferred by many trend followers and what we can learn from acoustics and physics in terms of noise and signals, how to get the most diversification from highly correlated markets through system design and why you should trade with an ensemble of markets. We also discuss how complex adaptive systems evolve over time, how to un...
Jul 08, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we are joined by Louis-Vincent Gave of Gavekal Research for a fascinating discussion on the key global macro trends impacting markets. Louis outlines his case for why the consensus is wrong to expect a US recession and why he sees accommodative US fiscal policy as a key driver of the economy in the next 1-2 years. We discuss the upside and downside risks to inflation and how weather patterns may be an underappreciated risk to inflation in the next 1-2 years. One of Louis’ key calls is an u...
Jul 05, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Cem Karsan joins me for a tour of the current volatility and macro environment, where we take a deep dive into where markets and economy are heading. We discuss the potential of the economy going into stagflation and why many investors might not be prepared for what is to come, the unpredictable volatility environment and how technology like AI is affecting markets. We also discuss the potential dangers of zero day options and how to position yourself appropriately for the markets, how to prepar...
Jul 01, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast There are few instincts sharper than those of a talented journalist. Izabella Kaminska, founder and editor of The Blind Spot, and her colleague Dario Garcia Giner have those instincts in spades. While still at the Financial Times, on December 10, 2021, Izabella penned a thought provoking article titled Do portfolios have a UAP risk? . Long before anyone was talking about UAP in the financial sector Izabella recognized that this taboo subject could impact markets and was worth paying attention to...
Jun 28, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
