The Derivative

Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic in every walk of life, and perhaps no more so than in the world of hedge funds and alternative investments. Howard Siow, Founding Principal and CEO at Taaffeite Capital, joins The Derivative to discuss how AI is used in the hedge fund world, and how everyone wants AI to predict every move in the market, but that’s not actually what AI does well. Howard talks...

Who in their right mind would name an investment strategy after cockroaches?  Well, probably the guys who view themselves as staging a mutiny against traditional portfolio construction and the investment business = Jason Buck and Taylor Pearson of Mutiny Funds.  We're digging in deep with the two wunderkids in this episode on what exactly the Cockroach strategy is, what the first year fo...

How do you get included in a Market Wizards book? How do you get a whole Michael Covel book written about you? You move from charting markets on graph paper to point and figure charts to running systematic models on an IBM computer in 1980, to running $600mm plus via Trendstat. We’re talking Havalinas and Bassanovas with none other than Tom Basso in today’s episode. Tom is a New Market Wizard as i...

We’re talking with two ‘in the crypto weeds’ traders/asset managers, Ben Upward of Synchronicity and Gary Basin, about crypto’s -30% one day drop, coinbase, the most surprising (& scariest) things about the recent crypto crash, size and action in futures, options, and non-futures, “what if” bitcoin had blown up, the right to a free market, bitcoin as beta?, new Bitcoin offers (like bitcoin mic...

From actual capital allocator to branding his book and podcast “Capital Allocator,” Ted Seides has one of the biggest banks of knowledge in the capital allocation game. He’s a well-known author of two books, host of the podcast Capital Allocators , and in his “free time” invests his own money in some of the best and brightest hedge funds around. In today’s episode, we’re talking with Ted about Cap...

In through the nose – out through the mouth. In through the nose – out through the mouth. You’ve now joined a headspace where we think you’re prepped to focus in and become one with today’s guest. He’s a well known CTA, expert researcher, meditation and yoga practitioner, and Founder & CIO of $1.8 Billion in AUM = Quest Partners. Today’s guest is none other than Nigol Koulajian, he’s been in t...

Today’s guest is one you’ve heard many times before if you’ve listened to The Derivative,  but may not necessarily know all that well. He’s and alts/managed futures veteran, having started his career in Chicago’s famed trading pits, founded a futures investment firm, and continued on to become a partner at RCM Alternatives. ,And, of course, when not doing his day job, steps in as the dynamic...

COVID affected a lot of ways that we interacted with the world – it changed how we worked, how we socialized, how we entertained ourselves….and if you’ve been tuned into the markets over the past year, it also changed our expectations on how in the world Oil prices could have ever gone NEGATIVE. Last year this time we put out our “ Crude Oil Goes Negative…WTF ^%$#?! Pod” and were talking with vete...

*We apologize for potential audio issues with this episode – please see the transcript HERE or go to the episode blog on rcmalts.com to download.* NOPE - we’re not just going to be talking to our typical vol guest. NOPE – we’re not going over the usual trend following or strategy. NOPE we definitely (did) find today’s guest off of VolTwit. @nope_it’s_lily is Head Researcher at Salience Capital and...

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – the opportunities in the Asian investment landscape are nuanced, emerging, and incredibly attractive. But on top of the excitement around the opportunities, there’s also gated access and a general list of unknowns that can make investors think twice; so, in this episode we’re joined by Alvin Fan, CEO of OPIM to check off the list of questions and give...

The world of sports and finance have continually meshed together – and the Covid-19 pandemic has fast tracked that even further. Between the growth of analytics, to financiers making their way into the pro sports arena, I think we’re past a future where these two worlds will ever depart. Today’s guest is the culmination of these two worlds in one with the background (and family name) to prove it....

How many families have two brothers who’ve been in the hedge fund game for 30+ years, much less on polar opposites of the long vol/short vol spectrum. We’re talking with the volatility loving, positive skew seeking brother in our episode today, Roy Niederhoffer. Roy is the founder and President of the eponymous R. G. Niederhoffer Capital Management, which has been coding, trading, analyzing, and i...

When you hear news about artificial intelligence (AI), it might be easy to assume it has nothing to do with you. But if you use face recognition on your phone? Check. Google auto-fills your search bar? Check. And increasingly – the asset manager you may have managing your money is using some combination of machine learning and AI. Today’s guests were early adopters of that tech and applying it to...

