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August 1, 2025 68 mins

Mark Rzepczynski joins Niels Kaastrup-Larsen for a conversation shaped by tension between surface calm and deeper dislocation. From copper’s sudden collapse to signs of stress in liquidity and leverage, they explore how market behavior is increasingly defined by fragility, not fundamentals. With Fed policy boxed in, equity optimism rising, and stablecoins quietly redrawing the contours of the monetary system, the challenge for investors isn’t prediction - it’s positioning. They also confront the limits of complexity in models and why, in uncertain regimes, the discipline of doing less may offer the most resilience. This is trend following in context.

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Episode TimeStamps:

01:15 - What has caught our attention recently?

09:08 - The tough situation of Fed independence

10:43 - Industry performance update

14:27 - Mark's analysis of the current trend following performance

21:01 - Are we picking up long term inflation trends?

23:04 - 2025 has given us something rare

26:05 - The core problem that trend followers face today

36:42 - The evolution of stablecoins

43:52 - The definition of financial bubbles is becoming diluted

53:11 - Risk - a feeling or a factor?

58:42 - The seductiveness of complexity

01:01:10 - Key observations from our conversation

01:07:17 - What is up for next week?

Copyright © 2024 – CMC AG – All

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You're about to join NielsKostrup Larson on a raw and honest
journey into the world ofsystematic investing and learn about
the most dependable andconsistent, yet often overlooked
investment strategy.
Welcome to the SystematicInvestor Series.

(00:23):
Welcome or welcome back tothis week's edition of the Systematic
Investor Series with MarkRussemcinski and I, Nils Kastor Blason,
where each week we take thepolls of the global market through
the lens of a rules based investor.
Mark, it is wonderful to haveyou back this week.
It feels like it's been a while.
I know it's not been longerthan usual, but how are you doing?
I've been busy.

(00:44):
I, I was actually just earlierthis month in, in China for my daughter's
graduation from PekingUniversity pku.
So I had a chance to be inChina first time in about six years
or so and it was a wonderful experience.
Yeah, yeah, I'd love to hear alittle bit more of that.
I'm sure that's probablywhat's been on your radar lately

(01:06):
then.
But anyways, we do have verynice lineup of different topics thanks
to you, so I appreciate thatand those we will be tackling in
just a few minutes.
But before we do that, goingback to my usual question to kind
of catch up with you.
What's been, what have youbeen kind of focusing on since we

(01:29):
last spoke?
I guess the, your China tripsounds like a natural place to, to
start.
Well, the China trip was agreat opportunity to see a country
that is obviously importantnot only to the United States, but
to the rest of the world.
And we'll just sort of saythat the amount of growth in that
country is, and we'll call itthe, you know, their innovation is,

(01:55):
is very noticeable.
And so in terms of just thecars you have, let's say there's
a lot of great EV cars on themarket, you know, the buildings,
the, you know, institutions ofhigher learning.
But probably the one thingthat we talked a little bit about
before we got started here wasthe fact that it really has turned

(02:16):
into a digital economy, atleast for the major cities, in the
sense that you don't needcurrency to walk around Beijing,
you just need a phone and youneed to have Alibaba Pay or WeChat.
But other than that, you know,I did not see any currency, the paper
money.
So it's they, they really arevery much advanced in the finance,

(02:41):
financing and the transactionflow of money.
It's fascinating you mentioned that.
In fact, I've been mentioningsome China facts the last couple
of weeks as I've come acrossthem on the show.
But one thing when you saythis thing about, it's amazing how
digital the country hasbecome, and nobody pays with cash

(03:02):
anymore.
Denmark, where I'm originallyfrom, is also incredibly digital.
And just like in Spainrecently, Denmark had an outage of
the main electronic paymentsystem only a couple of weeks ago,
which not only meant that youcouldn't pay with your cards in Denmark,

(03:24):
but all the people travelingabroad using Danish credit cards
or payment cards could not paywith them either.
And I kind of think it reallyalso shows the flip side of being
digital and nobody has anycash anymore.
I do understand why maybegovernments would like us to pay

(03:47):
with cards and digital all the time.
But I. I will say that it's.
It has a weakness as well.
Yes, we're vulnerable to the electron.
We are.
All right, okay.
So what's been on my radar isjust some random things I've come

(04:08):
across, except some of themyou will also probably have noticed
yourself.
But.
But the first one is a littlebit of a.
Kind of a curveball.
So my question is whether.
Whether or not you actuallyplay golf.
Mark.
I was saying I do swing thesticks occasionally.
Okay.
Do you live far away from your.
From a golf course?

