Top Traders Unplugged

By Niels Kaastrup-LarsenBusiness News Investing Business News

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Top Traders Unplugged episodes

March 20, 2019RT22: Volatility Master Class ft. Chris Cole, Matthew Sargaison & Dan Stone – 1of2
On today’s episode guest host Chris Solarz speaks with Chris Cole, founder and CIO of Artemis Capital Management, Matthew Sargaison, co-CEO at AHL at Man Investments, and Dan Stone, co-founder of Ionic Capital. With these three world class volatility experts on the show, we’ll be going deep into the current state of volatility, the ramifications of United States quantitative easing, as well as the economic effects on the market of various social movements around the world.
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50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
How our guests got interested in the financial industry and data analytics
The state of the market now and where it is headed in the future
Why Dan sees the Quantitative Easing and its effect on market changes hurting long-term volatility
The hidden risks to the markets from the rise of populism
Dan’s “top five longball macro themes” and what we can learn from them
Where Matthew sees opportunities in volatility today
What it has been like as a long-vol trader for the last ten years, when you are up against the World’s Central Banks
Why you don’t have to put your “end-of-the-world” hat on…just yet

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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.
Learn more about Chris Cole and Artemis Capital Management
Learn more about Matthew Sargaison and Man AHL
Learn more about Dan Stone and Ionic Capital
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
31 min
March 16, 2019 27 The Systematic Investor Series – March 17th, 2019
Discussion points this week include, Volatility vs Risk, the differences between Trading and Investing, Zero Hedge’s comment about CTAs & Trend Followers being useless, and the NY Times article on high market skepticism while prices continue to go up. Also, should CTAs be used as a tool just for ‘Crisis Alpha’, or something more? Can Trend Following be used as a timing tool? What is the best sample size and look-back period when testing a system?
You can download your free guide to Systematic Investing, and subscribe to our mailing list by visiting TopTradersUnplugged.com
Get a free copy of my latest book "The Many Flavors of Trend Following" here.
Send your questions to [email protected]
Follow Niels, Jerry & Moritz on Twitter: @TopTradersLive, @RJparkerjr09 & @MoritzSeibert
Feel free to leave an honest review on iTunes.

Episode Summary
0:00 - Intro
1:35 - Weekly review
5:30 - Top tweets
24:30 - TF needs a better slogan than “crisis alpha” – listeners are welcome to write in.
39:20 - Question 1: Antonio; How should TF work with traditional 60/40 stock/bond investing (and more on the podcast)?
56:20 - Question 2: Kevin; When backtesting do you have a preferred definition of what was and was not a trend or do you apply discretion?
1:03:50 - Announcement: Guest Jesse Felder coming on the show in a few weeks
1:04:35 - Performance recap
Paper Reference 1 - https://www.ahl.com/strategic-rebalancing
Paper Reference 2 - https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Research/Journal-Article/A-Century-of-Evidence-on-Trend-Following-Investing
Paper Reference 3 - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3050736
Subscribe on:
1 hr 9 min
March 16, 2019 SI27: Volatility vs Risk...What's the difference? and are CTAs useless?
Discussion points this week include, Volatility vs Risk, the differences between Trading and Investing, Zero Hedge’s comment about CTAs & Trend Followers being useless, and the NY Times article on high market skepticism while prices continue to go up. Also, should CTAs be used as a tool just for ‘Crisis Alpha’, or something more? Can Trend Following be used as a timing tool? What is the best sample size and look-back period when testing a system?
-----
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
01:35 – Weekly review of performance
05:30 – Top tweets
24:30 – TF needs a better slogan than “crisis alpha” – listeners are welcome to write in.
39:20 – Question 1: Antonio; How should TF work with traditional 60/40 stock/bond investing (and more on the podcast)?
56:20 – Question 2: Kevin; When backtesting do you have a preferred definition of what was and was not a trend or do you apply discretion?
01:03:50 – Announcement: Guest Jesse Felder coming on the show in a few weeks
01:04:35 – Benchmark Performance update
Paper Reference 1 – https://www.ahl.com/strategic-rebalancing
Paper Reference 2 – https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Research/Journal-Article/A-Century-of-Evidence-on-Trend-Following-Investing
Paper Reference 3 – https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3050736
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
1 hr 9 min
March 10, 2019 26 The Systematic Investor Series – March 10th, 2019
Is it more profitable to be longer-term? When is Trend Following the wrong strategy to use? Should you ‘ease’ into a trade, or go all in, and how should you adjust position size? Other talking points include where to trade Single Stock Futures, how to include Options into a Trend Following strategy, as well as recent quotes from Stanley Druckenmiller about being greedy in the markets, and the quotes from Howard Marks on the psychology of the markets.
You can download your free guide to Systematic Investing, and subscribe to our mailing list by visiting TopTradersUnplugged.com
Get a free copy of my latest book "The Many Flavors of Trend Following" here.
Send your questions to [email protected]
Follow Niels, Jerry & Moritz on Twitter: @TopTradersLive, @RJparkerjr09 & @MoritzSeibert
Feel free to leave an honest review on iTunes.

