The Derivative

Many investors look at commercial real estate as a high-risk, confusing, and sometimes scary way to invest. Our guests today show us why this isn’t the case. From commercial real estate, to mortgage-backed securities, pandemic affects, and hedging risk, Matt Lasky of Equity LLC and Darren Kottle of Caddo Capital Management are on today to go through it all. Take a listen to learn more about privat...

One of the leading volatility trading and derivatives investing events of the year wrapped up last month and we have lots of thoughts. From new vol dispersion products to  portfolio design, tail-risk management and structural vol; if it’s been a hot topic in 2020 – Global EQD covered it. We’re joined by Jim Carroll, Senior Vice President at Toroso Advisors and John Cummings, Director of Resea...

Does all this Machine Learning stuff really work? If it’s so good, why aren’t AI powered hedge funds printing money? And what is the difference between AI, machine learning, deep learning, machine trading, and more. Today’s guest is one that’s been at the center of the AI/MT/ML universe for over four decades. Ernie Chan runs a machine learning hedge fund at QTS Capital management, has authored 3 b...

Our guest today is somewhat of a modern philosopher, mapping out how the investing world sees the real world, while at the same time questioning his own place in that world and how he can change it for the better. Ben Hunt, Co-Founder of Second Foundation Partners and creator of the Epsilon Theory blog, joins us on The Derivative, offering up his fresh perspective and novel insights into market dy...

Votes are being counted, CNN and Fox are on 24-hour reporting cycles, and Tweets/FB Posts/Texts are still being sent out at lightening speeds. What happens if a winner isn’t announced for 2 or more days? What happens if President Trump remains in power? What happens if former Vice President Joe Biden takes over as POTUS? In today’s U.S. Election – What^%$# Episode we’re joined by Matt LaViolette,...

For every option buyer, there is a seller. The brave souls who are accused of picking up pennies in front of a freight train. But are they dumb? Crazy?  Or just better at timing the market than the rest of us? Understanding option strategies which involve collecting premium seems easy, but there’s way more that goes into this recipe. As Jeff Malec asked our guest in this pod “Give it to me st...

Is trend following too big? Can managed futures do it without the bond tailwind they’ve had for 30 years? Does globalization take away diversification? We’re debunking these trend following myths/truths (?) in today’s podcast – and today’s guest is ideal to take us through the ins-and-outs of these trend following theories. We’re joined by Kathryn Kaminski, PHD, CAIA, and Chief Research Strategist...

Today’s pod is all about word play playing into alternative investment. How does Jam Croissant relate to Cem Karsan? What about Vanna Charm and options definitions? Or the forever popular “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” evolving to “nothing is ever risk free”? To get together the definitions, explanations, and educated facts on all these nuances, we have FinTwit VIP & Founder and Senio...

With storms named Gamma and Delta making their way to US shores – we really couldn’t have timed this release better from a hurricane-content-meets-alts-investment podcast; it’s the: perfect storm ( buh-dum-ch ). Today’s guest is creator of Weather Underground and the Cat 6 blog, a person who has flown through an actual hurricane, and a whiz at modeling weather data in a way that us non-meteorologi...

If men are from Mars and women from Venus, it often feels like stock/bond investors are from Earth and us Alternative Investment folks are from Vulcan.  We’re digging in with the Bull and Baird blog’s author and Baird market analyst Michael Antonelli to hear how the earthlings (aka wealth management clients) actually think about investments, direct from the guy who is serving up what a whole...

We’re joined by option guru and author of ‘The Second Leg Down’ in this episode to talk through the real-time test of market crashes and volatility dynamics we’ve witnessed since February. Is our guest’s theory on volatility sequencing proving its worth in this environment of bigger VIX spikes, oil going negative, and retail trader flow? Hari Krishnan has all the insight on how to survive during v...

The “bar” we walk into in this episode is one that specializes in blending the unique flavors of beta and alpha, and our mixologists are Victor Canto, Chief Economist of Cadhina & Co, and Donn Stobierski & Jim Kleinops, the Founders and Managing Members at Black Bear Capital Advisors joining us to talk about convexity and rebounds, and adding equity to global macro. Today’s podcast delves...

