SI386: When Position Sizing Saves You ft. Rob Carver
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2026
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we are joined by Rob Carver to unpack one of the most volatile weeks seen in commodity markets in years. The conversation centers on silver’s sharp rise and sudden collapse, using it as a case study in volatility targeting, liquidity risk, and disciplined position sizing. From Freaky Friday to broader dislocations across assets, they examine why systematic risk management matters when markets move faster than narratives. The discussion expands into diversification, correlation assumptions, alternative markets, and new research on trend portfolio construction, offering a grounded reminder that survival often matters more than precision.
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Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 - Introduction to the Systematic Investor Series
03:56 - Freaky Friday in precious metals
04:29 - How Rob trades silver in a volatility adjusted framework
10:25 - When volatility forces position reduction
12:38 - Liquidity myths in hot commodity markets
16:25 - Risk management lessons from silver’s collapse
22:28 - Dislocations across assets beyond metals
24:54 - Fed chair speculation and muted market reactions
31:33 - Discretionary versus systematic decision making
34:03 - Trend barometer and market breadth update
37:34 - Estimating portfolio correlation from PnL
41:18 - Correlation versus volatility predictability
45:13 - MAN Group paper on market selection
58:36 - What investors really want from trend following
Resources discussed in this Episode:
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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 systematic |
| 0:06.6 | investing and learn about the most dependable and consistent yet often overlooked investment strategy. |
| 0:13.2 | Welcome to the Systematic Investor Series. |
| 0:26.3 | Welcome and welcome back to this week's edition of the Systematic Investor series with Rob Carver and I, Neil's Kastroblassen, where each week we take the pulse of the global |
| 0:31.3 | market through the lens of a rules-based investor. |
| 0:34.3 | Rob, it is wonderful to be back with you this week. |
| 0:59.0 | First time in 2026. Hope you're doing well. How things in the UK? Yeah, it doesn't seem, I mean, 2020, it's only a few weeks old, but it seems like a hell of a lot's happened. So, to clean the market. So, yeah, it's all quite exciting. It is all very exciting. And actually, speaking of exciting, we have a great line of our topics today, which I think people will really enjoy. |
| 1:01.0 | We're going to be tackling a couple of new papers, an article, |
| 1:05.0 | and a couple of questions that came in. |
| 1:08.0 | So this is all super exciting. |
| 1:17.4 | Rob, as you know, I'm always curious to hear what's kind of been on your radar since we last spoke, but not from the topics we're going to be talking about. But if there's something |
| 1:21.1 | else that you found interesting, then let us know. |
| 1:26.7 | Yeah, well, I was hoping by now I would have seen the new Melania film, but |
| 1:30.5 | unfortunately I've not had that opportunity. |
| 1:33.9 | And it looks actually looking at the viewing figures well, why not many other people have |
| 1:37.8 | as well, so hopefully I'll get a chance to review that next time I'm on. |
| 1:42.4 | So I saw an interesting paper published by Alliance |
| 1:45.9 | Bernstein. I don't want to talk about it today, but what made me sort of impressed was the title |
| 1:51.7 | of this paper. And I actually, for reasons it'll become obvious. I actually had to ask my son, |
| 1:57.6 | who did German at school, how to pronounce this word in this title. So the title of the paper |
| 2:03.0 | is about TPA Total Portfolio Approach, which we've discussed before. The title of paper is |
| 2:07.8 | portfolio design as Gazamdknswerk, the Total Portfolio Approach. And apparently a Gazamkundwerk is something like a total piece of art, |
... |
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