Top Traders Unplugged With Niels Kaastrup-larsen | Engaging Conversations With The Top Traders & Investors

This week, we discuss whether commodities are more risky to trade than equities, if a stocks-only Trend Following strategy can be profitable in the long run, if a deep drawdown is worse than a long drawdown, and the importance of over-estimating any possible drawdowns implied by a backtest. Questions answered include: should all Trend Following funds be required to provide Crisis Alpha? Is there ever a good time to override your system and trade outside of the rules? Should you always execute trades from your signals immediately, or wait for an extra confirmation sometimes? Is there an edge to be gained from seeking the perfect entry into a long-term trade? How many positions should you have open at any one time? What can be considered a good amount of leverage?-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BE

It has been said that: ‘The biggest room of all, is the room for improvement’, and one thing that is clear to see in the amazing careers of today’s guests, is the continued hunger for learning in the quest for an improved investment process. This has led to an unprecedented success for this trio.  Today, I share the last key insights from my conversation with Michael Adam, David Harding and Marty Lueck, also known as the founders of AHL.  In this post, we don’t just discuss the importance of learning… but also how you must un-learn certain things in order to move forward.  Lastly, we discuss what the three of them wish the legacy of AHL will be. So, sit back and relax and enjoy these truly unique takeaways from my conversation with Michael, David and Marty.Listen to the full episode here.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once

In this week’s episode, we discuss Ray Dalio’s recent article on Paradigm Shifts and his comments on the safety of Gold.  We also touch on the perils of having too many filters that keep you from entering a trade, why you should avoid ‘sure thing’ trade recommendations from others, the importance of having a plan before entering a trade, the benefits of incorporating what you’ve learnt from others about Trading into your own strategies, and the reasons for buying at the 52-week high as opposed to the 52-week low.  Questions this week include: is it better to have multiple exit strategies on a trade or just one single criteria?  Should long positions have the same Trading rules as short positions? Is there such a thing as having a ‘healthy fear’ in the markets?-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource in

In 1987, 3 scientists, 1 from Cambridge and 2 from Oxford, were brought together by their shared passion for the markets and for computers.  Little did they know, that over the next 3 decades, this passion would lead them to build 3 world-leading multi-billion dollar Systematic Investment businesses.  Today, I would like to share another Golden Nugget with you, from my conversation with Michael Adam, David Harding and Marty Lueck, also known as the founders of AHL. In this post, we focus on how markets and the importance of Asset Allocation have evolved since the beginning; a crucial insight into what has made them so successful.  So enjoy these truly unique takeaways from my conversation with Michael, David and Marty.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the worl

On this week’s episode, we discuss the resurgence of ‘boutique’ funds, the new Austrian bond which promises a yield of 1.2% over 98 years, why having new markets to Trade can be good thing, and the differences between Volatility Targeting, versus adjusting overall risk exposure according to market conditions.  Questions answered this week include, should you really trade a strategy that suits you?  What is the ideal sample size when backtesting data, and should you pay attention to valuation when entering a Trending market?(**Due to a technical issue with Jerry’s audio this week, his sound quality is not as good as usual.  Our apologies for this.)-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the world via a first-class livestream or Live event!Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn

One of the great Investment books of all time is Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, which is the fictionalized biography of perhaps the most famous Financial Speculator of all time: Jesse Livermore. There is no doubt that even today, 100 years later, we can all learn from of the experiences of successful Investors.In this Best of Top Traders Unplugged, which I have appropriately titled Reminiscences of 3 Trend Followers, Michael Adam, David Harding and Marty Lueck, also known as the founders of AHL, finally shed light on one of the best kept secrets of modern finance.  I sat down with them in Abbey Road Studios in London, on the 30-year anniversary of when they founded AHL.  The conversation turned out to be witty, inspiring, and far more entertaining than it had any right to be.  So, enjoy these truly unique takeaways from my conversation with Michael, David and Marty.Listen to the full episode here.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing

In this episode, we discuss the recent article from AQR Capital’s Cliff Asness on the difficulty of sticking to a strategy through volatile periods, why we may never know if a particular system is broken, the differences between different Trading timeframes, and we give an update on the upcoming live event in New York in October.  We also answer some questions such as:  Is there a ‘Holy Grail’ of Stop Losses?  What is a good way to backtest a Trading system?  Is there a point where too much Diversification begins to negatively affect the return profile in a portfolio?  What are the possible causes that would move a person to Trade a longer timeframe?-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the world via a first-class livestream or Live event!Follow Niels on

