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

Join us for an in-depth conversation with Douglas Greenig, CEO of Florin Court, as we explore their unique approach to managing $2 billion in assets using a systematic trend following program focused on alternative markets. Discover how they navigate the current macro environment by prioritizing skew over the traditional Sharpe ratio, their process for uncovering new markets, and their strategies for managing risk and uncertainty during times of crisis. We dive deep into their trend following implementation and why it's essential not to become a "backtest junkie." Plus, learn why they steer clear of having money inside of China, despite trading Chinese markets and how the location of their office has impacted their work. Don't miss this enlightening discussion with another industry leader in the CTA space.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website

Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Richard Brennan, as we explore the world of trend following and delve deep into the unusual moves in fixed income markets and its impact on trend following performance during a month of March Madness. Discover how the design of trend following strategies allow it to be “prepared” for unforeseen events without overcomplicating the investment approach, and find out why choosing the right strategy and manager is all about personal preference. Rich reveals the secrets behind "the lifting power" of trend following and shares insights on how to determine the right amount of trend following allocation. Plus, gain valuable knowledge on the protective properties of trend following, the best ways to evaluate strategies, and the risks of being a replicator versus being a manager. Don't miss out on this enlightening episode!----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Rana Foroohar, global business columnist and author of "Homecoming: The Path to Prosperity in a Post Global World". In this episode, Rana discusses the need for a localized economy to find a balance between the power of big government and large corporations. We explore how a prosperous, localized economy can be created by retethering wealth and place and talking about people and organizations that are already making it happen. From the problem with big food to the challenges of manufacturing and construction, Rana shares stories of people working on solutions and how additive manufacturing, localized production, and digital innovation can play a role in the future of our economy, and what the impact on inflation might be. Tune in to this fascinating discussion and gain new insights into the potential for a more resilient and balanced economy.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Port

Get ready for an engaging conversation with Bruno Gmür, the Founder and CIO of Quantica Capital, as we explore their unique approach to systematic diversified trend following. Join us as we dive into the world of relative trend following and why volatility isn't always the right measure of risk. Bruno shares his insights on the challenges of estimating covariance matrices and expected returns during times of crisis, and how to create robust models to mitigate risk and prepare for market shocks. We'll also discuss why Quantica Capital no longer uses the term "crisis alpha" to promote their strategy and why trend following is much more complex than it may seem. Don't miss our discussion on the relationship between market liquidity and volatility as well as many more topics in this wide-ranging conversation.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.

Join us for an insightful conversation with Cem Karsan as he sheds light on the current financial landscape, from the recent banking crashes to Central Bank Rate Hikes and Geo-Political developments. Discover the reasons behind the unprecedented moves in the volatility space and how they're impacting different strategies, including trend following. Cem shares his thoughts on the critical importance of positioning and why volatility strategies are currently facing tough times. We'll also delve into the potential consequences of a loss of confidence in central banks and their policies, including much higher bond yields. And don't miss our discussion on how the upcoming U.S. Presidential Election will impact economic policies in the months to come. Tune in to gain valuable insights from one of the sharpest minds in finance.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via

This is an episode for those who want to hear an alternative view of the world's largest country. McKinsey has said we are living in the “Indian Century”. Morgan Stanley believes 20 percent of global growth in the next decade will come from India. Our guest today, Princeton economist Ashoka Mody, has a different view, which he details in his new book: “India Is Broken”. He argues that there are two Indias, a successful, highly skilled and educated elite and a billion-plus population that remains very poor. Mody believes that this dangerous equilibrium is maintained by a close link between the government, big business and, in some cases, organized crime. This association produces projects that attract capital and headlines but leaves an employment deficit of over 100 million jobs.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT’s TRUE ? – most CIO’s r

