Market Trends for April 2019

April saw conflicting headlines over the future of trend following, but what the media did not focus on so much…is the failing of the stock and bond markets to “survive” without artificial life support.

As equities surge to all-time highs, volatility has all but vanished. Investors are betting the calm will last, shorting the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, at rates not seen in at least 15 years.

Large speculators, mostly hedge funds, shorted VIX futures contracts in sizes not seen before.

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Best of TTU – How to Test a Model Over Decades of Data

I often see the press write that too much money is chasing the same trends, and this being the reason that Trend Following strategies have been performing a little under par in the last few years.  So who better to ask if this really is true, than my friend Kathryn Kaminski, who of course co-wrote the…

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24 Top Traders Round Table with John Fidler, Christopher Vogt, and Jonathan Miles – 1of2

“Not all managed future strategies are created equal.” – John Fidler (Tweet) Welcome to Top Traders Round Table, a podcast series on managed futures brought to you by CME Group. On today’s episode, guest host Ranjan Bhaduri speaks with John Fidler, Senior VP and Director of Alternative Investments at Commonwealth Bank and Trust, Christopher Vogt,…

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Best of TTU – Track Records vs Simulations.. What’s Best?

For those of us who have been on the manager side for a while, you’ll know that investors love to analyse decades of performance data before deciding which manager they are going to invest with, and that makes a lot of sense.  But we also come across investors who subsequently redeem based on just a…

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Best of TTU – Crisis Alpha Explained

Kathryn Kaminski is one of my favorite people to discuss Trend Following with, because she has a great way of simplifying and explaining some of the key concepts of the strategy.  Today, we talk about the phrase Crisis Alpha, and how it may be better to think about these strategies as Divergent strategies, because in…

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Best of TTU – Why Trend Following Is Not A Black Box

Often, a Trend following strategy is described as being a ‘Black Box’, as if something bad was going on.  So it was refreshing to hear Scott Foster talk about Trend Following as being in fact, a ‘White Box’, or a ‘Transparent Box’, in comparison to other algorithmic strategies, which are often embraced by investors to…

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Market Trends for March 2019

One of Wall Street’s Most Popular Trading Strategies Is Now Failing
Machines that decide when to buy and sell are struggling to keep up with central banks and Donald Trump.

Remember this headline from Bloomberg on March 1?

Well…as we close the month of March, it sure looks like this journalist got his timing right…

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23 Top Traders Round Table with Chris Cole, Matthew Sargaison, and Dan Stone – 2of2

  “This is where the populism intercedes with the market risks. I think people look at these risks as independent risks, so they’re not looking at them and how they interrelate with the ecosystem of financial products, as well.” – Chris Cole (Tweet) Welcome to Top Traders Round Table, a podcast series on managed futures…

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22 Top Traders Round Table with Chris Cole, Matthew Sargaison, and Dan Stone – 1of2

“I think the idea is that the math of quantitative easing really matters. It’s all about the shift at the margin.” – Dan Stone (Tweet) Welcome to Top Traders Round Table, a podcast series on managed futures brought to you by CME Group and the Managed Funds Association. On today’s episode, which took place at…

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Best of TTU – How ”Slow” Trading Can Be Profitable

Would you believe somebody if they told you they had been very successful in the investment world, by looking at the just markets once a week? Everything, and everyone, seems to be getting increasingly more short-term in their nature, so it seems counter-intuitive that you can run an actively managed trading strategy by only checking…

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