SI394: The Quarter That Tested Every Trend Follower ft. Katy Kaminski & Harry Moore

Top Traders Unplugged

Niels Kaastrup-Larsen

Business, Business News, Investing, News

4.8 • 712 Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2026

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Markets rarely offer clarity when it matters most. In this episode, together with Katy Kaminski and Harry Moore, we reflect on a first quarter defined by sharp reversals, energy shocks, and rising dispersion across strategies. They explain how trend following adapted as leadership flipped across asset classes, and why results varied more than many expected. The conversation moves beyond performance to examine portfolio construction, from market selection and speed to the growing relevance of portable alpha. Along the way, they revisit periods of drawdown, investor behavior, and the role of liquidity in crisis environments, offering a grounded perspective on how systematic strategies respond when conditions change quickly.

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50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE

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Episode TimeStamps:

00:00 - Introduction and episode framing

01:38 - Market backdrop and Q1 volatility

07:29 - Trend following performance through Q1

09:36 - Diversification vs equities and bonds

11:21 - Dispersion across managers explained

14:32 - Trend vs non trend strategies

18:40 - A month that tested every component of trend

21:17 - Optimal market mix and research insights

30:00 - Macro factors and what trend captures

35:57 - Portable alpha and cash efficiency

42:23 - Risks in portable alpha construction

49:04 - Drawdowns and investor behavior

53:37 - Why trend recovers after shocks

01:00:51 - Measuring alpha in macro strategies

01:06:51 - Geopolitics and future opportunities

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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

Disclaimer

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged.
0:03.0	In markets, success doesn't come from predicting what happens next.
0:08.0	It comes from being prepared for what you can't predict.
0:11.0	In each episode, we go deep with some of the world's most thoughtful minds in investing, economics, and beyond
0:18.0	to understand how they think, how they prepare, and how they decide, and the
0:22.3	experiences that shaped how they see the world. No noise, no shortcuts, just real conversations
0:28.5	to help you think better and invest with confidence. Welcome and welcome back to this week's
0:37.2	edition of the Systematic Investor Series with Katie Kaminsky and I, Neil's Castra Blasen, where each week we take the pulse of the global market through the lens of a rules-based investor.
0:45.8	This week we have a very special guest, namely Harry Moore, partner and senior client portfolio manager at Mann-A-HL, who is here to discuss some of the recent papers that
0:55.6	he has also co-authored, as well as a new paper that Katie has just published. So Katie and
1:02.0	Harry, it's really wonderful to have you both here today. I'm excited about our conversation,
1:08.3	but first and foremost, happy Easter, if I can say that, over here in
1:13.4	Europe, it's something where it gives us a little bit of, how should I say, downtime, not so sure
1:18.9	about the same can be said about the US, but it's great to have you here.
1:23.6	Thanks for having me. Fun. Absolutely. So do you get any time off in the in the US for these holidays?
1:29.5	US has one day off, but I mean, I have a Swedish husband and he's very sad because, you know, back in Sweden they have two days off and our kids have zero days off.
1:38.6	So it does feel a little bit, you know, less of a big holiday than what, you know, he would have hoped for
1:45.5	here in the US. I do, we do have the markets are closed Friday. So Harry and I are off, right?
1:50.3	So that's good. Yeah, absolutely missing the, yeah, the London extra Monday off. So my colleagues
1:56.9	will all be enjoying Monday over in London. But but yeah, at least we get the one day off
2:01.7	here on Friday in New York.
2:03.9	Yeah, no, absolutely.
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