In this episode, I speak with Chris Carrano, Vice President of Strategic Research at Venn by Two Sigma.

Chris has had a rare vantage point in the world of factors — spanning smart beta, long/short hedge funds, and risk modeling — and that experience has shaped a thoughtful view of what factors really are and how they can be practically used.

We dive into the philosophy and design behind Venn: why it uses just 18 orthogonalized factors, how it blends Lasso and OLS to reduce overfitting, and why it prioritizes interpretability over complexity.

We also tackle messy real-world challenges: how to analyze private markets with sparse data, how to trust synthetic return streams, and where to draw the line when using monthly snapshots that embed structural portfolio shifts.

Finally, we explore what it means to make factor results actionable—whether through stress testing, residual interpretation, or portfolio diagnostics.

Please enjoy my conversation with Chris Carrano.

In this episode I speak with Jeffrey Rosenberg, Managing Director at BlackRock where he leads active and factor investments for mutual funds, ETFs, and institutional portfolios for the Systematic Fixed Income team.

In the first half of the conversation we discuss the history of quant fixed income. Specifically, its evolution within the halls of sell-side institutions and how solutions were shaped by demand for underwriting, securitization, and derivatives.

We then make the leap to the buyside, where Jeff outlines the topology of systematic fixed income solutions at BlackRock. We quickly dive into the details, discussing topics such as: why factor investing exists predominately in the credit space, why characteristic specificity within the fixed income space is so important, why quant fixed income needs more PMs but fewer researchers than quant equity, how ETFs changed the liquidity landscape, and whether the equity pod-shop model is possible for fixed income.  

What ultimately becomes clear, through both explanation and example, is that while the terms and ideas of systematic fixed income will be familiar to those in the quant equity space, the Devil lies deeply in the details of implementation.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Jeff Rosenberg.

In this episode I speak with Edward Yu, co-founder of Variational. 

We begin the conversation with Edward’s background in crypto OTC markets. He explains how the space evolved away from Telegram chats, the complexities of pricing derivative structures on the long-tail of alternative crypto currencies, and the sources of natural flow in the space.

This experience led Edward to co-found Variational, which seeks to bring the trillion dollar OTC derivatives market on-chain by disaggregating settlement, margining, and derivative payoff logic into programmable primitives.

Built on top of Variational is the OMNI perp dex – or decentralized perpetual futures exchange for the non-crypto-speaking listeners. Unlike other perp dexes that are build around a centralized order book, OMNI effectively acts as a user interface to a OTC RFQ system. On the other side is OLP – the OMNI Liquidity Provider. This structure allows OMNI to provide significant depth of liquidity on a huge breadth of investable assets despite the platform being in closed beta at the time of recording. Given its unique design, we spend a significant amount of time discussing the pros, cons, and risks of this structure.

This conversation is, obviously, out of my usual realm. But for those listeners interested in market structure and where the world of finance may be headed, this is one not to miss.

Please enjoy my conversation with Edward Yu.

My guest this episode is Benjamin Hoff, Global Head of Commodity Strategy and Research at Société Générale.

Ben started his career in rates before making the jump to commodities, and that lens—shaped by curve arbitrage, convexity, and carry—colors everything he does. In this conversation, we explore how commodities differ fundamentally from other asset classes: the importance of cash-and-carry economics, the sparse information cadence that rewards technical models, and the physical realities that challenge purely quantitative approaches.

We also dive into Ben’s more recent work on the geometry of the futures surface, how convexity and skewness may be misunderstood, and why tools like Lévy area might help uncover non-linear structure in the data.

Whether you’re deep in the weeds of term structure trading or just curious about how to systematize chaos in barrels and bushels, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

My guests today are Roxton McNeal, Managing Director and Head PM of QIS Investments and Siddharth Sethi, portfolio manager and Head of QIS structuring. Together, they’re spearheading the development of QIS-driven solutions at Simplify.

In this conversation, we explore what it takes to build and manage a multi-strategy QIS portfolio—from infrastructure requirements to portfolio construction and risk management. We discuss:

• The structural vs. academic premia distinction and why it matters.