Today we’re joined on the show by Salem Abraham, a legendary Trend Follower, and President of Abraham Trading Company based in Canadian, Texas.  We discuss if Bitcoin has any real value, how Jerry Parker influenced Salem early in his career (and how he was able to help Jerry), why we don’t need to understand the reasons for a price going up, how looking at your returns too often can affect your performance, if Stanley Druckenmiller and David Harding are right about the effectiveness of Trend Following in today’s markets, and how being exposed to a variety of markets can reduce risk in a portfolio.  Questions answered include: what is Salem’s preferred timeframe to trade in?  Why is there such an increase in Return Dispersion among Trend Following funds today, compared to a while ago? What are Salem’s thoughts on High-Frequency Trading, Electronic Trading, and Arbitrage?  Will Trend Following ever become too over-crowded?-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better

On today’s episode, we give our thoughts on the recent Bitcoin rally, the possible benefits of trading single stocks rather than indices, how spending less time looking at the markets can benefit your Trading, and we also offer some other suggestions for better Trading Discipline.  Questions answered this week include: what are the main characteristics of a successful Trader?  How often should you change your parameter combinations?  How short-term did The Turtles trade, and how does that compare to Jerry’s Trading style today?  What is the definition of long-term Trading, and should CTAs be more longer-term in their strategies?-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the world via a first-class livestream or Live event!Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

This week, we’re joined by Corey Hoffstein from Newfound Research, who also hosts the Flirting With Models podcast.  We discuss his journey into Systematic Investing, why the year you enter the markets will likely impact how you invest in the future, and why random returns can actually be worse for your system than bad returns.  Corey explains the term ‘Sequence Risk’, why investors should avoid being too short-term, why risk can only be transformed and not destroyed, and if past performance is actually indicative of future returns.  We also get Corey’s views on simplicity versus complexity, how he approaches diversification, and how he invests personally.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the world via a first-class livestream or Live event!Follow Niels on Twitter,

In the previous Best of Top Traders Unplugged, we went back in time to re-visit some of the key lessons that many investors learned during the Financial Crisis of 2008. It was my way of reminding myself, and you, of something that we as investors must never forget.  Today, Robert Carver goes much deeper into the human psychology that makes us ill-equipped to deal with our emotions in a rational way when it comes to making good investment decisions, and also, how you can overcome this behaviour and make your own plan for financial success.  So enjoy these unique takeaways from my conversation with Robert.Listen to the full episode here. Part 1 & Part 2.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the world via a first-class livestream or Live event!Follow Niels on Twi

Can the VIX index be traded as part of a successful Trend Following strategy?  Do CTAs have the edge over traditional Hedge Funds by being invested in the less popular markets?  Should some parameters be adjusted according to the market being traded, and can you expect returns from Long Positions & Short Positions to be equal?  We also give our thoughts on MorningStar’s recent ‘Bubble Index’ experiment, as well as Real Vision’s recent interview on the subject of ‘selling volatility’.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the world via a first-class livestream or Live event!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 wri

The financial crisis back in 2008 is slowly fading from the memories of investors. But for those of us who lived and traded through it, many important lessons were learned, and usually the hard way.  For many investors, it was a period that can be best described as an Emotional Roller-Coaster, where billions of dollars were lost by investment decisions which were primarily driven by emotions.  In my hope to make sure that these lessons are not forgotten and wasted, I wanted to share a story that I think many of us can relate to.  So I looked through my list of guests to pull a few Golden Nuggets from on this topic, and I thought that Robert Carver, who spent many years at AHL before deciding to share his knowledge about Systematic Trading through his books and blog, would be ideal for this.  So enjoy these unique takeaways from my conversation with Robert.Listen to the full episode here.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Por

This week, we discuss the importance of process over outcome, how sports can be related to Trading, and whether mistakes are to be avoided completely or something we should look forward to learning from.  Questions answered this week include: is Ray Dalio’s suggestion of 15 uncorrelated return streams the ultimate way to diversify your portfolio?  Are some markets more tradable for Trend Followers than others? Is market ‘noise’ making it harder for Trend Followers, or is the volatility a good thing? How do you deal with strategic retirement decisions as a Trend Follower? Is it in a Hedge Fund’s best interests to stay relatively small and private?-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the world via a first-class livestream or Live event!Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouT

