Top Traders Unplugged With Niels Kaastrup-larsen | Engaging Conversations With The Top Traders & Investors

What is the difference between simply following a trend and capturing it? Why is growth not consistent and gradual and why do we want it to be?Learn answers to these questions and more in this week’s episodes. Niels chats with the founder of a seasoned trend-follower in Canada, who knew he wanted to go into the financial markets since his university days. His story of working for large investment banks to starting his own firm will inspire current managers and hopeful managers alike.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:Why Tim tries to get away from being labelled as one thing or another.About growing up on a farm in Canada.How he knew he wanted to be a trader.How his experience in the energy markets affected the way he ran his business when he started it.Why discipline is so important for the kind of manager that Tim is.Why he has stuck with the theme of trading commodities.What

Rob Hartman knows that showing up is half the battle when it comes to work in any industry. But his viewpoint as a solo fund manager give us deep insight into the inner-workings of a firm and how it deals with drawdowns, track record, and investors’ questions. In Part 2 of our conversation with Rob, we dive into his models and programs and how each of them works. We also learn about Rob’s background that helps round out this picture of a successful manager.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:Why Hannah Montana has some life lessons to teach.Rob’s track record and how to read it.What happened when he changed his strategy.The details of the programs he runs.How Vanguard, his flagship product, works.How he manages his momentum trades, or trend following trades.Why his thoughts on position sizing have evolved over time.How he conducts his research and why he doesn’t do any discretion

In starting any business, you run into unexpected roadblocks and challenges, and you learn something from each mistake. Our next guest is the founder of a trading firm who has grown his business twice and learned how to overcome the barriers in his way. We can learn a lot from someone who is ready for the unexpected whether it is good or bad.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:About his childhood in Upstate New York and Pennsylvania.Rob’s interest in music and sports.How his early Rock and Roll career faired and how he went into the financial industry.How he got hired at IBM.His years at IBM and the lessons it taught him.How his fascination for trading started after he began a consulting business.The tipping point: when he went full-in to the trading business.How he learned about different strategies and tested them.When he came upon trend following and what made him st

Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation with Dave Sanderson. In this episode we explore his trading program in detail, from the markets the firm trades to how they describe their program to investors. We also explore the challenges that he goes through as a business leader, dealing with drawdowns, and why optimism is so important to Dave.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:Why Dave believes that QIM is a unique firm in a reasonably similar category as KFL Capital Management.How to describe Krystal to investors and why it can be a challenge.About the length of time it takes for Krystal to compute the data and make a decision.Why the breakthroughs in computational power are supporting KFL Capital Management to make their systems faster each year.The markets KFL trades.Expected drawdown and volatility Krystal expects.How Dave expects to deal with drawdown environments.Research cycles withi

Our next guest on Top Traders Unplugged is the CEO and Co-Founder of KFL. In this episode we explore their trading strategy and uncover the fundamental differences between what they are doing that makes them so different from traditional alternative investment organizations.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:Transitioning from commercial litigation to wholesale mutual fund vendingHow Dave Sanderson was exposed to alternative investments in the first placeThe convincing required to get top big data scientists to work on financial challengesThe comical story of how carefully big data scientist come to conclusionsWhat Dave Sanderson loves to do when he isn’t working directly on KFL Capital ManagementHow Dave Sanderson sees the deviation between machine learning and systematic tradingWhat it means to exist in a deluge of big dataHow Dave Sanderson and KFL pe

In the second part of our interview with Bastian, we talk about the ins and outs of his trading program and how they came to create the current trading system that they run now. Niels talks with Bastian about drawdowns, risk management, and how investors should read and understand a manager’s track record. Listen in to find out more about Deep Field Capital and learn what it takes to be an successful emerging manager today.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:About the 23 potential markets that Bastian trades, and which ones are actually traded.How he uses a “bus stop” metaphor to explain which markets get picked for trading.How he views risk and how he deals with risk management.If there are certain markets that are better performing for his strategies than others.What kinds of drawdowns he expects his strategy to go through.The three different types of investors that come i

