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

Join us for part 1 of this special edition of Systematic Investor, where we are joined by all of our wonderful co-hosts for a group conversation. In this first part, we take a look back on 2023 and discuss how the year has been treating Trend Followers and CTAs at large. We also discuss volatility trading and value of adding non-trend strategies to your trend following, the outlook of the SG Trend Index and the challenge of classifying yourself in the trend following industry. Lastly, we discuss what you are looking for in a good backtest and how to approach making changes to your model, the most important lesson that we learned from 2023 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 ge

In this episode we talk to Rob Copeland, New York Times reporter and author of the bestselling new book: The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates and the Unravelling of a Wall Street Legend. Bridgewater is the world’s largest hedge fund and its founder, Ray Dalio, claims to run his firm based on The Principles, rules for life and work that argue for complete honesty and transparency. His most famous Principle: Pain + Reflection = Progress. But Copeland, who has covered Bridgewater for years as a Wall Street Journal reporter paints a radically different picture. Instead of encouraging truth, Copeland’s book documents a rigged feedback system that keeps Dalio permanently at the top and a culture where fear of upsetting Dalio suppresses the truth rather than encourages it. Copeland also claims that Bridgewater’s investment process is far less systematic than it claims, with Dalio ‘calling the shots’. Bridgewater strongly disputes all of these conclusions.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safe

Today, we are joined by Nick Baltas for conversation, where we dive deep into the use of volatility scaling and accelerators in trend following systems. Additionally, we discuss various research papers that address whether trend following CTAs are truly long vol, what the negative impact of trend breaks are, whether you can predict future trend following performance by analyzing previous trend following perfomance and the art of timing trends, why it is important to sometimes settle with “good enough” performance, the future of the 60/40 portfolio 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 Trend Following” here.Learn more about t

AI is stealing the headlines with what seems like wave after wave of breakthroughs, but running parallel to this are equally rapid advancements in quantum physics and our understanding of reality. Listen in on this complex yet nuanced conversation with Klee Irwin, Founder of Quantum Gravity Research as he shares his views on physics, AI, and the accelerating course humanity finds itself on, and how it ties in to us as investors.-----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 Trend Following” here.Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.comAnd please share this episode with a like-minded friend

How do you avoid overfitting, how loose is too loose in terms of loose pants and how should you approach sample sizes when designing your trading systems? What are complex adaptive systems, how do they apply to financial markets and why does regular math just not cut it? How does trend following differ from other strategies, what makes trend following so robust and what are the limitations for traditional statistics? Join us for this fascinating conversation with Richard Brennan.-----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 Trend Following” here.Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.comAnd

David Kelly, Chief Global Strategist at J.P. Morgan joins Alan Dunne in this episode for a big picture perspective on the outlook for the global economy and the implications for asset allocation. We discuss why David is upbeat on the outlook for the US economy with a key part of his optimism resting on the fact that no individual sectors appears stretched or out of balance, which is normally the case prior to a recession. The recent rise in bond yields has been a key focus in markets – we discuss what has driven this and why David is optimistic on the outlook for inflation and bonds looking ahead. We also discuss asset allocation more broadly, the outlook for the 60-40 portfolio and the longer term themes (such as the investment implications of climate change and the shift to more active industrial policy) which are addressed in JP Morgan Asset Management’s recent Long Term Capital Markets Assumptions publication. -----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing

Today, we are joined by Andrew Beer, who helps us uncover why managed futures have been struggling in 2023 and and what makes this year so different from 2022. We discuss the history of replication strategies all the way back to its origins and the intricacies of Andrew’s own replication strategy, and how disruptions have change the asset management industry and if the replicators are now facing their own competition from more pure CTA ETF offerings. We debate if Managed Futures have been "commoditized" and how the 60/40 portfolio is making a comeback this year and if 2022 was just a "fluke".-----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 Trend Fol

Anant Jatia, the founder and CEO of Greenland Investment Management, joins Moritz Seibert for a commodities-focused conversation. In this episode, Anant explains how Greenland developed from currency market making to what today is predominantly an HFT-driven commodities arbitrage fund. Anant has a detailed understanding of the workings of physical commodity markets and focuses Greenland’s trades on location and substitution arbitrage trades. Moritz and Anant discuss several exemplary trades in detail, including sizing and portfolio implementation, and focus on the tail exposures which could materialize while the trade is active. This is a detailed and somewhat technical episode and a must-listen for anyone interested in commodities arbitrage trading.-----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

Today, Mark Rzepczynski and I dissect the macro rally we are experiencing at the moment. We discuss why we are seeing an increasing attention to what CTAs are doing, how survey data regarding the economy confuses investors and markets, and we address some of the most common questions that investors ask in meetings at the moment. Additionally, we discuss how explanatory depth can be applied to trend following, why it is critical to master your attention and speed of adjustment and we wrap up debating how much slippage a trend follower should expect and if slippage can be turned into a new source of alpha.-----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

Dario Perkins joins Alan Dunne in this episode for an insightful and thought-provoking discussion on the global economic outlook. Dario outlines how many economists and strategists misdiagnosed the global economy coming into 2023 by assuming it was in a typical business cycle which was not the case. The conversation delves into the subtle structural shifts which are underway in the global economy including a shift higher in inflation with 2% now a floor whereas previously it was a ceiling, the shift towards more active industrial policy and the politically driven changing super cycle away from neoliberalism. What this points to is greater volatility in inflation, a secular bear market in bonds, a more positive outlook for value versus growth and a shift in the bond equity correlation as stagflationary episodes are more frequent.-----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

