ALO05: Better than Alpha ft. Chris Schelling
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2022
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Alan Dunne is joined by Chris Schelling, Chief Investment Strategist at Venturi Private Wealth and author of the book “Better Than Alpha”, to discuss asset allocation and how assets are managed in the private space vs institutional space, about disrupting the 60/40 model and formulating a new standard, the evolution of the industry over the years, the role of liquidity in asset allocation, the use of Alpha and Beta in investment, what it takes to be a skilled manager and the risk of manager selection.
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In this episode, we discuss:
- How are assets managed in the private space vs institutional space
- Biases in asset allocation and how to overcome them.
- Using Alpha, Beta and other investment strategies
- Due diligence and things to avoid in the process
- The risks of manager selection and what it takes to be a good manager.
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Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 - Intro
03:23 - About Chris’s background and his role at Venturi
12:45 - Disrupting the 60/40 model and formulating a new standard
17:54 - How the industry has evolved over the years
21:56 - Is private equity less risky?
23:43 - Is liquidity being more or less valued as it should be?
27:39 - Alpha, Beta and mapping strategies into categories
32:37 - Dispersion and persistence of returns
36:30 - How to set objectives and make decisions
40:14 - Overcoming biases
44:20 - Dealing with randomness
47:33 - Important skills managers need to have
54:29 - Timeframe for analysing a manager’s performance
57:46 - Things to avoid in the due diligence process
01:00:14 - Risks within manager selection
01:03:00 - How much experience do you need?
01:05:09 - Advice for working with asset allocation and manager selection
01:06:12 - Book recommendations
Copyright © 2025 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It's definitely harder to do it today, I think, than, you know, 20 years ago. |
| 0:11.3 | I mean, everything just continues to get more competitive. |
| 0:14.3 | If you want to sit around and wait for the perfect opportunity, like, you'll never find it. |
| 0:19.2 | I sit on the investment committee for a small |
| 0:22.6 | charitable foundation here in Austin. It's roughly $55 million. I've never invested in |
| 0:28.6 | private markets. And there's been an ongoing conversation about how should we think about |
| 0:32.5 | this, should we do it now, is now the right time. And that conversation probably predates me joining the investment committee |
| 0:39.4 | two years ago. So, you know, one of the things, I've got a friend in private markets, he says, |
| 0:44.7 | the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. |
| 0:52.3 | Imagine spending an hour with the world's greatest traders. |
| 0:56.2 | Imagine learning from their experiences, their successes, and their failures. |
| 1:00.7 | Imagine no more. |
| 1:02.6 | Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged, the place where you can learn from the best hedge fund managers in the world, |
| 1:08.5 | so you can take your manager, due diligence, or investment |
| 1:11.4 | career to the next level. Before we begin today's conversation, remember to keep two things in |
| 1:16.7 | mind. All the discussion we'll have about investment performance is about the past, and past |
| 1:21.5 | performance does not guarantee or even infer anything about future performance. Also understand that |
| 1:27.0 | there's a significant risk of financial loss with all investment |
| 1:29.8 | strategies, and you need to request and understand the specific risks from the investment |
| 1:34.5 | manager about their product before you make investment decisions. |
| 1:38.2 | Here's your host, veteran hedge fund manager, Nealz Kostrup Larson. |
| 1:47.3 | For me, the best part of my podcasting journey has been the opportunity to speak to a huge range |
... |
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