The story of Deep Field Capital’s Founder and CEO is an interesting one. Bastian Bolesta met his future partners whilst spending a semester abroad in China before returning to Germany and then moving to Switzerland to join them. The team also moved from the discretionary trading space to a unique way of systematic trading. Deep Field is a relative newcomer to the industry as they don’t have a 20+ year track record, so our conversation has timely insights for those looking to start a firm and begin managing external client capital.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:Bastian’s background and how he got interested in finance.How he grew up in Frankfurt and went to university there.What he learned from a semester abroad in China and why he returned there after graduating.How he met his future business parters and started their first business.How they went from the discretionary trading mi

In our continued conversation with Roy Niederhoffer, we discuss risk management, drawdowns, why negative correlation is so important to Roy, and what gets him out of bed every morning (and what keeps him awake at night). Learn more about how to create a balanced and diversified portfolio or what it takes to be a manager.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:What has changed by the fact that more and more trading decisions are made by computers instead of humans.The issue of model decay in Roy’s field.Why he has constructed his trading program the way that he has.His ten-step process from idea generation to putting it into the system. The research process laid out.How his firm does research.How position sizing plays a role in the short term space.How he keeps model slippage to a minimum.Risk management and how Roy deals with it.When to use discretion to reduce risk.What he learns from go

Roy Niederhoffer has a fascinating live story that starts with Harvard and neuroscience and continues into his starting a hedge fund in the short-term trading space in 1993. Roy discusses the exciting and bootstrapping beginnings of his firm, the cognitive biases that keep most humans from making good investment decisions, and how his firm stands out from other CTAs. Investors and managers alike will learn a wealth of information from this episode.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:How Roy got interested in the financial markets from an interest in computers at a young age.How he started a company that had 30 employees by the end of his high school.How his brother was an early adopter in the Hedge Fund space.How he spent his undergraduate years studying neuroscience.Roy graduated from Harvard and was set to go to Cambridge for neuroscience until he worke

In the second part of our conversation with the founder of Whitmore Capital Management, we learn the daily challenges, and lessons learned right from the founder and owner of a fledgling firm. We dive into discussions on risk management, drawdown, attracting outside capital, and much more.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:How many currencies Mark trades and if he thinks he will trade more in the future.About how he diversifies his system.A case study of the Russian Ruble.His use of charts when looking at currencies.A discussion of cognitive biases.How he compares his system to trend following and how the two models can work in harmony.How he enters and exists a trade using his system.Why he is an “every end of two weeks” trader.How much capital he would like his strategy to manage and how much it can feasibly manage.How he defines risk and manages risk.How he dea

Our next guest started his firm back in 2012, and we’re talking to him at a special moment in the company’s evolution as it starts to gain outside capital and make its mark in the industry. Listen in to gain insights into how a manager started his firm in the current environment, the inside view on currencies as an asset class, and much more.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:How Mark was interested in finance from a very early age and learned from his adoptive parents.About his time studying macroeconomics in college.The story of his career and how it took a windy series of turns before heading into the financial market.His time studying currencies when he was in law school and his time as lawyer.How he started getting into the financial markets by investing in stocks in the late 90s.How he quit his job as a lawyer and planned to go into the financial services sector.

Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation with researcher and co-author of one of the definitive books on trend following. In this conversation, we dive into the the models that she used in writing the book, as well as her thoughts regarding risk management, what you should be asking a manager during due diligence, and what the future holds for the managed futures industry.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:What Kathryn looks at when evaluating the track records of managers.Her thoughts on the recent performance of trend followers.About price range compression.If she has a favorite statistic to look at when analyzing a manager.How she and her co-author came up with the trading strategy that they use in their book.Why the exit from a position is just as important as the entrance.What trend leakage is.Her views on how inflation and other environmental changes affects trend following strate

Our next guest is different than any guest we’ve had before, as she is not a fund manager but has spent much of her life’s work researching and writing about the topic of trend following. She is a true thought leader in the managed futures industry and you’ll learn a lot from the animated discussion we have regarding the history of trend following and how she co-authored her latest book on the subject.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:About Kathryn’s upbringing in Nashville, Tennessee.About her time at MIT where she went for electrical engineering.How her internship at a bank in France got her on the path to work in the financial industry.About her teaching financial engineering with Andrew Lo.Through her teaching and research, she became interested in technical analysis and trend following.How Kathryn went to the Stockholm School of Economics.When she left acade

Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation with Managed Futures expert and President Mike Harris of Campbell & Company. In this episode we delve into the specifics of Campbell & Company’s trading programs, how models are added or removed, and the importance of risk management. This episode also explores the managed futures industry as a whole and is a must-hear for anyone looking to gain knowledge about this strategy.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:About Campbell & Company’s trading program.How they create a trading strategy.Why they use a hypothesis driven system to add new models to their programs.About the peer review process they use before adding or subtracting models.When do you remove a model? How do you know when it isn’t working anymore?About position sizing and why its important.How they look at risk through something called Vertical Risk and Horizontal risk.

