VOL05: Maintaining Liquidity & Cash Efficiency ft. Zed Francis
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2021
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jason Buck is joined today by Zed Francis to discuss the benefits of adding volatility strategies to your portfolio, achieving a negative a correlation to equities during market downturns, what Zed calls the ‘3 trading levers’, profiting from institutional volatility players, problems with some long-volatility strategies, when a discretionary approach is needed, how to adjust a portfolio if volatility is persisting, some thoughts on the VIX ETF, helping clients to achieve capital efficient accounts, maintaining liquidity for rebalancing during a selloff, and the deeper insight into the global macro landscape that being a volatility expert gives you.
-----
50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE
In this episode, we discuss:
- The benefits of volatility strategies to a portfolio
- How to profit from large stock market selloffs
- Some of Zed Francis’s unique approaches to volatility trading
- Profiting from institutional volatility traders
- When to apply a discretionary approach
- The VIX ETF
- Helping clients to be cash efficient in their portfolios
- The need for liquidity during large market moves
Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.
IT’s TRUE ? – most CIO’s read 50+ books each year – get your FREE copy of the Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Books ever written here.
And you can get a free copy of my latest book “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.
Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.
Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.com
And please share this episode with a like-minded friend and leave an honest Rating & Review on iTunes or Spotify so more people can discover the podcast.
Follow Jason on Twitter.
-----
Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 - Intro
01:41 - Why should somebody add volatility or tail-risk strategies into their portfolio?
03:10 - Seeking a negative correlation to equities
06:16 - Can you explain what you call your ‘3 trading levers’?
08:11 - Can you breakdown your approach to combining ‘long gamma’ and ‘short Vega’?
13:40 - Do you aim to profit off institutional volatility sellers?
15:16 - Tell us about the short-vega side of your approach?
28:34 - The problems with some common long-volatility strategies?
36:24 - How do you think about the ratio between your long-gamma trades and your short-Vega trades?
38:02 - Do you want to explain your ‘Price is Right’ gameshow anology for long gamma strategies?
40:57 - Do you think that a discretionary approach is always needed at times?
50:27 - How do you adjust if volatility persists longer-term?
55:36 - What are your thoughts on the VIX?
57:50 - How to help clients to achieve capital efficient accounts?
59:37 - How do you maintain capital efficient overlays and also maintain liquidity for rebalancing during a selloff?
1:04:18 - Does being a volatility expert give you a deeper insight into the global macro landscape?
Copyright © 2025 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved
----
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
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The backdrop here is we think that there's structural inefficiencies that we're looking to extract |
| 0:11.5 | and you're hiring us to utilize our discretion to improve upon something that you'd expect from |
| 0:18.4 | the delivery of harvesting those structural inefficiencies. |
| 0:22.4 | And with that, I'm not trying to say there's any sort of market timing associated with this, |
| 0:27.6 | but we do think right now is an interesting point in time to just have a little bit of |
| 0:33.7 | that long gamma positioning within a portfolio in general. |
| 0:41.8 | For me, the best part of my podcasting journey has been the opportunity to speak to a huge |
| 0:47.3 | range of extraordinary investors from around the world. In this series, I have invited one |
| 0:52.7 | of them, namely Jason Buck, to host a sequence of in-depth |
| 0:56.3 | conversations on the topic of volatility. |
| 0:59.4 | In today's world, the concept of volatility has moved to the top of the agenda of many |
| 1:03.8 | investors as they try to analyze and understand the riskiness of their portfolios. |
| 1:09.6 | With ever increasing uncertainty around the globe, knowing if you are essentially long or short |
| 1:14.6 | volatility in your portfolio can mean the difference between ruin or survival when the next |
| 1:20.6 | crisis emerge. |
| 1:21.6 | The aim of these conversations is to try and understand the experiences that have influenced |
| 1:26.6 | these highly specialized investors |
| 1:28.6 | and the processes they follow to harness their returns in order to make all of us better |
| 1:34.8 | informed investors and with that please welcome jason buck thank you niels for the introduction my |
| 1:42.7 | special guest today is zed francis fromvexitas. Zed has a long |
| 1:47.8 | history in the solutions business, which is a fancy way of saying tail risk hedging and overlays |
| 1:52.8 | using option strategies. Today we're going to talk about options overlays, the Greeks, and cross |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Niels Kaastrup-Larsen, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Niels Kaastrup-Larsen and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.