Today, we are joined by Simon Judes, Co-CIO at Winton for a conversation on how they use quantitative investment strategies and statistical research to generate alpha. We discuss how the characterization of Crisis Alpha has the potential to be misleading and why the speed of your trading should be determined by your objective, their process of discovering new ideas through research and the pitfalls of relying too heavily on automation. We also discuss how they stay diversified through alternative market selection, why it is important to look beyond volatility when assessing risk and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----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 Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Books ever written here.And you can get a free copy of my latest book “The Many Flavors of Tren

Today, Mark Rzepczynsky is back with us, following a tense week with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and a few other bank emergencies. We discuss how we are in a period that Mark calls “the great bond reprising” and what this means for the economy, why the collapse of SVB was somehow "expected", if only regulators had been looking at the right data and how you build models that are well prepared for unexpected events. We also discuss why the core concept of CTA replication in itself may be problematic and why the collapse of SVB might indicate that some people possess too much power, how the wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, how change and uncertainty in the world affects investors and the economy and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----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

Today we are re-joined by Rory Johnston, founder of Commodity Context, a physical commodities research firm based in Toronto, Canada. We cover the SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) that has been actively deployed by the Biden administration over the past year, its implementation and potential impact on related economies. To what extent can the SPR influence spot and futures prices, and what are the knock on effects on refined products? What is the interaction between the SPR, commercial inventories and prices? Rory also discusses the analogy between SPR sales and Fed policy, as it influences the yield curve. We also discuss the relationship between oil volatility and the crack spread, and how volatility is generally damaging but can boost profits in proprietary oil trading books. Finally, Rory challenges the assertion that speculators are the "smart money" in energy, and how positioning can act as a counter trend indicator.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing P

Today, we are joined by Matt Dorsten, Portfolio Manager within the Quantitative Strategies group at PIMCO, for a conversation how they manage 60 billion dollars through different quant strategies, of which app. $5bn is in Trend Following. We discuss their process of constructing portfolios using a defensive approach and how they manage to simultaneously maintain a high Sharpe, keep a balance between long and short trades and how they use tail "hedging" in their design of the strategy. We also discuss why they believe having a broad universe of markets is key and why they see a big potential in exotic markets, why they believe it is better to trade faster as a trend follower when markets are liquid enough, their process of measuring the expected returns and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT’s TRUE ? – most CIO’s read 50+ books

Today, I'm joined by Rob Carver for the weekly trend following conversation, where we reflect on the takeaways from the CTA series and the performance of the year so far. We discuss parameter and markets selection through research and testing and why Rob dislikes stops in moving average systems, what happens if a brokerage firm fails. We also discuss why you have to be cautious when using dynamic position sizing and Rob’s advice for using backtesting, how articles from big financial media often creates a false or skewed narrative in the way they present data and information, why adding a lot of instruments to your portfolio is not as good an idea as it might seem. And finally we discuss Rob's latest article in the Financial Times and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT’s TRUE ? – most CIO’s read 50+ books each year – get your F

What are some of the key takeaways when you marry global financial markets with potentially extraterrestrial influences? Global Macro investor David Dorr, has taken on that conversation. As government and national security services have begun to declassify information around UFOs, David is exploring the edge of what people are starting to talk about but financial markets haven’t yet embraced. Energy, defense, travel, technology, are points of influence in this conversation. Then there’s what Lockheed Martin may be sitting on that could be a real game changer. David has been following this line of research for quite awhile and feels that things are just now starting to break loose. David Dorr is the Managing Principal at Dorr Asset Management SEZC and has more than 25 years experience in trading, global macroeconomics, risk management and trading technology.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels

Today, we are joined by David Gorton, CIO at DG Partners, for a conversation on how they use trend following to achieve a multi-billion dollar portfolio. We discuss how to become a better trend follower by understanding the weaknesses of the strategy and their approach to produce positive alpha, the challenge of timing trend following and how they focus on the conceptual trend without giving up the skew and how the "dark" 10-year period has affected their approach to volatility. We also discuss how they manage risk in an uncertain environment and the state of liquidity, whether trend following has a limit in terms of capacity and much more.DG Partners LLP is authorised and regulated by the FCA and only provides services to professional clients as defined under the FCA rules.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT’s TRUE ? – most CIO’s read 5

