The Derivative

Jeff loves it when he sits across from someone who, like him, has been in the niche-managed futures part of the investment world for their entire career. There’s not all that many of them, and today's guest, Michael Harris( @mikeharris410) fits the bill. Michael's unique backstory began within the Sales and Product Development group at Morgan Stanley Managed Futures in 1997, continued as European...

How do all these smart people end up in the crypto space? Versus the hedge fund world or traditional finance, or doctor/lawyer, etc.  And how do investors separate the signal from the noise amongst all the meme stock pumps, Web 3 scams, and crypto deep dives? And is Winter coming, to borrow the Game of Thrones line… We're sitting down with GenZ'er and FinTwit staple Caitlin Cook of the @deadc...

Cover the kid’s ears… because we’re going back to our WTF format to ask what the actual Fingazi is going over in the UK with the bank of England raising rates, then buying a bunch of Gilts to save their pensions. The headlines say it’s some new-fangled LDI concept which led these pensions into trouble. But our guest this week, Zed Francis of Convexitas, says not so fast… the LDI actually is fine –...

How do you create a new futures contract?  You need an exchange. And you need something that changes in price, like a commodity market – or a financial index. This week we're diving deep into crafting an index with T3 Index's founder and CEO, Simon Ho. Simon is no stranger to the vol space, and he has worked in the options industry for over 20 years in trading, product innovation, and risk ma...

Otherworldly forces can affect the market and hurt it just as much. Hurricane Ian continues to bring surges, winds, and flooding to Florida, and we have our own hurricane swirling around the set. That's right, we're bringing two forces together this week in a mashup of two previous pods with Hurricane Hunter Dr. Jeff Masters and Re-Insurance pro Chris Mckeown. We're revisiting what Dr. Jeff has to...

We have a little saying over here on The Derivative,  The More, The Merrier,  and on this week's episode of The Derivative, we're not chatting with one guest, but THREE! Class may no longer be in session, but we are taking a trip down the SIG/Susquehanna memory lane and having our own class reunion with Kris Abdelmessih, Michael Steiner, and Tina Lindstrom. If you're interested in learni...

In the chaotic world we’ve endured since 2020, it turns out all you needed was an outlier-loving strategy to get you through the storm. We’re talking managed futures and trend following in particular, which tend to thrive in periods of turmoil. But how can you effectively prepare for a wide range of market environments while still producing returns that allow for the investor to stick with the inv...

It's not every day you get to sit down with a Volatility veteran with over 30 years of experience…..Well, maybe it’s a bit more common here on the Derivative than elsewhere, but we’ve got a special treat with Ari Bergmann( @AriBergmann ) joining Jeff on this week's Derivative episode. Listen in as they dive into where to find convexity, why that’s not the same thing as buying lottery tickets, how...

For those lucky few who’ve sold a business, inherited wealth, or otherwise find themselves in the enviable position of staying wealthy, not getting wealthy – the investment game can be more about playing defense than going on offense. But how do you go about that, who do you partner with to figure out complex tax and estate issues. This week, Jeff is sitting down with Homer Smith( @HomerSmith_KWP...

Summer’s nearly over and class is definitely back in session for this episode, as we're about to get schooled on options and trying to separate the scams from the science. This week we're delivering the long-awaited episode with Dr. Benn Eifert, a Derivative appointed Jedi of Volatility from QVR Advisors, and Dr. David Rhoiney, who overcame being homeless to become a robotic surgeon who is learnin...

We’re breaking the law...the laws of trading, that is! On this episode of the Derivative, we're joined by Agustin Lebron, who started his career as an engineer and turned prop trader (you'd be surprised how common of a story and skill set that is) before writing his book The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone Today, Agustin is the co-founder and manager of Ess...

This week we're adding a different twist to our typical episode, and we're diving into WHY Commodities can be accretive in your portfolio with Tim Pickering ( @AuspiceTim ). Tim is the Founder, President, and CIO of Auspice Capital Advisors and leads the strategic decision-making and the vision for Auspice's diverse suite of award-winning rules-based quantitative investment strategies. In this wee...

Will the real Portnoy please stand up? This week's guest may not be rating pizzas worldwide in one bite, but he is an expert at simplifying the complex world of money — we're sitting down with the one and only Brian Portnoy, Ph. D., CFA. Brian( @brianportnoy ) is the founder of Shaping Wealth, a coaching and content platform inspiring financial well-being globally. He also has multiple bestselling...

