In this episode, we discuss:
- Ensemble investing and its benefits
- Whether market volatility can be predicted ahead of time
- The ways in which the markets can catch investors off-guard
- ‘Dialling’ into and out of strategies
- How Noel’s experience in prop trading and pit trading has helped him today
- Finding the balance between judgement calls and algorithmic signals
- Noel’s VIX and bonds pairs trade
- Assessing the current real value of an asset
- How to approach investing during a ‘stagflationary’ environment
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Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 - Intro
02:06 - Why should somebody add volatility strategies into their portfolio?
03:20 - Do you think that volatility is quite predictable around benign market periods?
04:12 - How do you apply your prop trading background to volatility strategies in general?
05:13 - Did the days of pit trading leaving a big impression on you?
06:28 - Why use ensembles?
07:33 - How do you allocate between strategies during different macro environments?
09:37 - How do you balance judgement calls versus algorithmic calls?
11:38 - How do you think about the timing of adding and removing volatility protection?
15:01 - Where did you come with the idea to pairs trade VIX and bonds?
19:28 - Is there a volatility risk premium?
21:14 - Tell us a little more about your ‘vol-arb’ strategy?
26:28 - How are you determining if something is cheap or overpriced?
27:53 - Do you put more weight on liquidity flow data as opposed to other fundamental data?
30:32 - Can you describe your ‘dispersion’ strategy and elaborate on dispersion trades for those who haven’t heard them?
34:30 - Can you describe your ‘dispersion’ strategy and elaborate on dispersion trades for those who haven’t heard them?
39:33 - How do you think about past, present and future volatility?
41:46 - How do you approach correlations across different timeframes?
43:24 - Dispersion trades seem to go in and out of fashion, do you feel that your strategies run dispersion trades when they’re popular only?
46:38 - Do you dial into and out of strategies rather than switching allocations?
48:11 - Tell us more about the ‘bond vol-arb’ strategy
51:01 - Tell us more about the ‘macro-bats’ strategy
57:42 - What do you think will happen if markets enter a stagflationary environment?
01:03:39 - How would you combine your ensemble investments into a wider portfolio?
