Cutting his teeth on the acclaimed mortgage trading desk at Salomon Brothers in the 90’s, Troy Dixon gained an early appreciation for the speed and degree to which market liquidity can turn. Now the CIO of Hollis Park Partners, a firm he founded in 2013, Troy shares the perspectives gathered in managing complex trading risk over more than two decades in markets. 

We talk about his time at Deutsche Bank, where he ran the RMBS trading unit, and the intense pressure to compete in the pre-crisis period for profitability in each aspect of the mortgage lifecycle. Contemplating the asset price wreckage in the aftermath of the housing crash, Troy recounts the challenges in balancing the competing interests of providing market making services for the firm’s client base while risk managing a volatile book of prop exposures. Next, we discuss Troy’s founding of Hollis Park and the path that he has sought to provide for other professionals of color in the financial industry. In thinking back on the heavy lift he undertook, Troy said, “I was naive about a lot of things, but the core thesis of it was to lay the framework for people of color to follow suit in an industry that had created a plethora of wealth for people that don’t look like me.” 

A firm engaged in finding value in MBS and a variety of structured products, Hollis Park capitalizes on securities that have different prepayment speeds. No conversation with a fixed income expert would be complete without an assessment of Central Banks. And on the Fed, Troy has much to say. Calling low interest rates an addictive drug, Troy sees no obvious path for the Fed to disengage from markets, expecting ongoing volatility linked to this codependency. Please enjoy this episode of the Alpha Exchange, my conversation with Troy Dixon.