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Top Traders Unplugged episodes
- SI02: Is the popularity of Short Volatility investing hurting Trend Followers?Welcome to The Systematic Investor series. It's a great privilege for me to invite you to a behind the scenes conversation between some of my favorite systematic investors namely Jerry Parker and Moritz Seibert. We get on a "call" each week to discuss the events that took place through the lens of a Systematic Investor and how the trading strategies we work with are reacting. It's a raw and honest exploration and we hope you will join and be part of...not least by sending us questions that we can discuss. Please send your questions to [email protected]Episode Summary0:00 - Intro0:50 - Weekly review7:30 - Interesting news20:20 - Top tweets28:20 - Question 1: Brian; Discuss the impact of shorting volatility on CTAs32:20 - Question 2: Brian; Will there be more TF mutual funds and ETFs?36:00 - Question 3: Bruno; How should one implement proper technology for a CTA?40:30 - Performance recapSubscribe on:43 min
- 02 The Systematic Investor Series – September 22nd, 2018Welcome to The Systematic Investor series. It's a great privilege for me to invite you to a behind the scenes conversation between some of my favorite systematic investors namely Jerry Parker and Moritz Seibert. We get on a "call" each week to discuss the events that took place through the lens of a Systematic Investor and how the trading strategies we work with are reacting. It's a raw and honest exploration and we hope you will join and be part of...not least by sending us questions that we can discuss. Please send your questions to [email protected]Episode Summary0:00 - Intro0:50 - Weekly review7:30 - Interesting news20:20 - Top tweets28:20 - Question 1: Brian; Discuss the impact of shorting volatility on CTAs32:20 - Question 2: Brian; Will there be more TF mutual funds and ETFs?36:00 - Question 3: Bruno; How should one implement proper technology for a CTA?40:30 - Performance recapSubscribe on:43 min
- SI02: Is the popularity of Short Volatility investing hurting Trend Followers?
Welcome to The Systematic Investor series. It’s a great privilege for me to invite you to a behind the scenes conversation between some of my favorite systematic investors namely Jerry Parker and Moritz Seibert. We get on a “call” each week to discuss the events that took place through the lens of a Systematic Investor and how the trading strategies we work with are reacting. It’s a raw and honest exploration and we hope you will join and be part of…not least by sending us questions that we can discuss.
-----
50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE
-----
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 [email protected]
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.
Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 – Intro
00:50 – Weekly review of performance
07:30 – Interesting news
20:20 – Top tweets
28:20 – Question 1: Brian; Discuss the impact of shorting volatility on CTAs
32:20 – Question 2: Brian; Will there be more TF mutual funds and ETFs?
36:00 – Question 3: Bruno; How should one implement proper technology for a CTA?
40:30 – Benchmark performance update
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
Privacy Policy
Disclaimer
43 min - BO01: The Impact of Volatility Trading ft. Nigol KoulajianKathryn Kaminski and I had the opportunity to sit down with Nigol Koulajian, the founder of Quest Partners, in which he shared his wealth of experience including life lessons and even his take on the modern scientific trading systems that are used today. One of topics which I particularly liked, and would like to share with you here, was his view on the VIX and Volatility trading within the managed futures industry and also outside of the industry. If you would like to listen to the full episode then you can do so by clicking here.Nigol… “Certain investments that don’t have great risk-adjusted returns can temporarily turn into amazing bubbles because the return stream has certain characteristics which give time for other investors to come in. So it becomes very self-reinforcing like a positive feedback loop. There are ways, in certain industries, where you can reinforce that intentionally. If you’re an activist investor, you put on a position and then you say, “Here, I got my position,” and other people come in, you can do great. Effectively, it’s like a pump and dump of penny stocks in the eighties. Crypto currencies are a little bit similar. Traders receive text messages saying, “Buy this!” and “only this much for each account”."...it’s like a pump and dump of penny stocks in the eighties"So, effectively these things are being a little bit manipulated. In the same way, regulators, if they don’t control these things, it can be very, very harmful for investors in the long-term. In the case of the VIX, starting from the Fed put, starting in 2009, which was when the market was not going to go down fifty percent anymore. It’s only going to go down twenty. Then you had equity hedge funds which said, “Since it’s going to go down only twenty then I’m going to buy at minus fifteen.” Then, because the minus fifteen is there, you have short-term swing traders who bought at minus ten. Then you had short-term CTAs who bought it at minus five, and then you had artificial intelligence or machine learning techniques who said buy it at minus three.So, it’s become very self-reinforcing where effectively people are now justifying that the economy is doing great and that’s why the vol. is low. There’s an aspect of the reality that is that markets lead the economy and not the other way around.I would say, today, what’s going on in the equity world, and the VIX, in particular, has become a very self-reinforcing bubble which is suppressing the vol. in the market. So when an implied vol. in the market comes down; when people sell options in the market until those options