TopTradersUnplugged.com

This week, Mark Rzepczynsky joins us for our weekly update on Trend Following, at the end of yet another busy week for inflation watchers. Based on an article by Cliff Asness at AQR, we discuss why you want to own managed futures and why you want to avoid getting "carried away" as a Trend Follower, the dual mandate and the difference between strategy and running a business, innovation in Trend Fol...

Today, Darius Dale, Founder & CEO of 42macro, joins us for a conversation on Global Macro from a broad perspective. We discuss the outlook for inflation and the implication it has on the markets going forward, the path to a more elevated inflation level and how we may get there, what we can learn from the past about inflation and advice for trading in an inflationary regime. Additionally, Darius e...

Today, Richard Brennan joins us to discuss what really matters within Trend Following, as well as an update on the reaction to the latest CPI data. We also address questions from listeners regarding how to achieve a robust portfolio by avoiding recency bias and using a slow adaptive process, how sample size is most optimally used in Trend Following and the advantages of using a simplistic approach...

Edward Chancellor, Author, Journalist and unrivaled Financial Historian, joins us today to discuss the history of Interest, based on his new book, “The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest". We address why it is crucial to pay attention to the historical perspectives of the economy, the allocation of capital and interest and why low interest rates have a feedback effect on the economy, the zo...

Today, Alan Dunne joins us to discuss the ongoing instability in the markets and rising inflation, and why we, as investors, should keep an open mind for what is to come. We address the pros and cons of replication strategies, the performance of the past months and why we are beginning to see a shift in the markets. We review some recent articles, including an interview with Edward Chancellor, who...

Bilal Hafeez, Founder, CEO and Head of Research at Macro Hive, joins us today to discuss the current state of the markets and how we are possibly heading into a new regime and why FED Funds may hit 8%. We address the economic outlook of the near future and how the FED will deal with the challenges of inflation and increasing interest rates, how technology has taken over parts of the labour force a...

Today, we are joined by Jerry Parker where we dive into some of the highlights from the challenging month of July and how the industry has handled the current high level of volatility and trend reversals, why Trend Following continues to work but how narratives can create vicious reversals in the markets. We also discuss questions from listeners regarding Jerry’s strategies for entering and exitin...

Today, we are joined by Andrew Smithers, Author, Economist and Founder of Smithers & Co, to discuss how we can achieve economic stability, based on his book, “The Economics of the Stock Market”. We address the Q Ratio and why it is important for economic stability, how to use the idea of hindsight value to predict markets and how monetary policy has contributed to economic instability, the incenti...

Mark Rzepczynsky joins us today for a weekly talk on Trend Following, where we discuss how we are beginning to see stagflation and recession around the world, how to manage systemic risk as a trend follower, how to construct your portfolio using Trend Following funds and why it’s preferred to let Trend Following funds replace bonds and commodities, whilst leaving equities in your portfolio. Additi...

Manoj Pradhan, Author and Founder of Talking Heads Macroeconomics, joins us in today’s episode to discuss the structural forces that will drive markets in the future, based on his book, “The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality and an Inflation Revival”. We cover demographics and how it has impacted inflation and interest rates, the idea of using robots and automation to...

Today, Richard Brennan tackle lots of great questions from listeners as to why Trend Following works, why trends occur in markets and why it is best to exploit them using a systematic approach, the idea of doing Trend Following on Trend Following using the TTU trend barometer. We also discuss different ways of looking at leverage in your portfolio, pros and cons of using stops and different approa...

Today, Larry Siegel, Author and Director of Research at CFA Research Foundation, joins us to discuss his book, “Fewer, Richer, Greener: Prospects for Humanity in an Age of Abundance” and how demographic trends impact inflation. Additionally, we discuss the benefits of population growth, the importance of having a free society and how authoritarianism and fascism impairs a population, the history o...

Today, Alan Dunne and I discuss the use of return stacking in asset management when building a diversified portfolio and the risk implications, adding CPPI on top of Trend Following and using options to achieve a constant cash flow. We also discuss the increasing inflation and rising uncertainty in the economy, the relationship between inflation and unemployment and how we are in the middle of a d...

