Flirting with Models

A few years ago, I sat down with Moritz Seibert and Moritz Heiden of Takahe Capital to talk about trend following at the edges of the futures markets: places where liquidity is thin, contracts are obscure, and capacity constraint is a feature, not a bug.

Since then, despite strong performance, asset growth, and even winning industry awards, they made a very un-industry decision: they shut down their original fund.

In its place, they launched a new Global Markets Fund built to stay small, so they can trade calendar and product spreads, niche agricultural markets, and other idiosyncratic contracts at equal risk to more standard markets.

In this conversation, we unpack that decision, explore how you systematize trend on markets where liquidity does not exist on screen, and go deep on why spreads represent a fundamentally different opportunity set than outright futures.

We also talk about what’s next: from prediction and event markets to new ways of thinking about macro trends and alternative data.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Moritz Seibert and Moritz Heiden.

In this episode I speak with Annanay Kapila, founder and CEO of QFEX, a 24/7 centralized perpetual-futures exchange for traditional financial markets.

Before founding QFEX, Annanay worked at Flow Traders and Tower Research, where he was introduced to high frequency trading and market microstructure in both crypto and traditional markets. Insights gleaned during these experiences lead him to the conclusion that the perpetual futures model applied to traditional, so-called “real world asset” markets, like equities, was an inevitable future and one he wanted to build.

In this episode, we discuss the ramifications of what that world looks like. First, we discuss what perpetual futures are and their distinguishing characteristics from traditional futures. Then we discuss how perpetual futures can work in markets – like single-name equities – where the underlying do not trade 24/7, and have unique features like corporate actions, opening and closing price auctions, and limit-up/limit-down bounds.

A consistent thread throughout the entire conversation is risk management. When leverage is your key feature, it is important to think long and hard about how and when liquidations might occur and the safest way to process them.

Finally, we discuss why Annanay believes why perpetual futures will succeed where spot tokenization failed and his view on the current regulatory landscape.

Please enjoy my conversation with Annanay Kapila.

In this episode, I speak with Jay Rajamony, Director of Alternatives at Man Numeric.

Jay has been with the firm since 2004, giving him a front-row seat to the evolution of quant equity: from simple factor models and broad signals to today’s world of alternative data, model ensembles, and human-machine collaboration.

We start with the history: what’s changed in quant over the last two decades, why the 2007 quant quake still matters, and how the definition of “alpha” has shifted alongside new tools and data.

From there, we explore the interplay between factors and macro regimes, how sparse datasets are reshaping the research process, and what it means to manage risk in a world where your models don’t always line up with reality.

Jay also offers a compelling perspective on how modern quant investing isn’t just about signal breadth anymore—it’s about firm breadth, organizational design, and knowing when to lean in and override the machine.

Please enjoy my conversation with Jay Rajamony.

In this episode I’m joined by Vladimir Novakovski, founder and CEO of Lighter, a decentralized crypto exchange.

To kick off the conversation, we explore Lighter's three big design choices: it’s built as a custom Layer-2 on Ethereum, it relies on zero-knowledge circuits for proving transactions, and it runs with a private sequencer. Don't worry – if that sounds like gibberish, Vlad explains it all. Each of those decisions comes with trade-offs — but also big potential advantages.

We discuss why Ethereum remains the natural home for new rollups, from inheriting its security to tapping into DeFi’s growing composability. We also break down what zk circuits actually are, why they matter for trust and security in a derivatives exchange, and how they’re verified in practice.

From there, we tackle the business side: how you bootstrap liquidity in a brand-new DEX, why Lighter went with an unusual fee model and the key lessons learned during an extended private beta.

Finally, we zoom out to the bigger picture. What might DeFi look like if composability really takes hold? Could specialized rollups like Lighter become the backbone of an on-chain financial system, rather than just another venue for speculation?

Please enjoy my conversation with Vlad Novakovski.

In this episode, I speak with Antti Ilmanen, Principal and Global Co-head of the Portfolio Solutions Group at AQR Capital Management.

Antti has long been one of the most thoughtful voices in the world of expected returns, having written not one, but two landmark books on the subject. But in his latest paper series, he returns to the topic with fresh urgency—probing the difference between objective and subjective expectations, and asking why even rational models can go so wrong in real time.

We explore everything from CAPE ratios and market timing accusations, to why equity investors tend to extrapolate while bond investors expect mean reversion. We dig into how behavioral biases, valuation anchors, and structural shifts collide when forming capital market assumptions—and how Antti and the AQR team try to navigate that mess themselves.

If you’re in the business of long-term forecasting or just curious why markets often act like they’ve never read the textbooks, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Please enjoy my conversation with Antti Ilmanen.

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.