expire, effectively you have mean reversion trading. If the market goes down, the options sellers are buyers of that market that is going down, and the option sellers are sellers of the market when it goes up. So they suppress the vol. of the market.Typically, that lasts until the options expire. So, look at the open interest in a market. What drove the implied vol. compression? With options of this maturity, that’s typically when you’re going to see the mean reversion of the market. Then it typically breaks out. So the VIX is quite a serious thing because a lot of, I’m going to say, very sophisticated investors are putting large amounts of money at play in it. Based on volatility and normalized risk techniques they think they’re taking very little risk. “Niels: “ On that note, Nigol, you mentioned the word manipulation, there’s the VIX, you talked about big trades, and so on and so forth. But, I think there was an article in Bloomberg recently that mentions that on December 20th of last year, 2017, the “VIX elephant” put on a very large position - something like two hundred and sixty thousand lots. The article went on to talk about how relatively easy it is to manipulate the settlement, which has a huge impact if you’re trading options and you’re waiting for expiring, etc, etc.10 min
- Best of TTU – The Impact of Volatility TradingKathryn Kaminski and I had the opportunity to sit down with Nigol Koulajian, the founder of Quest Partners, in which he shared his wealth of experience including life lessons and even his take on the modern scientific trading systems that are used today. One of topics which I particularly liked, and would like to share with you here, was his view on the VIX and Volatility trading within the managed futures industry and also outside of the industry. If you would like to listen to the full episode then you can do so by clicking here.Nigol… “Certain investments that don’t have great risk-adjusted returns can temporarily turn into amazing bubbles because the return stream has certain characteristics which give time for other investors to come in. So it becomes very self-reinforcing like a positive feedback loop. There are ways, in certain industries, where you can reinforce that intentionally. If you’re an activist investor, you put on a position and then you say, “Here, I got my position,” and other people come in, you can do great. Effectively, it’s like a pump and dump of penny stocks in the eighties. Crypto currencies are a little bit similar. Traders receive text messages saying, “Buy this!” and “only this much for each account”."...it’s like a pump and dump of penny stocks in the eighties"So, effectively these things are being a little bit manipulated. In the same way, regulators, if they don’t control these things, it can be very, very harmful for investors in the long-term. In the case of the VIX, starting from the Fed put, starting in 2009, which was when the market was not going to go down fifty percent anymore. It’s only going to go down twenty. Then you had equity hedge funds which said, “Since it’s going to go down only twenty then I’m going to buy at minus fifteen.” Then, because the minus fifteen is there, you have short-term swing traders who bought at minus ten. Then you had short-term CTAs who bought it at minus five, and then you had artificial intelligence or machine learning techniques who said buy it at minus three.So, it’s become very self-reinforcing where effectively people are now justifying that the economy is doing great and that’s why the vol. is low. There’s an aspect of the reality that is that markets lead the economy and not the other way around.I would say, today, what’s going on in the equity world, and the VIX, in particular, has become a very self-reinforcing bubble which is suppressing the vol. in the market. So when an implied vol. in the market comes down; when people sell options in the market until those options expire, effectively you have mean reversion trading. If the market goes down, the options sellers are buyers of that market that is going down, and the option sellers are sellers of the market when it goes up. So they suppress the vol. of the market.Typically, that lasts until the options expire. So, look at the open interest in a market. What drove the implied vol. compression? With options of this maturity, that’s typically when you’re going to see the mean reversion of the market. Then it typically breaks out. So the VIX is quite a serious thing because a lot of, I’m going to say, very sophisticated investors are putting large amounts of money at play in it. Based on volatility and normalized risk techniques they think they’re taking very little risk. “Niels: “ On that note, Nigol, you mentioned the word manipulation, there’s the VIX, you talked about big trades, and so on and so forth. But, I think there was an article in Bloomberg recently that mentions that on December 20th of last year, 2017, the “VIX elephant” put on a very large position - something like two hundred and sixty thousand lots. The article went on to talk about how relatively easy it is to manipulate the settlement, which has a huge impact if you’re trading options and you’re waiting for expiring, etc, etc.10 min
- BO01: The Impact of Volatility Trading ft. Nigol Koulajian
Kathryn Kaminski and I had the opportunity to sit down with Nigol Koulajian, the founder of Quest Partners, in which he shared his wealth of experience including life lessons and even his take on the modern scientific trading systems that are used today. One of topics which I particularly liked, and would like to share with you here, was his view on the VIX and Volatility trading within the managed futures industry and also outside of the industry.
Listen to the full episode here.
-----
50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE
-----
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 [email protected]
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.