Today, we are joined by Alan Dunne for a wide ranging conversation, covering pressing global macro issues, the latest trend following research, JP Morgan's outlook for the 60/40 portfolio, following a week dominated by the release of the CPI numbers. We discuss how and why Ray Dalio believes the hot war between the US and China is changing and why the US is seeing an unusually low savings rate at the moment and why Alan believes there are plenty of possibilities in the non-trend space. We also discuss the benefits that trend following can add to your portfolio, how Blackstone is boosting the leverage in one of its Credit Funds...and if this seems like a good idea 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

Maia Mathieson and Faheem Osman, both Managing Directors at Macquarie Bank in London speak with Moritz Seibert about the bank’s growing Quantitative Investment Strategies (QIS) business and how their rules-based indices can help investors to efficiently access various risk premium strategies across asset classes. Maia and Faheem explain the key return drivers behind their commodity-focused strategies, for example curve carry and congestion, and explain why they believe these to be structurally sustainable. We also discuss their client base and how the Macquarie QIS team focuses on designing robust indices that are not curve-fit to historical data. -----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 f

Today’s conversation with Katy Kaminiski is all about change. We discuss what has been the driver of the changing economic environment that we experience and how changing interest rates affect trend followers, why Katy believes we need a repricing in long term yields and how the yield curve is a key factor in trend followers profitability. Katy also explains her outlook for the markets, how you build portfolios in the current economic environment 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 Trend Following” here.Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.comAnd please share this e

Ed Yardeni, President and Chief Investment Strategist at Yardeni Research joins us today to discuss the re-emergence of the bond vigilantes, a term Ed coined four decades ago. We discuss why bond investors are pushing up long-term bond yields and what are the prospects are for a debt crisis in the US. Ed outlines his view that we may see “rolling recessions” rather than a sharp economic downturn but that he has recently increased his probability of a hard landing. We examine the parallels between the current cycle and the past, particularly the 1990s and discuss whether the recent improvement can be sustained over the medium term and what it means for equity markets. -----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 

Cem Karsan returns to help us uncover the art of tail hedging and whether he views the January 2024 OpEx as a possible inflection point and start of a new bear market. We discuss the latest events in the macro space, especially regarding the conflict in the Middle East, and how it impacts markets, why Niels believes we are probably heading towards a world where investors are completely wrongly positioned and why it is important to think differently when it comes to asset allocation. Lastly, Cem explains how the incoming holiday season acts as a volatility compression mechanism, what he took away from the recent CBOE RMC Conference 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

You are invited to an eye-opening conversation with Mauritz van den Worm, a quant researcher at Polarstar, a commodities-focused hedge fund in Cape Town, South Africa, hosted by Moritz Seibert. In this inaugural episode of the Open Interest series, Mauritz takes us on a journey through the fascinating world of commodity spreads. We explore not only calendar spreads but also delve into cross-market substitution spreads, location arbitrage trades, and processing margin spreads.Discover how PolarStar navigates the intricate South African commodity markets and the critical role they play in their portfolio. Additionally, Mauritz shares an intriguing firsthand account of PolarStar's position in the US versus European grain spreads at the onset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Learn how a simultaneous limit-up in the US and limit-down in Europe led to what Mauritz humorously refers to as "a few gray hairs." This is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the complexities and strategies behind commodity trading.-----

In today’s episode, Richard Brennan takes us on a tour around the Australian economy and how the investment landscape is changing. We also discuss how different investment philosophies demand different interpretations and why the “one size fits all” approach does not exist, how cross-sectional momentum differs from absolute momentum. Lastly, we discuss why Richard uses an ensemble of trend following systems and why he always strives for maximum diversification, and why I feel we should not introduce divisiveness in the trend following industry 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 Trend Following” here.Learn more about the T

Today we are joined by Matt Smith, Investment Director at Ruffer for a fascinating discussion on global markets, asset allocation and how history can guide us in the current global macro landscape. Matt explains why Ruffer is defensively positioned at the moment, why he is sceptical of the AI rally in stocks in recent months and where is he sees opportunity in markets at the moment. We discuss the secular outlook for inflation and why Matt believes we sill see greater volatility and a trend higher in inflation over time and what that means for asset allocation. We also delve into the parallels between the current investing and global macro environment versus the past particularly the period between 1940 and 1970 and hear about some of the key books that have influenced Matt as an investor.-----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 C

Rob Carver is back this week speaking with Alan Dunne about constructing and assessing trend following and non-trend following trading strategies. We delve into mean reversion strategies and over what time frames they might be effective and what are the pitfalls in trying to combine trend following with mean reversion. We also discuss the theory and reality of the benefits of faster trend following, Rob’s experience of this and his approach avoiding over-fitting when constructing trading strategies. We wrap up with some thoughts on AHL’s Trend ETF and how a strategy trading 20 markets might perform versus a more diversified program. -----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

There is no secret more carefully guarded than that of how to make atomic weapons. Nuclear technology can power us with clean energy or destroy all of human civilization. It has been alleged for decades that there is a correlation between UAP encounters and nukes, a suggestion that seems intuitive because if an advanced civilization was monitoring us, any breakthroughs in nuclear physics would certainly represent a key developmental milestone. In this episode join our Galactic Macro series host David Dorr as he interviews Larry Hancock, one of the preeminent scientific investigators into UAPs and the co-author of UAP Pattern Recognition Study 1945-1975 US Military Warfare Complex and UAP Indications Analysis, 1945-1975 United States Atomic Warfare Complex. Larry gives us a sobering analysis of the data and the facts which make it clear that we are not alone. -----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----Follow Niels on