Episode Summary
00:00 - Intro
01:35 - Weekly review
6:15 - Top tweets
29:35 - Question 1: Antonio; How do you determine if your Trend Following model is broken?
45:00 - Question 2: Seth; How does Jerry diversify his single stock portfolio?
47:20 - Question 3: Dave; Could you discuss specific details of your systems?
48:15 - Question 4/5/6: Carlos; How does Jerry trade single stock futures given liquidity? What is your opinion on using alternative data for position sizing/signal generation? What is your opinion on adjusting position sizes using momentum/pyramiding/etc.?
58:20 - Question 7: Walter; What exchange does Jerry use to trade single stock futures/where is the liquidity?
1:03:30 - Question 8: Brian; Do you use options strategies? If so would you discuss your strategies?
1:09:50 - Question 9: Glen; Please discuss your execution process once a system provides a signal.
1:15:00 - Question 10/11: Keith; If establishing a new system, do you put on all positions as of a specific date or sit in cash waiting for new entry signals? How do you adjust positions when new money comes in?
1:19:50 - Performance recap
Subscribe on:
1 hr 24 min
March 10, 2019 SI26: Is it more profitable to invest longer-term? and Druckenmiller on being greedy
Is it more profitable to be longer-term? When is Trend Following the wrong strategy to use? Should you ‘ease’ into a trade, or go all in, and how should you adjust position size? Other talking points include where to trade Single Stock Futures, how to include Options into a Trend Following strategy, as well as recent quotes from Stanley Druckenmiller about being greedy in the markets, and the quotes from Howard Marks on the psychology of the markets.
-----
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
01:35 – Weekly review of performance
06:15 – Top tweets
29:35 – Question 1: Antonio; How do you determine if your Trend Following model is broken?
45:00 – Question 2: Seth; How does Jerry diversify his single stock portfolio?
47:20 – Question 3: Dave; Could you discuss specific details of your systems?
48:15 – Question 4/5/6: Carlos; How does Jerry trade single stock futures given liquidity? What is your opinion on using alternative data for position sizing/signal generation? What is your opinion on adjusting position sizes using momentum/pyramiding/etc.?
58:20 – Question 7: Walter; What exchange does Jerry use to trade single stock futures/where is the liquidity?
01:03:30 – Question 8: Brian; Do you use options strategies? If so would you discuss your strategies?
01:09:50 – Question 9: Glen; Please discuss your execution process once a system provides a signal.
01:15:00 – Question 10/11: Keith; If establishing a new system, do you put on all positions as of a specific date or sit in cash waiting for new entry signals? How do you adjust positions when new money comes in?
01:19:50 – 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
1 hr 24 min
March 05, 2019 Best of TTU – How ”Slow” Trading Can Be Profitable
Would you believe somebody if they told you they had been very successful in the investment world, by looking at the just markets once a week? Everything, and everyone, seems to be getting increasingly more short-term in their nature, so it seems counter-intuitive that you can run an actively managed trading strategy by only checking for new signals once a week. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Scot Billington and his partners have done.

