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

Rob Carver is back from summer break for a conversation that moves between past and present through the lens of lived experience. Starting with the anniversary of Lehman’s collapse, Rob and Niels unpack why strong performance often coexists with poor investor outcomes - and how timing, not strategy, remains the silent killer. They question the recent push into trend by asset management giants, weigh whether CTA underperformance marks a structural shift or a familiar cycle, and examine what the data can and can’t tell us when conviction fades. If there’s a theme this week, it’s simple: knowing what works is not the same as using it well.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to

Richard Tomlinson joins Alan Dunne for a conversation shaped by experience, not theory. As CIO of LPPI, Richard is responsible for £27 billion in pension assets - but what stands out here is the clarity with which he navigates complexity. From the fading utility of labels like “illiquidity premium” and “hedge fund” to the trade-offs between cost, alignment, and control, this episode is about building portfolios that work in the real world - not just in a model. They explore inflation’s structural drivers, the quiet rise of fiscal dominance, and why some of the industry’s most comfortable assumptions no longer hold. It’s not about being contrarian - it’s about being clear-eyed.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 fr

Katy Kaminski returns to explore why results in trend following rarely look alike, even when the rules sound the same. Using fresh research from Man Group and Quantica, she and Niels trace the fingerprints of design choices: the pace of signals, how portfolios tilt, whether to add carry, and the impact of alternative markets. Along the way they connect these differences to today’s landscape, from the Fed’s looming decision to Europe’s bond jitters, from gas and power’s outsized role in recent Alternative CTA returns to the risks of crowding. It’s a clear-eyed discussion about how systematic strategies evolve - and why dispersion matters.Get Your FREE Copy of the latest Research Paper from DUNN Capital.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 

Anna Wong, Chief U.S. Economist at Bloomberg, joins Alan Dunne with a clear-eyed assessment of where policy and politics are headed. As markets bet on cuts and the Fed talks balance, she sees a different risk: a slow-burning inflation that’s quietly taking hold. Anna breaks down why tariffs haven’t hit as expected, how AI is already reshaping the labor force, and what’s really driving service-sector price pressures. Beyond the data, the conversation turns to Fed culture, the limits of independence, and what a Trump-aligned central bank might mean in practice. Less about what’s forecast - more about what’s misunderstood.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Follow

What makes an alternative investment truly valuable? In this episode, Moritz Siebert joins Niels Kaastrup-Larsen for a conversation that moves past market moves and into the core design of systematic strategies. They explore what diversification really means, why manager size shapes more than just capacity, and how incentives - both fees and institutional expectations - quietly reshape the industry. From carbon markets and copper dislocations to volatility suppression and position sizing, this is an episode about alignment: between strategy and structure, manager and mandate, risk and resilience. At a time when most portfolios still rely on the familiar, this is a case for what’s missing.And you can get your free copy of the recent paper from DUNN Capital here!-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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

What if knowing you isn’t the end goal... but shaping you is? In this episode, Kevin Coldiron speaks with Columbia professor Sandra Matz about how algorithms trained on our clicks, searches, and faces don’t just predict our behavior - they influence it. They unpack how personalization narrows possibility, why convenience can come at the cost of resilience, and what happens when machines learn to mirror us better than we mirror each other. From the false promise of data consent to the quiet collapse of complexity, this is a conversation about power, psychology, and the systems quietly remaking the human experience.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to

As trend following begins to reassert itself, Niels and Nick Baltas dig beneath the surface of recent CTA performance - where the signals are working, why fixed income remains unresolved, and how speed is revealing deeper structural divides. But this episode goes beyond attribution. What if the industry has mistaken correlation shifts for changes in signal speed? What if the very idea of a “trend beta” is flawed? And what if compounding durable returns isn’t about chasing performance, but protecting against path? This is a conversation about design over style, clarity over convention, and the quiet decisions that shape real outcomes.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Ad

Mike Azlen joins Moritz Seibert for a frank look at carbon markets, and why much of what passes for climate action may be making things worse. While offsets dominate headlines, it's the regulated markets that deliver real emissions cuts by design, not intention. They unpack how cap-and-trade channels profit into abatement, why moral hazard plagues the voluntary space, and where long-only investors can find a real risk premium. From structural inefficiencies to measurable impact, this is a conversation about aligning incentives with outcomes - in a market where price isn’t just a signal, but a lever.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio

Yoav Git and Alan Dunne sits down for a conversation that challenges familiar assumptions about curve trading, market structure, and the role of CTAs. They explore why dislocations across time horizons create pockets of alpha most models miss, and how breakout behavior in commodity spreads signals more than noise. Drawing on a recent Bank of England study, Yoav explains how different participants leave distinct footprints on the FX curve, and why CTAs, far from being passive allocators, can act as dynamic responders to changing regimes. This is systematic trading, without the shorthand.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.Learn

Louis-Vincent Gave returns with a blunt assessment of a global order fraying at key seams. Construction is stalling. Trade policy is adrift. Capital is retreating from the U.S. And yet, markets hum along... propped up by AI euphoria and the illusion of fiscal permanence. In this conversation with Alan Dunne, Louis questions whether investors grasp the shifting ground beneath their feet: from rising tariff walls to energy fragility, from the quiet restructuring of China’s financial system to the early signals of capital rotation into emerging markets. If this is a transition phase, most portfolios aren’t built for what comes next.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Add Tr

