SI158: The Secrets to Raising Capital ft. Mark Rzepczynski
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2021
⏱️ 91 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mark Rzepczynski joins us today to discuss why people are as important as processes when investors are choosing funds, the factors that can predict future performance of a fund manager, how Trend Following often performs best when markets are highly correlated, some thoughts on portfolio construction and the various ways to measure risk, the importance of having a strong narrative when communicating what you do to allocators, the infamous ‘bandwagon effect’ among investors, how current AUM can often affect an investors decision to choose a fund, how capital allocators can improve their due diligence with Trend Following funds, and why investors like firms made up of a strong team rather than a strong single player.
You can find Mark’s latest writings here.
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50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE
In this episode, we discuss:
- How people appeal more to investors than trading systems alone
- How to spot future star performers in advance
- Unconventional approaches to market correlations
- The importance of communication and presentation skills when communicating to clients
- Why investors tend to copy their peers
- Whether fund size matters to capital allocators
- How strong teams are usually more sought after by institutional investors than single players
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And you can get a free copy of my latest book “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.
Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.
Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.com
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Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 – Intro
03:08 – A huge thank you to listeners of the show for leaving your 5-star reviews on iTunes, and feel free to share our link with 3 of your like-minded friends: https://top-traders-unplugged.captivate.fm/listen
04:28 – Macro recap from Niels
06:15 – Weekly review of performance
11:21 – Q1, Q2 & Q3; Brett: Do you group your futures contracts into ‘risk buckets’ (sectors/groups), and give a max exposure to each ‘risk bucket’? Do you apply ‘risk-to-stop’ measures on particular types of asset class or only on the whole portfolio? How do you avoid overweighting your system toward currencies, considering the fact there are so many currency pairs to trade?
27:25 – Discussion on the key drivers for manager selection, inspired by a paper co-authored with Mark, which will be released soon
57:02 – How important consultations are in the capital allocation process
01:26:59 – Benchmark performance update
Copyright © 2025 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved
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PLUS: Whenever you're ready... here are 3 ways I can help you in your investment Journey:
1. eBooks that cover key topics that you need to know about
In my eBooks, I put together some key discoveries and things I have learnt during the more than 3 decades I have worked in the Trend Following industry, which I hope you will find useful. Click Here
2. Daily Trend Barometer and Market Score
One of the things I’m really proud of, is the fact that I have managed to published the Trend Barometer and Market Score each day for more than a decade...as these tools are really good at describing the environment for trend following managers as well as giving insights into the general positioning of a trend following strategy! Click Here
3. Other Resources that can help you
And if you are hungry for more useful resources from the trend following world...check out some precious resources that I have found over the years to be really valuable. Click Here
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're about to join Jerry Parker, Maritz Siebert, and Neil's Kastrup Larson on their |
| 0:06.3 | raw and honest journey into the world of systematic investing and learn about the most |
| 0:11.1 | dependable and consistent yet often overlooked investment strategy. |
| 0:15.1 | Welcome to the Systematic Investor podcast series. |
| 0:22.5 | Welcome and welcome back to this week's edition of the systematic investors here with Mark |
| 0:27.0 | Resensky and I, Neil's Castle Blasen, where each week we take the pulse of the global |
| 0:31.3 | markets through the lens of a rules-based investor. |
| 0:35.4 | Now, for those of you who are regular listeners, |
| 0:41.9 | our conversations are intended to give you as much of the nurture and encouragement as the turtles got in the mid-1980s, as Jerry likes to put it. |
| 0:46.5 | And if you are new to the show, we hope that today's episode will trigger your curiosity |
| 0:51.5 | to learn more by diving into the back catalog and listen to |
| 0:56.0 | all of the past episodes that you may have missed like last week's episode, which was with Jerry, |
| 1:02.2 | which I think was one of the best we have done together, actually. It was very deep. We went |
| 1:07.9 | into a number of topics. And of course course Jerry talked about who is likely to be his |
| 1:13.4 | successor when it's time for him to hang up his boots. So if you miss that one, I do invite you to go |
| 1:20.4 | back and listen to it and as Jerry do, he actually relistened a couple of times to get all the nuances of what we discussed. |
| 1:30.9 | Now, Mark, it's great to be with you this week. How are you doing? And what's going on where you |
| 1:37.2 | are today? Good. The fall is starting. And I could feel that there's a certain amount of |
| 1:43.6 | tension among investors because |
| 1:46.7 | they're done with all their vacation, they're done with all their golf, Labor Day in the |
| 1:50.8 | United States is through. So that means that everybody's now figuring out what am I going to do |
| 1:56.9 | to set up for the end of the year. And so if you're a poor manager right now, I think that you're under scrutiny from |
... |
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