OI17: The End of the Bull Market: What’s Next for Equities? ft. Asim Ghaffar

Top Traders Unplugged

Niels Kaastrup-Larsen

Business, Business News, Investing, News

4.8 • 670 Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Moritz Seibert speaks with Asim Ghaffar, the founder and CIO of AG Capital, a Boston-based macro hedge fund. Asim explains why he believes insourcing rather than outsourcing the organizational processes of running a hedge fund business is critical and how it can add long-term value to the business. He also describes why sales and branding are key components to a successful investment management business, and how AG Capital connects with clients and prospective investors. In the second part of the conversation, Asam and Moritz speak about AG Capital’s style of trading, how they position size, why they take concentrated positions, how their methods differ from those of systematic trend following funds, and what their current long-term and short-term investment themes are, touching on gold, Bitcoin, copper, natural gas, and some other markets.

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Episode TimeStamps:

02:13 - Introduction to Asim Ghaffar and AG Capital

06:48 - What defines a great hedge fund?

12:13 - How do you find clients as a hedge fund?

18:32 - Creating world class in-house operations

25:32 - Ghaffar's framework for building portfolios

35:05 - How Ghaffar differs from a classical trend follower

39:16 - Why Ghaffar enforces a fixed number of positions

41:40 - What is so cool about stocks?

46:16 - Why Ghaffar sometimes decreases an exposure

51:36 - How Ghaffar approaches gold

54:05 - Why AG Capital stays away from Bitcoin

01:01:54 - Is China actually more democratic than the US?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Fundamentally, I'm still bearish.
0:08.0	I think we're at the end of a long 16, 17-year secular bull market inequities where
0:13.2	buy the dip has become ingrained in both the professional and retail community.
0:18.1	We haven't had a proper recession, a cyclical bear market in, and again, 16 years
0:23.2	since the 07 to own an episode. So these things don't happen very often, but, you know, when they do
0:27.9	happen, you have to have your eyes open. And that's what I'm looking for with equities.
0:32.1	It's a classic old-school bear market, which, again, we have not had in 17 years. So people
0:37.3	have really forgotten
0:38.0	how equities trade during true bear markets. Imagine spending an hour with the world's
0:44.8	greatest traders. Imagine learning from their experiences, their successes, and their failures.
0:50.7	Imagine no more. Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged, the place where you can learn from the best hedge fund managers in the world, so you can take your manager, due diligence, or investment career to the next level.
1:03.4	Before we begin today's conversation, remember to keep two things in mind.
1:07.4	All the discussion we'll have about investment performance is about the past, and past
1:11.6	performance does not guarantee or even infer anything about future performance. Also understand
1:16.8	that there's a significant risk of financial loss with all investment strategies, and you need to
1:21.3	request and understand the specific risks from the investment manager about their product
1:25.8	before you make investment decisions.
1:28.2	Here's your host, veteran hedge fund manager, Niels Kostrup Larson.
1:37.6	Welcome to another episode in the Open Interest series on Top Traders Unplocked, hosted by Moritz-Seepard.
1:43.8	In life, as well as in trading, maintaining a spirit of curiosity and open-mindedness is key,
1:50.3	and this is precisely what the Open Interest series is all about.
1:54.6	Join Moritz as he engages in candid conversations with seasoned professionals from around
	...

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