I get a lot of questions about ideas to help build the best Trading Model, and I understand why many aspiring managers feel that this is critical to their future success.  There is though, a lot of truth in the saying: “Most people overvalue ideas and underestimate execution”.  What I mean by that is, when you want to start and build a business such as a Hedge Fund or CTA, I’m not so sure that the real challenge lies within the design of your investment approach.  Nowadays, I think that raising the initial funds from Seed or Early investors have actually become the biggest obstacle for new managers. This is something I have a long experience with, and this is why I wanted to focus on it, in today’s post.  So I thought that Kim Bang, who spent many years at a big firm like Bloomberg before starting his own CTA firm, is the perfect person to talk about this.  So enjoy these unique takeaways from my conversation with Kim.Listen to the full episode here. Part 1 &a

Is ‘Buy & Hold’ the S&P500 index the perfect investment strategy?  Should you apply Equal-Weighting across all of your Trading positions?  Are long-term strategies the only way to avoid market noise?  Also, we give our thoughts on why you should avoid ‘Fat-Tail Distributions’, Volatility versus Risk, how Trend Following strategies tend to ‘melt-up’ rather than crash down, and our upcoming Systematic Investor Series Live Event.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder ToolFollow 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 “The Many Flavors of Trend Following” here.Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.comAnd please share this episode with a lik

Regardless of the investment strategy that you apply to the markets, your strategy or approach needs to evolve over time.  The way we did Trend Following back in the 1970s, 1980s & 1990s is not exactly the way we do it today, and I think this can be said about most, if not all strategies.  Now with some strategies, the model decay is so rapid, that if you don’t adapt quickly you can lose your edge.  I think short-term strategies are good examples of this.  Trend Following, being a longer-term strategy is, in my opinion, a lot slower when it comes to Model Decay… so you need to have been around for a really long time in order to have witnessed this evolution.  So when I looked through my list of guests to pull a few golden nuggets from on this theme, I thought that Marty Lueck, the co-founder of AHL and Aspect Capital would be the perfect person for this.  So enjoy these unique takeaways from my conversation with Marty.Listen to the full episode here. Part

In today’s episode, we discuss whether or not Trend Following is more effective with Volatility Targeting, how cautious you should be of outlier events, how to use stress-levels as an indicator of how good your trading strategy is, and we give our thoughts on the concept of ‘Risk of Ruin’, in relation to the plight of Long-Term Capital management in the late 1990s.  Questions this week include: Should you trade in a style that suits your personality?  Can 10 years of financial data still be classified as ‘noise’?  Should the fundamental causes of market movements affect how you trade?  Should you reduce your position in a trade if it goes in your direction far quicker than expected?  We also touch on Howard Mark’s comments regarding the skill of catching a ‘falling knife’.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time n

Today, we discuss how to go from managing personal money to third-party money, in this current regulatory environment. We clear up some confusion surrounding the VIX market, touch on stocks vs commodities & how they affect on Trend Following strategies differently, as well as how to avoid a single driver from overly correlating your portfolio.  We also answer the questions: how do you define long-term versus short-term?  Did Richard Dennis’s Turtles ever add to winning positions? Are CTAs underrepresented at investing conferences, and are investors losing out by only choosing the most common names?-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the world via a first-class livestream or Live event!Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT’s TRU

In today’s episode, we discuss how much central banks or political events, can prevent or create market trends in the future.  We also discuss AQR Capital Management’s recent study on Trend Following performance in the current decade, and whether or not we have seen the end of large market trends. We wonder if technology prevents Commodities from having bull runs like Equities have had in the last decade, and we answer questions on scaling in and out of trades, where to get back-adjusted data, and if the US stock market will eventually stagnate like Japan’s in the 1990s.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----ATTENTION TTU TRIBE : SIGN-UP for Rick Rule's Symposium: Once in a life-time natural resource insights from the BEST investors in the world via a first-class livestream or Live event!Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT’s TRUE ? – most CIO’s read 50+ books each year – get