It's not every day you get to talk about investing and food in the same conversation, and this week, refinancing, restructuring, and investing in niche businesses is on the menu with Adam Tkaczuk( @Adam_Tkaczuk ). Adam is a tax consultant, project CFO, and private equity investor. He raises debt, equity, and government subsidies for projects and helps business owners reduce the tax liability on th...

You may know this week's guest as a Kansas City Chief and sometime Royals fan on Twitter, but he has more than one connection to Kansas City. Jay Soloff ( @jsoloff ), an options volatility analyst, former CBOE market maker, pirate, and seller of uncapped forward variance swaps, joins us this week to discuss covering calls and charting curves. Jay brings an exciting twist to this episode and talks...

Are the Fed’s hikes starting to dampen inflation? Oil, grains, and metals have all fallen from their highs. But the rarely spoken of Cotton market was one of the first to crack…falling from 1.58/lb to 0.95/lb in just a few short days. We're digging into this sharp drop and just why and how Cotton is involved in seemingly everything with RCM's very own cotton king, LOGIC Advisors Ron Lawson. In thi...

What should we make of the recent crypto crash?  A sign this is all a scam? Or just another dip in the cycle? Gather round; you're in for an interesting chat with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Disciple on Twitter @LDrogen . A Long Island surfer turned quant turned crypto fund manager who shows us how you have to be able to hold two separate thoughts in your head to succeed in the...

This week's guest may be new to Twitter ( @nancy__davis ), but she's certainly not new to the wide world of volatility in all its wonderous “fruit” forms, including of course rates and fixed income volatility. In this Derivative episode, Jeff sits down with one of the "100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance," Nancy Davis. Nancy, who started her career at Goldman Sachs, is the founder of Quadra...

In this week's episode, Jeff talks with StoneX's Global Macro Strategist, Vincent Deluard @VincentDeluard , who authors weekly research reports on global macro trends, asset flows, European capital markets, and quantitative topics. We catch him literally right after the Fed hikes 75bps, and learn quickly that Lagarde was an accomplished synchronized swimmer and that having a French accent sure hel...

We're taking flight and zooming over to the big bend for a cheerio chat with Charlie McGarraugh, an ex-midwesterner turned londonite. Charlie is the Chief Strategy Officer at Blockchain.com and has an impressive resume as a former mortgage-backed securities trader, head of metals at Goldman, founder of an algo sports betting company, and more. In this episode, Charlie dives into living across the...

Viva Las EQ Derivatives... This week Jeff journeys back to the Windy City from Sin City, where he is joined by a special guest, Mutiny's very own Jason Buck @JasonMutiny . In this episode, they give essential insight into this unique conference for options traders, hedge funds, and insurers. They break down everything you need to know about the event and key takeaways like what was being said, wha...

You're driving down the winding roads of Napa Valley, visiting the countless wineries, taking in the beautiful scenery, and enjoying the various pairings of meats, cheeses, and palate cleansers... But that’s not all that pairs well with wine. This week Anthony Zhang, an ambitious entrepreneur who created Vinovest, gives us the inside scoop on how wine is so much more than just those ‘soft’ descrip...

We're back for part two with Noel Smith – where we dig into the types of options and volatility strategies, he employs for his Convex AM hedge fund.  For the background on why he’s worth listening to on that front, listen to Part 1 about marketing making on the CBOE floor, Getco, and more here:  https://youtu.be/XCeN56HgT68 Noel’s deep options expertise has led Convex AM to a four pillar...

We’re talking with the purveyors of one of the best performing mutual funds thus far in 2022, the dynamically shifting asset allocator, RDMIX (past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results). It hasn’t all been rainbows and lollipops, however, for the ReSolve Asset Management Global team of Rodrigo Gordillo and Mike Philbrick, and they explain why and when a core of Risk Parity s...

This week, we're painting the picture of what life on Chicago's option trading floors was like at the CBOE...but there's a catch — we put it all on the table and needed two episodes! Today's guest came into asset management in a round-about way – trading his own money for decades before venturing into the world of other people's money…We're talking to the one and only Noel Smith @NoelConvex , Mana...