Today, Niels and Rob are joined by Nick Baltas, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, for a conversation on systematic investment strategies. We discuss the difference between a number of systematic trading strategies and the pros and cons of each, how crowding impacts systematic investing and how the narrative created by media affects the systematic investment space, the capacity constraints for CTAs and the impact of costs. We also discuss how big an impact the trend following community has on the markets and the strength and weaknesses of different alternative markets, selective hedging and how skew can be used as a predictor of future returns. Lastly, we discuss the challenging environment of 2022 and why Trend is performing so well this year, why Trend Following is becoming an essential part of every portfolio and much more.

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50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE

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Episode Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro

03:16 - Introduction to Nick Baltas

05:59 - Baltas’ findings from comparing different systematic trading strategies

12:10 - Is the CTA industry too small to have an impact?

16:44 - Blame it on the trend following people

21:42 - Baltas’ research on capacity

30:03 - The impact of trend

37:54 - Pros and cons between different alternative markets

46:10 - Using skew in your strategy

52:57...

TTU121: Trend Following... from Optional to Essential ft. Nick Baltas

Top Traders Unplugged