Forget fat tails, left tails, even tall tales. We’re going into extracting value from long tails of the distribution on the pod in this episode. Vineer Bhansali is a 29-year industry veteran, previously at PIMCO, a Forbes columnist, author of four books on finance, and is currently the founder and CEO of longtail alpha. In today’s episode, we’re talking with Vineer about abstract physics = finance...

The king of Commodities has entered The Derivative ring. You know his name, you’ve read his books, you’ve probably utilized his index, and now you’re listening to him in this most recent podcast episode. Jim Rogers is an American investor and financial commentator and was there at the start of the Quantum Fund and Soros Fund Management. In today’s episode, we’re talking with Jim about peanut sales...

We’re bringing out the cake & ice cream for this pod because it’s The Derivative’s 1 year anniversary! If you’ve been with us since the beginning – you may fondly remember our inaugural episode The Human Behind The Hedge Fund with Wayne Himelsein. So, in today’s episode, we brought back Wayne, President and Chief Investment Officer at Logica Capital Advisers, and as a special anniversary bonus...

Talking this week with Poker Pro Chris Sparks on everything from game strategy to deciphering A.I. capabilities and catching bots. With Founder, CEO, and Performance Coach of The Forcing Function we’re taking it back to the beginning where we dive in with Chris about an interesting online alias “GoMuckYourself”, grabbing seats at poker tables in Vegas, exploring his latest paper “Play to Win: Meta...

Why can't vol managers tell good jokes? Bad timing? Buh dum tsss. All jokes aside, we’re excited to be back talking Volatility on The Derivative with the Professor, the DJ, the Han Solo of Vol trading, the one and only Benn (with two N’s) Eifert. Benn is Founder and CIO of QVR Advisors and joined us to talk about VIX and options and the overall volatility space. We’re digging deep in this episode...

Bitcoin started the year with a bang, rising up above $41k before falling back into the 20ks, and settling in the mid 30ks lately. It was at $5k in March 2020! Yet it feels way different, and dare we say – less volatile – this time. How are we supposed to interact with bitcoin, how do you capitalize on the volatility, and where does it fit into investor portfolios overall? We have two big-time bit...

If you’ve been on the internet, watched TV, or talked to anyone outside of yourself in the past week and a half you can’t have missed it. GameStop stock ($GME) went from trading at a low of $3/share to +$400/share thanks to a masterful subreddit trolling from retail traders. And it’s not stopping at just GameStop, shares from Blackberry ($BB), AMC ($AMC), Express ($EXP) and Nokia ($NOK) are quickl...

Welcome to the Wizarding World of Market Wizards – and today’s special guest is head wizard who wrote the actual books on market wizards, Jack Schwager. Jack has written 6 books on the markets including his original: Market Wizards and the newly released: Unknown Market Wizards . In addition to his authoring (is that even a word?) Jack has served as a Director for futures research - meaning he kno...

2020 was ruled by global macro events – are we looking at the same fate in 2021? Our guest today can talk not only global macro, but also volatility, bond yields, correlation, oil, metals and more. To ring in the new year we’re joined by Diego Parrilla, Managing Partner at Quadriga Asset Managers and Author of " The Energy World is Flat " and " The Anti-Bubbles .” Diego isn’t just a global macro m...

We’ve already covered the first three months of 2020 with Part I of our 2020 review . We’re now heading into Part II with Jason Buck, CIO at Mutiny Fund and Adam Butler, CIO at ReSolve Asset Management discussing how the fall out of the first three months of 2020 dictated the ending 3/4 of the year. Tune into this next episode to hear more on the possible bond fallout, stimulus holding US markets...

2020 has been a year for the books – be it the fastest every market sell-off or a just as amazing tech rally from the lows. Whether you’re looking at it from a social/emotional/fiscal lens, it probably didn’t pan out the way you imagined based on your New Years Resolution. And in today’s podcast, we’re focusing out with the long lens to take a look back at the year that was 2020 to investigate wha...

It’s hard to get too far into the words Trend Following without running into the name Michael Covel . If you’ve ever looked into the strategy type, his name is there. From speeches to his many books, the aptly named Trend Following Radio and his trend following twitter thread, Michael has been digging into the philosophy and people in and around trend following for nearly 24 years. And as our gues...