TTU130: Trend Following Solutions ft. Marty Lueck, Co-Founder of Aspect Capital
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2023
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we are joined by Marty Lueck, Co-Founder of Aspect Capital, for a conversation on their systematic investment process, with a primary focus on research. We discuss why bias is a core element of Aspect Capitals investment philosophy, the essence of trend and why trend strategies work, as well as how they work together with their investors to create the most optimal portfolio for them. We also explore Lueck's analogy of trend as "medicine" and why it is important to give the medicine time to do its work. We continue with topics such as how trend following as a strategy has evolved over time and how they feel about the newest CTA replication products, their reasoning for being cautious about using machine learning and, why they chose not to dwell too much on fees, how they guide their clients when it comes to return expectations and much more.
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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:
02:57 - Introduction to Aspect Capital
06:54 - Their Investment Philosophy
09:56 - Why does trend strategies work?
13:12 - A less uncertain period
15:44 - Too concerned about the sharpe?
20:38 - Which trends are most popular?
23:01 - Costumization - is there a limit?
28:58 - Staying diversified and improving models
34:33 - The research process
37:29 - A change in models?
40:15 - CTA Replication - good or bad idea?
46:01 - Their perspective on machine learning
49:33 - The risks of trend following
51:45 - Manipulated markets
53:04 - Their perspective on capacity and fees
56:26 - Setting expectations
59:05 - Simple vs. sophisticated
01:00:03 - Trend following disagreements
01:01:34 - Last words
01:04:01 - Thanks for listening
Copyright © 2025 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved
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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
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| 0:00.0 | Certainly going into 2023, with this level of uncertainty, we are going to see misestimation. |
| 0:13.0 | We're going to see capital flows. |
| 0:14.0 | We're going to see trends in a number of sectors that make me much more positive about the potential returns and the potential utility of an |
| 0:24.3 | allocation to a liquid alternative, a directionally agnostic, unbiased diversifier than they |
| 0:30.3 | may have been over the previous 10 years. |
| 0:34.4 | Imagine spending an hour with the world's greatest traders. Imagine learning from their |
| 0:39.5 | experiences, their successes, and their failures. Imagine no more. Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged, |
| 0:47.1 | the place where you can learn from the best hedge fund managers in the world so you can take your |
| 0:51.7 | manager due diligence or investment career to the next level. |
| 0:55.5 | Before we begin today's conversation, remember to keep two things in mind. All the discussion |
| 1:00.2 | we'll have about investment performance is about the past, and past performance does not |
| 1:04.7 | guarantee or even infer anything about future performance. Also understand that there's a significant |
| 1:09.9 | risk of financial loss with |
| 1:11.3 | all investment strategies, and you need to request and understand the specific risks from the |
| 1:16.2 | investment manager about their product before you make investment decisions. Here's your host, |
| 1:21.4 | veteran hedge fund manager, Nealz Kostrup Larson. |
| 1:30.1 | Hey everyone and welcome to another edition of TopTraders on Plot, where today |
| 1:34.0 | Alan Don and I are joined by Marty Luech, Research Director and President of Aspect Capital, |
| 1:38.5 | as part of our mini-series focusing on the one investment strategy that beat everything else |
| 1:43.5 | in 2022, |
| 1:44.7 | namely trend following and manage futures more broadly. |
| 1:48.2 | First off, Marty, it is great to have you back on the podcast. |
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