TTU133: How to deliver Convexity ft. Nigol Koulajian & Mike Harris of Quest Partners
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2023
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we are joined by Nigol Koulajian and Mike Harris from Quest Partners, for a conversation on how they use a research driven, quantitative and systematic trading approach to generate alpha. We discuss how they generate convexity and why they have chosen to focus on short-term time frames, why they believe some investors have become too focused on Sharpe and how they use trend following and crowding in their process. We also discuss how they use an adaptive learning technique to understand markets whilst being aware of the dangers of machine learning, the power and importance of data and the potential risks of replicating managers, why liquidity is dynamic and very unpredictable and much more.
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Episode Timestamps:
02:08 - Introduction to Quest Partners
03:34 - Their investment philosophy
07:35 - A structural change in markets
15:04 - Too focused on Sharpe?
20:55 - Creating momentum
24:18 - A move toward multi-strat?
37:35 - Managing the crowd
39:13 - The persistency of market environments
41:45 - A type of machine learning?
44:12 - The source of opportunities
48:34 - The "D" word
53:30 - Thoughts on CTA replication
01:00:12 - Being a short term manager
01:02:30 - Liquidity issues and changes in markets
01:09:15 - Trend following disagreements
01:12:46 - Expectations for 2023
01:14:15 - Thanks for listening
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Politicians today are not held accountable in the way that they used to be, and they |
| 0:13.0 | have tools to effectively shut down markets and control markets in ways they didn't have before. |
| 0:19.0 | So I'm worried about how extreme the behavior of central banks can be |
| 0:23.5 | for the sake of effectively controlling markets. |
| 0:27.1 | And they might shut down markets very easily if things don't go their way, et cetera, et cetera. |
| 0:31.3 | So I worry about the level of liquidity of markets, and it's changing very, very quickly. |
| 0:38.4 | Imagine spending an hour with the world's greatest traders. |
| 0:42.3 | Imagine learning from their experiences, their successes, their failures. |
| 0:46.7 | Imagine no more. |
| 0:48.6 | Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged, the place where you can learn from the best hedge fund |
| 0:53.4 | managers in the world so you can take from the best hedge fund managers in the world, |
| 0:54.8 | so you can take your manager, due diligence, or investment career to the next level. |
| 0:59.4 | Before we begin today's conversation, remember to keep two things in mind. |
| 1:03.4 | All the discussion we'll have about investment performance is about the past, |
| 1:07.1 | and past performance does not guarantee or even infer anything about future performance. |
| 1:12.1 | Also understand that there's a significant risk of financial loss with all investment strategies, |
| 1:16.8 | and you need to request and understand the specific risks from the investment manager about their product |
| 1:21.8 | before you make investment decisions. |
| 1:24.2 | Here's your host, veteran hedge fund manager, Niels Kostrup Larson. |
| 1:32.3 | Hey everyone and welcome to another edition of Top Traders Unplot, where today Alan Don and I are joined by |
| 1:39.1 | Nigel Collargeon, founder and CIO of Quest Partners and Mike Harris, who is the president of the firm, |
| 1:45.1 | as part of our miniseries focusing on the one investment strategy that beat everything else in 2022, |
... |
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