When I spoke to Scot a while back, he shared some great stories and real-life experiences, that had led him and his partners to this realization, and ultimately, their unique way of implementing a Trend Following approach. I’m excited to share some of these key takeaways with you today. I hope you enjoy this short post, and if you would like to listen to the full conversation, just go to Top Traders Unplugged Episode 25, and also Episode 26.
Will Trend Following work forever? Is there a risk that the Markets can fundamentally change?
Niels: It's a slightly different topic than where we started, but I think it's an important one, so I'd like to explore it a little bit. Although you probably know that my bias is also that I think trend following is a highly robust and sustainable strategy. If I was going to take the opposite side of the discussion here, and that is because we obviously hear the argument every time that people say, oh trend following is dead and out comes the veterans of the industry saying, yeah, we've heard this before, and it never comes true, but we also know that decompression or compression of volatility is not great for trend followers and we have to admit, maybe with you as one of the exceptions, but we have to admit that some of the people who have been around for 20 or 30 years have significantly larger drawdowns in the past few years than they have seen in their 30 year career. Some of them have even folded and stopped because they thought it was getting too difficult. The question is, of course, can one always argue and say yeah, sure it's going to come back, it's going to be fine, or is there as you alluded to before, is there always the risk that the markets, or that something has actually fundamentally changed? I'm not saying I'm a strong believer here, I'm just saying..

Scot: In the midst of any drawdown, that will always be a great and valid question, and I always start by saying look, I don't know the future. I can make my best guess. I can argue vehemently that my guess is very rational, but just because something has worked doesn't mean that it will work forever across any board. We would be out of business long before there was enough physical evidence to suggest that trend following didn't work. If you took the position today that trend following doesn't work, that would be an extraordinarily irrational statement because the empirical evidence before you strongly suggests that it does.

Niels: Yet a lot of investors take that stand.

Scot: Of course, they do, but they bought tons of collateralized debt obligations, right?

Niels: So they did, yeah.

Scot: I mean hundreds of trillions of dollars of them. They ran models that didn't even have an assumption possibility of a real estate price going down. Again it's easy to pick on things in retrospect, but we also bought lots of Enron stock, didn't we?

'Your largest drawdown is always in front of you... but there will also always be a winning period better than we've ever seen.'

Niels: But if we talk about evidence and I think we both agree that certain market environments are not good for trend following and certainly compression of volatility is one of them.

Scot: In our stuff volatility is bad. You want volatility post-trade entry, not pre. So volatility pre-trade entry is bad. Ultimately, volatility tends to increase as a trend increase...
14 min
March 05, 2019 BO14: How ”slow” trading can be Profitable
Would you believe somebody if they told you they had been very successful in the investment world, by looking at the just markets once a week? Everything, and everyone, seems to be getting increasingly more short-term in their nature, so it seems counter-intuitive that you can run an actively managed trading strategy by only checking for new signals once a week. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Scot Billington and his partners have done.
When I spoke to Scot a while back, he shared some great stories and real-life experiences, that had led him and his partners to this realization, and ultimately, their unique way of implementing a Trend Following approach. I’m excited to share some of these key takeaways with you today.
Listen to the full episode here. Part 1 & Part 2.
-----
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
14 min
March 03, 2019 25 The Systematic Investor Series – March 3rd, 2019
Discussion points this week include: Where to start if you want to become a Trend Following Trader, whether or not to trade markets differently, Bloomberg’s article on the supposed Failing of Trend Following, how strategies can cope and adapt during drawdowns, how to know when you are truly diversified or not, and a lot more.
You can download your free guide to Systematic Investing, and subscribe to our mailing list by visiting TopTradersUnplugged.com
Get a free copy of my latest book "The Many Flavors of Trend Following" here.
Send your questions to [email protected]
Follow Niels, Jerry & Moritz on Twitter: @TopTradersLive, @RJparkerjr09 & @MoritzSeibert
Feel free to leave an honest review on iTunes.

