The Derivative

In this episode, we’re joined by a powerhouse group of volatility experts consisting of Kevin Davitt, Wayne Himelsein, Jason Buck, and Bastian Bolesta – moderated by our very own Jeff Malec discussing Navigating Market Volatility. Providing more than just witty banter, you’ll be listening to us talk about how crazy volatility was during March/April, why the VIX is more than just for tail risk, is...

The financial world seems to have a fascination with zoomorphism – the attribution of animal names, emotions, or intentions to non- animal occurrences like market shocks. Black Swans are the famous one, but there’s also been White Moose and Gray Rhino added to the lexicon. This episode we sit down with the creator of the Gray Rhino risk metaphor, Michele Wucker, author of Gray Rhino. In today’s ep...

70 days without sports – seems unbelievable, right? The COVID-19 pandemic has affected us all in more ways than one, and while no sports for 2+ months is at the top of the “first world problems” list, it’s a void left unfulfilled for many people. So we were excited to take a new twist on the Alternative Investment road in today’s episode and talk sports; particularly professional sports team/eSpor...

In today’s episode, we have a little different structure and three unique guests to bring a fresh twist on The Derivative podcast. Blu Putnam of the CME Group, Rodrigo Gordillo of ReSolve Asset Management, and Dan Deering of Teza Technologies join us to discuss the economic & strategy impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Listening today you’ll hear some of the craziest economic stats since the Gr...

Futures traders take clicking a price to generate an order on their PCs for granted these days, much less the instant delivery of every tick, order book data, and trade fills. How’s it all work?  How did it all used to work? In this episode we talk with Guy Scott of Trading Technologies about the early days of screen trading to the evolution of modern electronic trading, to what it takes to p...

This episode’s guest, Salem Abraham, is a bit of a legend in the trend following/managed futures space, with his 30+ years of knowledge and experience making for some of the best stories in the industry (and one of our most entertaining guests to date). In today’s episode we learn more about tiny Canadian, Texas; how you have to noodles and red sauce if in a contest to make the best spaghetti, the...

VIX and volatility guru (who also sidelines as CBOE & CNBC contributor and an RIA and CFO) Joe Tigay is on our pod to share some nuggets of VIX and vol expertise with our listeners. In addition to vix & vol, we’re also talking about Michigan sports teams, the early days in the pit, Equity Armor’s four strateiges, SPX vs S&P, the risk behind options, Pequod’s pizza, trading volatility t...

Yesterday was a historic day for crude……and the trend continues today. With crude oil going negative for the first time ever. That’s right – May Crude Oil futures went to -$37/barrel. Essentially saying you would get paid $37 per barrel to own  this Oil. This has left seasoned, new, and non-futures traders scratching their heads wondering how something like this could even happen. We turned t...

In this episode we chat with an ETF creator, financial book author, and host of the popular Meb Faber Show podcast. We're talking with Meb Faber about Colorado sports teams, trend following, skiing vs surfing, farmland investments, interesting pod guests, how most asset managers are out of business already but don’t know it, how Meb invests his own money, IN-N-OUT orders, and naming ETFs as the la...

In this episode we're diving deep into VIX futures and using that instrument to gain convexity in a portfolio, we chat with Swiss hedge fund manager Alex Orus of Principalium who have a three pronged approach to trading volatility as an asset class. Our topics include  Swiss country music, personifying your trading models, the volatility of volatility, Roger Federer, negative interest rates h...

Chickity China the Chinese chicken futures. Between strict regulations, gated access, mainland-based employees, and more seemingly difficult roadblocks, the Chinese Futures Market can feel untouchable. But with abundant growth possibilities and highly volatile (= good for trading) markets, some firms are leading the charge in accessing this growing marketplace. In this episode, we talk with Fred S...

Take a listen to our latest podcast to hear why we think trading in and out of different volatility regimes in the commodity markets “like a woman” is a big PLUS. We talk with Kimberly Rios, portfolio manager of the Catalyst Hedged Commodity Strategy Fund about: the CFHIX mutual fund, meeting Muhammad Ali, being a woman in the male dominated asset management world, where commodity option liquidity...

This timely episode gets into just what kind of investment strategy you would have needed to have to capture the huge down move in markets recently and huge spike up in volatility. We talk with Bastian Bolesta, founder and CEO of Swiss-based hedge fund Deep Field Capital, about: designing and implementing effective tail risk strategies, how most of the sell-off has happened in overnight hours, pad...

A little different than our usual “hedge fund strategy manager” we chat with Tom Anderson – journalist turned trader turned broker turned entrepreneur – who is now President and Chairman of the Board at DrawBridge Lending; a Chicago fintech company focused on lending in the digital asset space. We’ll be talking about loans against crypto and Bitcoin – covering both sides of the (proverbial) coin w...

We sit down with the three Canadian founders of Resolve Asset Management to talk zebras walking amongst horses, mid-frequency trading (move over HFT), how the Chicago Bears don’t add Alpha, extracting structural market flaws, low carb diets, regulatory and structural arbitrage,  Peru and the Shining Path terrorist group, orthogonal carry, fasting,  winning the content game, and economic...

In this episode exploring the many facets of long volatility and tail risk exposure, we pick the brains of the founders of the Mutiny investment program, which invests in half a dozen VIX and volatility trading programs in a multi-manager, multi-strategy approach. Our topics include why the whole world is short vol, If squirrels and deer are the natural buyers of forest fire insurance, why Jason h...

This episode dives deep into the math and people behind what most people take for granted or don’t even know they need to improve their trading – execution algorithms. We cover Orlando as a favorite vacation spot (What&^%),  what/who is a quant, working with students at Notre Dame, UCLA, and Illinois, how even a slow trader can benefit from fast execution, algos named Prowlers, Snipers, L...

This fun conversation talks with two guys who have chosen a life of monitoring the markets on a near real-time basis, covering serious strategy components, as well as whether a Bulls game or trading Asian markets overnight is more fun for a trader in their 20s, trading Trump tweets, what ‘you can’t lose money’ actually means, Indiana Hoosier basketball, going from global war to blooming peace in 4...

Wayne Himelsein is a hedge fund manager, President, and Chief Investment Officer at Logica Capital Advisers. Beyond that Wayne is a 25-year veteran in the trading space, and we're talking about hedge funds, his quantitative investment strategies, and even his own non-profit, Informed-by-Nature.  On this episode we're covering the oddity of a volatility trader living somewhere where there is n...