Alan Dunne joins us for the weekly conversation on Trend Following, where we reflect on the broader perspective of the markets and the economy. We discuss how the unpredictablity of inflation and interest rates affect all parts of the economy and the transition from globalization to deglobalization, the size of the CTA and trend following industry and how articles on media like Bloomberg often creates a unrealistic narrative about CTAs through colorful headlines. We also discuss Why you should add trend following to your portfolio and How trend following is done, what we have learned from our recent conversations with the best CTA managers in the world and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----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 Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Books ever written h

Today, we are joined by Philip Seager, Head of Absolute Return at Capital Fund Management (CFM), for a conversation on how they incorporate trend following in their investment strategy. We discuss their research on how trend following has performed historically and how they use the data in their trading and the role trend following play in their portfolio construction. We also discuss the right way of doing research when it comes to quant based strategies and how they differentiate themselves from other trend followers, how they keep risk stable and forecast gaps in markets, how you should use trend following in a multi-asset portfolio and how they estimate capacity, the risk of investing in a replicator strategy and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----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

Today we are joined by Nicky Ferguson, Founder of It's Not a Science, an energy markets research firm based in Basel, Switzerland. We talk about speculative positioning in oil and natural gas futures, and how to distinguish between price action driven by fundamentals and flows. We discuss real time indicators of oil supply and demand, and the time it takes various investors to absorb new information. Finally, we discuss the limitations of the DXY dollar index as a baseline for measuring commodity price returns, increased options flows given new players in the market, and ways to understand what's going on based on modes of oil transport. Join us for a deep dive with an oil trader turned business owner, for an expert view of the mechanics of the energy market.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT’s TRUE ? – most CIO’s read 50+ books each ye

Today, we are joined by Yao Hua Ooi, Principal at AQR Capital Management, for a conversation on how they use systematic tools like trend following, to take advantage of inefficiencies in markets. We discuss the pros and cons of risk premia strategies and how they manage to improve the Sharpe ratio while making sure the "dual" mandate is fulfilled, how they have moved beyond pure price trends as part of the evolution of their trend programs. We also discuss the process of building a trend following strategy and why they prefer to build models rather than mimic a strategy through linear regression, their approach to adding alternative markets to their portfolio, why they are always concerned about capacity and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----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 Ultimate

Today, Nick Baltas return to the show following a head scratching period for inflation and interest rates the past few weeks. We discuss the state of the environment for trend following and the best way to select a portfolio of markets to trade, the pros and cons of "trend following the trend followers". We also reflect on Katy Kaminski’s take on Crisis Alpha and discuss the evolution of trend following and how it changes the way strategies are designed, why being too concerned about the Sharpe may impact your performance in unexpected ways and why it is important to be aware of your own biases and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----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 Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Books ever written here.And you can get a free copy of my latest book “The Many

Today, we are joined by Katy Kaminski, Chief Research Strategist at AlphaSimplex Group, for a conversation on how they approach managed futures and trend following in their programs. We discuss how they work together with their clients to find the right solution for them and why it is important to understand the true meaning of Crisis Alpha, why commodities play a crucial role in times of crises and the key components of managing major disrupting events like COVID19. We also discuss why you might want an equity aware strategy, how they use machine learning to be more precise and prepared for moves in markets, how macro uncertainty impacts managed futures and trend following and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----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 Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Boo

Today, we are joined by Nigol Koulajian and Mike Harris from Quest Partners, for a conversation on how they use a research driven, quantitative and systematic trading approach to generate alpha. We discuss how they generate convexity and why they have chosen to focus on short-term time frames, why they believe some investors have become too focused on Sharpe and how they use trend following and crowding in their process. We also discuss how they use an adaptive learning technique to understand markets whilst being aware of the dangers of machine learning, the power and importance of data and the potential risks of replicating managers, why liquidity is dynamic and very unpredictable and much more.----------EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool----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 Ultimate Guide to the Best Inves