• How Simplify evaluates and customizes QIS offerings from banks.

• The need and challenges of dynamic allocation across dozens of strategies.

• How QIS strategies integrate with traditional beta portfolios.

• The operational and counterparty considerations of trading these strategies.

For those interested in the practical realities of QIS investing, this episode provides a deep dive into both the opportunities and challenges of running a systematic, multi-strategy portfolio.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Roxton McNeal and Siddharth Sethi.

Scott Phillips is just the second independent trader I’ve interviewed for this show.

Like many independent traders, Scott found that his constraints – including the size of their capital pool, the ability to execute trades efficiently, and a lack of supporting infrastructure – made trading anything but loose-pants trend following almost impossible in traditional markets.

These constraints led Scott to look for easier markets to trade: markets where the edges were so big they could survive inefficient implementations. All of which brought Scott to crypto in the late 2010s.

While our conversation is, at a high level, mostly about trend following, we spend a lot of time discussing what makes trading these markets unique. For example, with tens of thousands of spot cryptocurrencies, how do you choose what to trade? How do you choose which venues to trade at when liquidity is so fragmented? How do you deal with the fact that both crime and degenerate gambling are real idiosyncratic factors?

More than anything, painted between the lines, Scott provides a master class in thinking about edges.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Scott Phillips.

Today I’m talking to Thao Tran, Co-founding Partner at Vamient Capital.

This episode was born from a question I had watching the NFT market place: how do you make markets in illiquid, non-fungible assets? Clearly people were doing it and I wanted to know how it differed from traditional market making.

Several people recommended I speak with Thao, and she was kind enough to oblige, despite NFT market making being just a small component of what she does. In this conversation, we walks me through how the NFT market place has evolved, how she thinks about managing inventory risk, key features that impact spreads, and how platform evolutions changed orderbook strategies.

In the back half of the conversation, Thao shares her thoughts on the state of crypto markets today, the emerging opportunities in decentralized exchanges, and how the landscape of alpha opportunities has changed over the last two years.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Thao Tran.

My guest today is Victor Haghani, founder of Elm Wealth.

Victor is, in many ways, one of the last tactical asset allocators standing after the 2010s. That might be because Victor wouldn’t categorize himself as such. Rather, he sees his dynamic index investing approach not as a tactical alternative to traditional static portfolios, but as the rational approach for anyone starting from first principles.

This conversation dances between theory and implementation. Victor is just as comfortable sharing his thoughts on where equity market risk comes from as he is defending payout-adjusted CAPE as a metric for forecasting long-run returns.

If you’re passionate about asset allocation, you’ll find lots to think about in this one.

Please enjoy my conversation with Victor Haghani.

In this episode of the Get Stacked

Investment Podcast, Corey and Rodrigo have an insightful conversation with

Jonathan Glidden, Chief Investment Officer of the Delta Airlines Pension Plan.

Since joining in 2011, Jonathan has been pivotal in elevating Delta’s pension

plan funded status from 38% to over 100%. They delve into Jonathan's

unconventional career journey, his implementation of portable alpha strategies,

and share valuable lessons learned from turbulent financial periods such as

2008 and 2020. Whether you're a seasoned investor or new to the concept of

portable alpha, this episode provides a masterclass on optimizing pension plan

management through innovative investment strategies.

In this episode, I speak with Farouk Jivraj, Portfolio Manager and Head of Alternative Risk Premia at Fidelity Investments’ Asset Management Solutions division.

After spending nearly a decade on the sell side, Farouk joined Fidelity in 2021 with the goal of building out an alternative risk premium platform, tapping into the best of what both the sell-side QIS desks have to offer and what can be built in-house.

We spend the majority of the conversation peeling apart the layers of Farouk’s 5-step process for implementing alternative risk premia strategies. He shares his thoughts on how to classify different premia, why thoughtfully-constructed peer groups are an important evaluation tool, how to go about selecting specific strategies, how to construct portfolios of alternative risk premia, and the actual rubber-meets-road implementation practicalities.

Please enjoy my conversation with Farouk Jivraj.