Episode Summary
0:00 - Intro
1:20 - Weekly review
7:00 - Top tweets
32:30 - Question 1: Karl; Where would you start if you wanted to become a Trend Follower?
36:30 - Question 2/3: Paul; Considering return volatility and investor tolerance, how do you help investors determine their optimal allocation to Trend Following? Have your personal volatility preferences changed over time?
45:45 - Question 4: Antonio; If historical drawdowns have no bearing on the future (as the podcast has said), how do you know your system won’t blow up?
50:10 - Question 5: Antonio; How do you calculate future expected returns with a TF system?
55:20 - Question 6: Antonio; If you can’t estimate future returns, why bet TF will keep working in the future?
59:30 - Question 7: Antonio; Should recent performance of TF systems influence future return expectations?
1:03:10 - Question 8: Brian; How does a CTA choose a company to sell their products?
1:05:00 - Question 9/10: Samuel; Based on correlation, what level of diversification is enough? What will cause Jerry to adjust his risk?
1:09:00 - Question 11: Samuel; How often should positions be adjusted based on account equity?
1:15:15 - Question 12: Brian; Why do investors hold CTA returns to a higher standard (versus other hedge funds)?
1:18:50 - Question 13: Seth; What are the unique “sectors” that drive diversification in a TF system?
1:22:40 - Discussion of Bloomberg article on TF failing – suggested by Christian
1:35:00 - Performance recap
Subscribe on:
1 hr 38 min
March 03, 2019 SI25: Where to start your Trend Following jouney?
Discussion points this week include: Where to start if you want to become a Trend Following Trader, whether or not to trade markets differently, Bloomberg’s article on the supposed Failing of Trend Following, how strategies can cope and adapt during drawdowns, how to know when you are truly diversified or not, and a lot more.
-----
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
01:20 – Weekly review of performance
07:00 – Top tweets
32:30 – Question 1: Karl; Where would you start if you wanted to become a Trend Follower?
36:30 – Question 2/3: Paul; Considering return volatility and investor tolerance, how do you help investors determine their optimal allocation to Trend Following? Have your personal volatility preferences changed over time?
45:45 – Question 4: Antonio; If historical drawdowns have no bearing on the future (as the podcast has said), how do you know your system won’t blow up?
50:10 – Question 5: Antonio; How do you calculate future expected returns with a TF system?
55:20 – Question 6: Antonio; If you can’t estimate future returns, why bet TF will keep working in the future?
59:30 – Question 7: Antonio; Should recent performance of TF systems influence future return expectations?
01:03:10 – Question 8: Brian; How does a CTA choose a company to sell their products?
01:05:00 – Question 9/10: Samuel; Based on correlation, what level of diversification is enough? What will cause Jerry to adjust his risk?
01:09:00 – Question 11: Samuel; How often should positions be adjusted based on account equity?
01:15:15 – Question 12: Brian; Why do investors hold CTA returns to a higher standard (versus other hedge funds)?
01:18:50 – Question 13: Seth; What are the unique “sectors” that drive diversification in a TF system?
01:22:40 – Discussion of Bloomberg article on TF failing – suggested by Christian
01:35:00 – 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
1 hr 38 min
March 01, 2019 21 Top Traders Round Table with Jake Barton, Trent Webster, and Steven Wilson – 2of2
"There's a lot more data in some ways, but there is also a lot less interesting information that is differentiated." - Jake Barton (Tweet)
Welcome to Top Traders Round Table, a podcast series on managed futures brought to you by CME Group and the Managed Funds Association, where host Niels Kaastrup-Larsen continues his conversation with Jake Barton, the Senior Portfolio Manager at Promus Capital, Trent Webster, Senior Investment Officer of Strategic Investments at Florida State Board of Administration, and Steven Wilson, Senior Portfolio Manager at Teacher Retirement System of Texas, which took place at the MFA's Network 2019 conference in Miami. Listen in to learn when our guests use investment theory versus data, new standards for management fees, and what our guests look for in maintaining a reliable team for their investors.

Subscribe on:

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

When to use investment theory versus data, and how you know when you have chosen correctly
How the guests review their managers and analyze their results
What organizations of different sizes can do to prepare for a crisis

"In the end, I'll make anyone a deal: I will always admit you're right if I can have the money." - Trent Webster (Tweet)

How Steven sees the new fee structure for hedge funds, that TRS helped develop, as more reasonable than the standard 2&20
How a race to the bottom for management fees can remove much of the creative energy from the alternative manager space
What excites Trent about the BBB section of the investment grade bond market

"It's almost unbelievable that it's 2019 and people are still paying performance fees on beta. How did that happen?" - Steven Wilson (Tweet)

What is new and upcoming in the hedge fund space
The reading that our guests never miss inside and outside of the investment space

This episode was sponsored by CME Group and Managed Funds Association:

Connect with our guests:
Learn more about Jake Barton and Promus Holdings
Learn more about Trent Webster and State Board of Administration of Florida
Learn more about Steven Wilson and Teacher Retirement System of Texas
"Data will always challenge the theory. No theory works if it's wrong financially. You can have the greatest theory in the world and if you just keep losing money for clients, you have to throw in the towel or the money will all disappear." - Jake Barton (Tweet)
44 min