James A. Fok, Financial Markets Professional and author of the book, “Financial Cold War”, joins us today for a discussion on how the Great Leap Forward has had an impact on China as a society and why they start to experience a virtual societal collapse, the financial relationship between China and the U.S and how financial warfare between the two countries can create a global crisis. We also disc...

Rob Carver joins us to discuss the eventful month of June and take questions from listeners regarding moving average crossover systems including what the best exit rules are for these systems, and why it might not be a good idea to enter all existing positions for new accounts. We also debate the sustainability of short-term Trend Following and intraday trading, and how much of the profit from TF...

In today’s episode, Antti Ilmanen, author and Global co-head of the Portfolio Solutions Group at AQR Capital Management, joins us to discuss key learnings from his new book, “Investing Amid Low Expected Returns”. We break down why commodities are crucial for generating returns in periods of high inflation and how to manage risk through diversification. We also discuss portfolio construction and wh...

Today, we are joined by Jerry Parker to discuss how recessions affect current trends and returns for Trend Followers, how to use ATR to determine the initial stopand when to switch to using a trailing stop for your position. We also discuss if it's possible to achieve comparable perforamance when investing through a public or private fund. Finally we turn to a few imporant topics like how “alts” o...

Nathaniel Whittemore, aka NLW, creator and host on The Breakdown podcast, joins us in today’s episode to discuss the big power shifts and social changes that are taking place in the world right now, the limits of Central Banks to handle inflation, the future of Crypto and how it impacts the social dynamics of society. We also discuss the dark sides of Bitcoin, regulation of the Crypto space and it...

In today’s episode, Mark Rzepczynski joins us to discuss a listener question regarding different ways of adding capital and adjusting position size. We also take a deep dive into the latest research paper from Aspect Capital, which discuss the Great Repricing of Risk and why Trend Following strategies are advantageous in times of crises, dislocation of markets and how shocks in markets affect beha...

In today’s episode, Peter Atwater, author and adjunct professor of Economics at William & Mary, joins us to discuss socionomics and why media is a great mirror of mood, how confidence in Central Banks relates to the level of interest rates, “stacked vulnerability” and how it runs the potential of creating exhaustion, inequality and the battle between the top and the bottom of society. We also disc...

Today, Rob Carver joins us to discuss recent events in the world of Trend Following and takes questions from listeners regarding what it takes to do Trend Following full-time and how much capital is needed to do so. We also discuss potential benefits of adding a mean reversion system on a short term time frame and exploring trend following in spreads, what Rob thinks of trading alternative markets...

In today’s episode, the dynamic duo Alfonso Peccatiello, aka MacroAlf and Andreas Steno Larsen, join us to discuss all things Macro...from Central Banks and the reasons for the rising inflation, populism and how monetary policy has created inequality. We also get around demographics and how the shrinking labour force poses a threat to the economy, ESG and the impact it has on inflation, how a gene...

Richard Brennan joins us in today’s episode, to discuss all things Trend Following and we take lots of questions from listeners regarding methods for calculating initial stops and trailing stops, how to define and classify Trend Following, programming languages and how CTAs follow their system rules during drawdowns. We also talk about how big the Trend Following industry really is, back testing,...

Today, Grant Williams, creator of The Grant Williams Podcast, joins us to discuss the direction that the world is heading from a global macro perspective, the role of the Federal Reserve and how it has corrupted the price of money. We also touch on how the loss of faith in institutions is a key feature of the Fourth Turning, how inflation impacts inequality and how confidence in the Federal Reserv...

Today, Alan Dunne joins us to discuss manager selection and how to overcome behavioural biases, based on his paper, “Solving the Manager Selection Puzzle”, narratives and dealing with randomness in Trend Following, the end of the 60/40 portfolio and moving from public to private equity, trend following performance and quantitative investment strategies, trend following in an ever changing world an...