SI363: The Misreading of Trend ft. Nick Baltas
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 670 Ratings
🗓️ 30 August 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As trend following begins to reassert itself, Niels and Nick Baltas dig beneath the surface of recent CTA performance - where the signals are working, why fixed income remains unresolved, and how speed is revealing deeper structural divides. But this episode goes beyond attribution. What if the industry has mistaken correlation shifts for changes in signal speed? What if the very idea of a “trend beta” is flawed? And what if compounding durable returns isn’t about chasing performance, but protecting against path? This is a conversation about design over style, clarity over convention, and the quiet decisions that shape real outcomes.
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Episode TimeStamps:
00:50 - Catching up
05:02 - Industry performance update
13:18 - How the speed of trend following strategies is changing
24:13 - Is there a way to define speed differently?
32:19 - Do we have the right definition of a trend index?
38:20 - Brainstorming ideas on how to improve trend following benchmarks
43:50 - The best car needs the best brakes
49:26 - Baltas framework for enhancing trend following performance
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to join Neil's Kostrup Larson on a raw and honest journey into the world of |
| 0:06.2 | systematic investing and learn about the most dependable and consistent yet often overlooked |
| 0:11.3 | investment strategy. Welcome to the Systematic Investor Series. |
| 0:27.3 | Welcome all welcome back to this week edition of the systematic investor series with Nick Baltas and I, Niels Castro Blasen, where we each week take the pulse of the global market through |
| 0:31.9 | the lens of a roles-based investor. And let me also say a warm welcome if today is the first time |
| 0:36.8 | you're joining us. |
| 0:37.9 | And if someone who cares about you and your portfolio recommended that you tune into the podcast, |
| 0:43.3 | I would like to say a big thank you for sharing this episode with your friends and colleagues. |
| 0:48.0 | It really does mean a lot to us. Nick, it's wonderful to be back with you this week. It's been a little |
| 0:53.3 | while. How are you doing? How was your summer? It's been a while. Good to be back with you this week. It's been a little while. How are you doing? How was your |
| 0:55.2 | summer? It's been a while. Good to be back, Neil's. Good to see you. The summer has been good. |
| 1:02.7 | You know, you can not take a Greek out of Greece in the summer. I think I have a 43 out of 43 of my summers. A hundred percent hydration. Spent a couple of weeks there with family and friends. You know, got back over the past weekend. You know, we had a bank holiday here in the UK. So kind of not very slowly picking up things. Actually, I would say quite aggressively so. It's been a busy week so far. But yeah, summer was good. |
| 1:28.8 | Summer was good. |
| 1:29.3 | How about you? |
| 1:30.3 | Tell me. |
| 1:30.7 | Yeah, no, I was up north. |
| 1:32.7 | I just got back a few days ago. |
| 1:34.9 | And so our summer was not particularly hot, so to speak. |
| 1:39.6 | But I do gather that in the south of Europe, certainly when you see the weather forecast on the news, |
| 1:46.7 | sort of southern Europe, Spain, Portugal, but I imagine Greece as well have been, you know, |
| 1:52.8 | once again hit by some pretty nice, but very hot weather. Yeah, there were some 40-plus days. |
| 2:00.7 | But thankfully on those days, we happened to be in an island. When I was in Ireland, Yeah, there were some 40 plus days. |
... |
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