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
Privacy Policy
Disclaimer
10 min - SI01: Who we are...and Why we are doing this seriesWelcome to The Systematic Investor series. It's a great privilege for me to invite you to a behind the scenes conversation between some of my favorite systematic investors namely Jerry Parker and Moritz Seibert. We get on a "call" each week to discuss the events that took place through the lens of a Systematic Investor and how the trading strategies we work with are reacting. It's a raw and honest exploration and we hope you will join and be part of...not least by sending us questions that we can discuss. Please send your questions to [email protected]Episode Summary0:00 - Intro1:00 - Bios4:10 - Why we are doing the podcast9:00 - Topics people should expect and podcast structure19:10 - Weekly review33:00 - Top tweets39:45 - Performance recap40:30 - Question: Bruno; Why do some funds get to the billion mark and others don’t?Subscribe on:57 min
- 01 Welcome to The Systematic Investor SeriesWelcome to The Systematic Investor series. It's a great privilege for me to invite you to a behind the scenes conversation between some of my favorite systematic investors namely Jerry Parker and Moritz Seibert. We get on a "call" each week to discuss the events that took place through the lens of a Systematic Investor and how the trading strategies we work with are reacting. It's a raw and honest exploration and we hope you will join and be part of...not least by sending us questions that we can discuss. Please send your questions to [email protected]Episode Summary0:00 - Intro1:00 - Bios4:10 - Why we are doing the podcast9:00 - Topics people should expect and podcast structure19:10 - Weekly review33:00 - Top tweets39:45 - Performance recap40:30 - Question: Bruno; Why do some funds get to the billion mark and others don’t?Subscribe on:57 min
- SI01: Who we are...and Why we are doing this series
Welcome to The Systematic Investor series. It’s a great privilege for me to invite you to a behind the scenes conversation between some of my favorite systematic investors namely Jerry Parker and Moritz Seibert. We get on a “call” each week to discuss the events that took place through the lens of a Systematic Investor and how the trading strategies we work with are reacting. It’s a raw and honest exploration and we hope you will join and be part of…not least by sending us questions that we can discuss.
-----
50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE
-----
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 [email protected]
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.
Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 – Intro
01:00 – Who we are
04:10 – Why we are doing the podcast
09:00 – Topics people should expect and podcast structure
19:10 – Weekly review of performance
33:00 – Top tweets
39:45 – Benchmark performance update
40:30 – Question: Bruno; Why do some funds get to the billion mark and others don’t?
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
Privacy Policy
Disclaimer
57 min - 15 Top Traders Round Table with Jennifer Sunu, Arthur Bell and JP Bruynes – 2of2“I think the flat fee is market-driven, and the trader is still going to try to do the best they can because they want performance to attract more capital.” - Arthur Bell (Tweet)Welcome to Top Traders Round Table, a podcast series on managed futures brought to you by CME Group where I continue my conversation with Jennifer Sunu, who is the director of compliance at the NFA, Arthur Bell, CPA and managing member of Bell Tower LLC, and JP Bruynes, who is a partner at the law firm Akin Gump.Listen in to today's episode as we focus on how regulators are helping and sometimes hurting managers and clients, the importance of cyber security as a CTA, the way that cryptocurrencies have changed the way we trade, some of the best things that have happened to managed futures over the last twenty years, and how the market has been affected.In This Episode, You'll Learn:The dangers of over-regulation“There are certain areas where I know we have increased the regulatory burden over the years, but we really try and balance that with the needs of the customer.” - Jennifer Sunu (Tweet)What we can learn from blow-ups at the manager level and how to avoid them in the futureWhy investors need to do their due diligence to avoid fraudWhat the NFA considers in reviewing educational and promotional materialsHow to ensure your promotional material is meeting NFA guidelines“The CFTC has taken the position that cryptocurrencies are commodities, and that position has been affirmed by the 2nd district court here in New York.” - JP Bruynes (Tweet)Why pundits on news shows are allowed to make predictions on markets that may be just an educated guessThe importance of cyber security and how to you can protect yourselfWhat impact cryptocurrencies may have on futures marketsHow regulators are working to help clients avoid unrealistic expectations in cryptocurrencies“It's hard to find a CTA today that only trades commodities.” - Arthur Bell (Tweet)The best things that have happened to managed futures in the last twenty yearsWhat has changed regarding the Volcker rule in the past few yearsHow flat fee products are changing the industryWhy we need to worry about the "race to zero"This episode was sponsored by CME Group:Connect with our guests:Learn more about Jennifer Sunu and the National Futures AssociationLearn more about Arthur Bell and Bell Tower LLCLearn more about JP Bruynes and Akin Gump“The manager doesn't have to sell [investors on cryptocurrency], all they have to do is point them to the newspaper where it shows these very extreme growths in value, and then people want to jump in on it, not realzing what they're really getting into.” - Arthur Bell (Tweet)Subscribe on:47 min
About Top Traders Unplugged
From the publisher's feed
Top Traders Unplugged is where the world’s best investors come to share how they think - not just what they trade.
Hosted by Niels Kaastrup-Larsen, the show goes deep into systematic trend following, global macro, and the principles that drive long-term success.
No forecasts. No fads. Just real conversations with hedge fund managers, economists, authors, and allocators - revealing the timeless ideas, mental models, and risk frameworks behind robust performance.
If you're building resilient portfolios, allocating capital, or simply looking to cut through the noise - this is your edge.
Clear thinking. Deep insights. Real experience.
🎧 New episodes weekly. Explore all episodes at toptradersunplugged.com https://toptradersunplugged.com
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