This episode goes in-depth into the history of one of the most well-known managed futures firms in the world, Campbell & Company. We explore the beginnings of the company, how they have dealt with challenges a long the way and how they have succeeded to overcome them, as well as the current state of the company and the systematic models their products are built on. Our guest is current President of the company, Mike Harris, and you’ll hear about how he entered the industry as well as his path to becoming Campbell’s President.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:How Mike explains what he does.How his grandfather gave him money to invest in his first stock as a child.How his interest in the financial markets started young and how he structured his whole education around working in this industry.About his first job out of college.About his time as a Futures Broker.How h

In the second part of our conversation with AHL founder and Aspect Capital Director, we dive into the details of his firm’s strategies and models. We explore how the models evolve, how he deals with risk management, and his advice for would-be fund managers. Investors and managers alike will gain deep knowledge from this episode.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:How their model changes are very small and gradual.What the Diversified Program of Aspect looks like today.How Martin weights the portfolio between financial markets and commodity markets.How his model allows them to grow the company.About foreign exchange markets and liquidity.The 2008 crisis and how it affected their models.The real secret behind trend following and how it works.How they are making the transition to a “box-to-box” execution approach.How Martin defines risk and risk management.About mode

In this episode, we get an exciting behind-the-scenes story of one of the most famous systematic trading firms of its time, AHL. Our guest is one of the firms founders and takes us from the company’s birth to its acquisition by Man Group. We also discuss how he started his next company, Aspect Capital, how he creates his trading models, and how to build and run a successful multi-billion trend-following firm. This episode is full of insights and stories that you won’t hear elsewhere.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:About Quantitative Investment research.About Martin’s background in physics.Martin’s time at his first company, AHL and how it had a profound effect on the whole managed futures industry.How Martin met his future AHL co-founders at university.Why AHL was a happy accident.How he met his friend Michael Adam and went to work for his dad after studying in Oxford.Ma

In Part 2 of our conversation with the CEO of Insch Capital Management, we talk about how the firm’s trading models work and how they were built. We discuss how Insch deals with drawdowns, increased regulation, and marketing. This is a truly in-depth episode into the mind of a hedge fund Founder and the inner workings of an Alternative investment firm.Welcome to the second part of our conversation with Chris Cruden.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:Indicators that are more robust than others.Chris’ views on stop losses.How his firm deals with risk and how he uses Index Risk.How correlations play a part in his models.About risk equivalency.how he deals with drawdowns.Why a sense of humor is important in this business, especially during drawdowns.How investors don’t share the same confidence in the model as managers and how managers can better share that confidence.How simple his

Our next guest was a British Army Officer and moved to South Africa before finding a career in the financial markets. He is now the CEO of his Managed Futures firm and has worked with some of the industry’s most influential companies and people, including Dean Witter and AHL. The story of his career’s beginnings and the lessons he used to become a systematic trend follower are unique and insightful. You’re sure to learn a lot from this episode.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:How Chris came to work with Dean Witter, one of the leading players in the industry back in the 1980’s & 90’s.About his days working for AHL in the early 90’s.How his career started off as a British Army officer.His time in Africa after leaving the army –  finding himself in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).About his first job at Syfrets Trust bank in South Africa as a Gold analyst.How he came to do

In the second part of our interview with hedge fund founder Luc Van Hof, we dive into the philosophy and creation behind his trading models. We also discuss why he is a risk averse person, what hobbies help him stay focused at work, and what investors and fund managers can do to grow their business and trade smarter.Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation with Luc Van Hof.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolIn This Episode, You’ll Learn:How to avoid model decay and how to avoid the risk when the model may stop working in the future.How to diversify your types of models – dynamic filtering that takes place. Automatic de-leveraging when a certain market goes down.How Luc chooses his models and why he does:Short term trend followingShort term mean reversionWhat concepts for his models repeat themselves over and over again, pattern recognition.About volatility risk premium strategies.How he tests his models that ha