Richard Brennan joins Niels for a conversation that redefines how trend following is understood. Behind the shared language lie four distinct archetypes - each built around a different purpose. Richard walks through them with clarity, then unpacks the trade-offs: static sizing vs. vol targeting, symmetry vs. asymmetry, speed vs. patience. A real-world portfolio test drives the point home... some strategies don’t just prefer diversification, they depend on it. This episode is about design, but more than that, it’s about alignment. Because in a field crowded with performance metrics, the most important question often goes unasked: what exactly is this built to do?-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 l

From the first futures in 1848 to today’s zero-day options, Cem Karsan, Mandy Xu, and Ed Tom chart how derivatives have moved from the market’s periphery to its center of gravity. At the core is Cboe’s new VIX decomposition tool, which disentangles moves driven by downside hedging, upside speculation, and shifts in the volatility surface. Through episodes like the yuan shock, Volmageddon, and 2024’s “Liberation Day,” they show how positioning can amplify or mute risk, and why vol sometimes rises into rallies. This is a guided tour of volatility’s inner workings, and how reading its structure can reveal the market’s next move before price does.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Rea

When official data starts serving politics, markets lose their anchor. Alan Dunne and Niels examine the quiet shift unfolding as the U.S. edges closer to emerging market behavior - firing statisticians, sidelining inconvenient numbers, and pressuring the Fed ahead of a consequential leadership reshuffle. With labor supply falling, growth stalling, and tariffs acting as stealth taxes, the Fed’s playbook no longer fits the moment. Behind the scenes, hedge fund power brokers position themselves to shape what comes next. Plus, an unvarnished look at trend following’s drawdown, the lazy critiques making the rounds, and why so many allocators still miss the point.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 lates

What if our most trusted economic statistic is pointing us in the wrong direction? Diane Coyle joins Kevin Coldiron to explore why GDP - long treated as a proxy for progress - now obscures more than it reveals. As economies shift toward services, intangibles, and unpaid digital labor, much of today’s value creation falls outside the frame. Drawing on her new book, The Measure of Progress, Coyle makes the case for a new way of seeing - one that captures time, trust, and the real foundations of growth. The question isn’t how fast we’re moving. It’s whether we’re measuring the right road.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.Learn m

Mark Rzepczynski joins Niels Kaastrup-Larsen for a conversation shaped by tension between surface calm and deeper dislocation. From copper’s sudden collapse to signs of stress in liquidity and leverage, they explore how market behavior is increasingly defined by fragility, not fundamentals. With Fed policy boxed in, equity optimism rising, and stablecoins quietly redrawing the contours of the monetary system, the challenge for investors isn’t prediction - it’s positioning. They also confront the limits of complexity in models and why, in uncertain regimes, the discipline of doing less may offer the most resilience. This is trend following in context.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “

Steven Bell has seen the macro machine from every angle - Treasury insider, hedge fund manager, and chief economist. In this wide-ranging conversation with Alan Dunne, he traces the quiet erosion of economic orthodoxy and why AI, not tariffs, may prove the more destabilizing force. Bell explains how Fed independence is fraying, why wage dynamics matter more than headline inflation, and what investors miss when they over-index on models. With stories from trading floors and policy rooms alike, this episode captures a rare perspective: someone who’s watched markets evolve, not just from charts, but from inside the decisions that moved them.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons

Andrew Beer and Tom Wroble return to join Niels Kaastrup-Larsen for a timely examination of how trend following is adapting, and why some say it may be losing its edge. Tom unpacks new research showing a quiet drift toward slower models, raising the question of whether CTAs are evolving or converging. Andrew pushes back on the prevailing wisdom around diversification, suggesting that complexity often obscures cost rather than delivering true value. From shifting model speeds to the incentives shaping manager behavior, this is a conversation about what trend following is becoming... and what investors risk overlooking as some strategies grow more complex in pursuit of outperformance.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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

What happens when an overlooked asset becomes essential? Artem Milinchuk returns to share how farmland, long seen as niche... is quietly stepping into the center of long-term portfolios. He and Niels discuss what’s changed since 2020: rising inflation, tighter capital, a demographic handoff reshaping land ownership, and how tech is altering both the economics and culture of agriculture. This isn’t about chasing yield. It’s about owning what endures. From almonds to avocados, tariffs to treasuries, and legacy to liquidity, this episode offers a clear-eyed look at an asset class rooted in necessity, and poised for relevance.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Fol

As summer sets in, Cem Karsan joins Niels Kaastrup-Larsen to trace the contours of a market that feels calm but isn’t. What looks like low vol masks a crowded hedge fund ecosystem and a structural vol compression regime few understand. From a VIX spike driven by unexpected Call activity to the slow-motion political pressure on Powell, the signals are subtle but mounting. They cover China’s resource diplomacy, AI’s quiet dislocation of white-collar work, and the rising fragility from concentration across assets, brokers, and narratives. This is a conversation about setup, not outcome... and the traps hiding in plain sight.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Foll

Rick Santelli joins Cem Karsan for a conversation that cuts through the noise. From the floor of the Cboe to the era of central bank primacy, Santelli reflects on how markets have been reshaped... not just by technology or policy, but by the loss of honest signals. They cover the Fed’s shift from restraint to control, the unintended consequences of zero rates, and why housing, credit, and the long bond may be nearing a breaking point. This isn’t a retrospective. It’s a clear warning from someone who’s seen what happens when incentives go unchecked.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----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 “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.Sen