TTU148: CTAs - The Good, The Bad, and The Misunderstood ft. Rob Carver, Graham Robertson and Yoav Git
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we’re diving deep into the world of CTAs and their role in investment portfolios. We discuss the balance between focusing on a single asset class versus a multi-asset approach, emphasizing that different asset classes offer unique utilities to investors. Our guests share insights from their experiences, highlighting the importance of tailored execution strategies and how technology can enhance trading performance. We also explore the growing interest from major players like Fidelity and BlackRock in trend-following strategies, raising questions about the future of CTAs in institutional portfolios. Join us as we unpack these themes and share our thoughts on the evolving landscape of systematic trading.
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Episode Timestamps:
04:02 - Introduction to Yoav Git
06:16 - The background behind Graham, Rob and Yoav's relationship
12:15 - What is common about people working at Man AHL?
15:47 - Should you focus on single or multi asset classes?
24:58 - The state and outlook for fixed income and
29:47 - Liquidity and how it plays a role in alternative markets
36:09 - Are investors misunderstanding liquidity?
37:28 - How do you actually measure and think about liquidity?
39:50 - Why are CTAs not widely represented in portfolio?
49:14 - How to understand and master execution
58:01 - Research and technology in systematic trading
01:02:36 - "My love for you is like a magnitude 6 earthquake, your sharpe ratio makes me tremble in size"
01:05:00 - Are we at a turning point for trend following?
Copyright © 2025 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved
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2. Daily Trend Barometer and Market Score
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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 | So I actually am a little bit afraid that we will be essentially getting more people saying, |
| 0:13.0 | oh, CTA is a sharp 0.5 strategy, and that to me is actually a danger. |
| 0:19.0 | I think CTA is a wonderful strategy. |
| 0:22.3 | It has positive skew, positive alpha. |
| 0:25.0 | We can create beautiful portfolios, |
| 0:27.4 | and I'm kind of afraid actually of that happening. |
| 0:31.8 | Imagine spending an hour with the world's greatest traders. |
| 0:35.6 | Imagine learning from their experiences, their successes, |
| 0:38.3 | and their failures. Imagine no more. Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged, the place where you can learn |
| 0:45.3 | from the best hedge fund managers in the world so you can take your manager due diligence |
| 0:50.3 | or investment career to the next level. Before we begin today's conversation, |
| 0:54.8 | remember to keep two things in mind. |
| 0:56.8 | All the discussion we'll have about investment performance is about the past, |
| 1:00.5 | and past performance does not guarantee or even infer anything about future performance. |
| 1:05.5 | Also understand that there's a significant risk of financial loss with all investment strategies, |
| 1:10.2 | and you need to request |
| 1:11.2 | and understand the specific risks from the investment manager about their product before |
| 1:15.7 | you make investment decisions. |
| 1:17.6 | Here's your host, veteran hedge fund manager, Nealz Kostrup Larson. |
| 1:26.9 | Hey everyone and welcome to another edition of Top Traders on Plot, where today I'm joined by |
| 1:31.7 | no less than three wonderful guests from the world of systematic trading and trend following, |
| 1:36.4 | namely Graham Robertson, Rob Carver and your Git. Now, for those of you who are wondering what |
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