So – what’s happening in the wide world of volatility? The market moved to new all time highs and the VIX actually went UP. The market then mini-crashed lower and VIX barely budged?  WTF indeed? Is it Robinhood traders?  It is market makers?  Is it sustainable?  To break it down we’re doing another of our WTF episodes, and are joined by two VOL pros, Matt Thompson – Managing Pa...

In today’s episode we’re pushing the boundaries of traditional alternative investments and getting into oil trading, trend following, and taking risks (both in business & with your strategy) with Lead Portfolio Manager and CIO at Auspice Capital Advisors, Tim Pickering. From trading shell oil to striking out on his own – Tim’s expansive experience in the alts world is about as big as the Canad...

With a Top Gun-like bio of working with billionaires and big hedge funds, Michael Green is one of the top prospects in the alternative investment game. BUT, all we hear him talking about these days is his passive thesis, to the point where he jokes – that may end up on his tombstone one day.  We’ve heard all that elsewhere, so wanted to get into more – like what he has going on at Logica, if...

We’re leaving the fire of hedge funds and jumping headfirst into the frying pan of……performance mindset? Yep, from pro athletes to pro traders, everyone needs a performance mindset, and  today’s guest founded his firm to help get those who need to perform, ready to perform. Russ Rausch (former Trading Technologies/Emil Van Essen exec) refocused his passion from the trading arena into training...

Legend time. We’re hearing straight from the mouth of well-known Turtle Trader – Jerry Parker – on this episode to talk all things trend following. Becoming a leading voice in the alternatives investment and trend following space – Jerry has turned his Turtle Trader experience into a trend following career (perhaps at the expense of some other things in life, as he mentions…) Join us for this talk...

We sat down with three different legs of the hedge fund stool who (feeling the currently hedge fund investment landscape is a bit broker) are partnering on bringing some disruption to the hedge fund space with a new platform/fund of funds approach to analyze and allocate to different strategies.  This three-way conversation touches on the perception that hedge funds suck in light of their sto...

In a #ThrowbackThursday of sorts, we’re bringing you an episode recorded pre-pandemic where we hit the road and traveled to Utah to interview the brain behind Certeza Asset Management, Founder and CIO – Brett Nelson. Brett is another guest deserving of the moniker VIXpert – having been trading the VIX since it first entered the game, literally trading VIX back when there were a few dozen contracts...

How do you get investors to stick with an asset allocation that’s good for them in the long term, but maybe doesn’t taste so good over shorter timer periods?  Today’s guest has designed a new mutual fund to attempt just that, giving investors the whole meal instead of letting them fumble around with the ingredients. Eric Crittenden, Co-Founder and CIO of Standpoint Funds joins us today to tal...

In today’s episode, we’re passing by all the players and calling in the head coach – the head coach of Ycharts that is. Sean Brown – CEO of Ycharts joins us to talk about how this FinTech SAAS focused company is helping investors and advisors make the complex easy, and the easy look good! Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about: Notre Dame vs Stanford, fundamental charts, a home chef’s be...

We recently wrapped up our virtual conference: “Capitalizing on China’s Growth: Opening the Door for Investors and Managers” where we had some great one-on-one interviews with hedge fund managers operating in Asia and live in mainland China markets, including futures. We pulled the best nuggets from each individual manager and mashed them into the ultimate pod on different strategy nuances across...

Similar to how we quickly grabbed some experts to discuss Crude Oil going negative , we grabbed some VIX experts as soon as the news hit this week that Credit Suisse was pulling the plug on one of the biggest VIX tracking exchange traded products. What will this do to VIX futures volume, liquidity, and the curve. What does this mean for traders and firms using these VIX products to tweak their exp...

Our guest today is the Co-founder & CEO of Newfound Research, host of the popular podcast Flirting with Models, and FinTwit “influencer” – Corey Hoffstein. In this episode, we’re talking with Corey about the impact of “data”, the juvenile meaning behind Flirting with Models, 1000s of flavors of trend, hitting the gym, the founding of Newfound, suicides in Ithaca, sticking to your strategy thro...

In this episode, we’re flipping the script of our usual hedge fund manager and drilling down on the allocation side. Alexander Mende is a Senior Investment Analyst and Head of Investment Research at RPM Risk and Portfolio Management. We’re covering a lot of ground with Alexander including herd immunity in Stokholm, an allocator’s due diligence, billion dollar AUMs, picking managers with higher ris...