(04:29):
Like within a mile?
Maybe a little bit.
Mile and a half or so.
So not too far.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
You know, this is actuallygood news.
I'll tell you why.
So yesterday I was listeningto a podcast on longevity.
You know, how we can live, howwe can live longer, and they were
talking about some of thehidden risks that I think we kind

(04:50):
of know about them.
We probably don't do muchabout it, really.
One of them is microplastic.
So, you know, why should wedrink water out of a plastic bottle?
Probably not a good idea.
And also, one thing actuallythat was kind of alarming is how
much plastic is released whenwe drink hot coffee or hot tea in

(05:13):
a.
In a paper cup.
Right.
Like we get on our, you know,usual Starbucks outlet, whatever.
That's something I'm going toreconsider for sure.
But then the.
The expert, the guest on theshow mentioned something that I had.
No.
You never heard about this before?
Apparently, according to a newstudy that just came out, 100.

(05:33):
There is 126% higher risk ofgetting Parkinson's disease if you
are living within a mile or soof a golf course.
And this is apparently linkedto pesticides.
I imagine, too, they use themto keep the golf courses.
And it turns out that whenscientists do experiments on mice,

(05:54):
say for Example on, forexample, Parkinson's, they don't
want to introduce Parkinson'sdisease into the mice.
They're actually giving them pesticides.
And that's why there is thislink between how close you live to
a golf course and the chanceof, of getting Parkinson's.
I thought that was prettyalarming, but I'm glad you're outside
the 1 mile mention that theymentioned, but maybe some of our

(06:18):
other listeners might need toreconsider that.
Anyways, little bit of a leftfield now, of course, yesterday's
decision of the Fed.
We are recording Thursday.
So yesterday was Fed Day, ofcourse, interesting to note that
you had two descendants,Waller, Baumann were in favor of
a rate cut.
Of course, it's not sosurprising when you know that they

(06:39):
are also the candidates thatTrump is looking to replace Powell
with.
So, so no surprise on thedecision, although I did listen to
some of the press conferenceand didn't sound like the chairman
was in any hurry in any way ofcutting rates, despite all the pressure
that he's getting.

(06:59):
And that, you know, was, waskind of interesting because then
I saw this news article todaywhere they reminded us about the
good old times.
And so the good old times waswhen Fed chairmans could actually
tell the politicians exactlywhat they had to do in order for

(07:19):
the Fed to lower rates.
So one example they mentionedis in 1990 with Alan Greenspan, who
told Congress that he wouldlower interest rate, but only if
they cut the deficit.
That's kind of interesting.
And the other example theymentioned is from 1985 with Paul
Volcker, who even gave them aspecific number.
He told Congress that the Fed,you know, would, would cut interest

(07:44):
rates if they cut the, I thinkthe deficit of about 50 billion.
It's a very specific requestto Congress, Congress in order to
lower interest rate.
So that's a completelydifferent world that we live in today
where you are, you know, theFed is very, well, the shoe is on

(08:05):
the other foot, I guess, atthe moment where they're certainly
not saying anything like thatto the president.
That's for sure.
The final thing, and you cancomment on this afterwards.
That's not really a question.
A question or thought.
But the other thing, ofcourse, that I guess we maybe should
mention if people have noticedit, is that there was a historic

(08:25):
drop in the price of copperyesterday, the US copper, I should
say of about 20%.
And actually I think itcontinues a little bit today.
And that has related toanother change in Trump's tariff
policy that basically sent themarket down by about 20%.

(08:46):
And then finally alsoyesterday, I think we got another
company now worth more than 4trillion and that's Microsoft.
The sleepy giant is suddenlyworth more than most companies in
the world.
So anyways, those were my sortof radars.
Any thoughts on some of this?

(09:08):
Well, I think the issue of Fedindependence is something that's
just overhanging a lot ofthinking, especially in the fixed
income markets.
It's interesting is that theFed may not, they're, they're in
a tough situation because ifthey believe that inflation is going
to be going lower and so theysay well we don't need to, then what's

(09:30):
going to happen is probablybecause they're expecting this, is
that, you know, we're going tobe slowing down in the economy.
So but on the other hand, ifyou sort of say that the economy
is doing robust, then youexpect that inflation is going to
be higher.
So we're in this sort ofcomplex period where it's not really

(09:51):
clear what will happen withthe economy.
And so some sense is thatChairman Powell is taking a precautionary
motive or he's sort of sayingI want to be cautious because I don't
really know whether we'regoing to be in a growth economy or
slowdown economy.
I don't know if we're going tohave prices passing through tariffs

(10:13):
or not.
And this is, this is a complex issue.
But more importantly, and Ithink that this will be one of our
key topics for discussion is,is that timing is everything, is
that we may have a pretty goodidea of what may happen.
We just don't know when it'sgoing to happen or how long it's

(10:35):
going to take before it getsresolved or it, it actually shows
its itself within the economy.
Well, let's do a little bit ofa trend following update and since
we're recording on the lasttrading day of July 31, I think we
should probably spend just afew minutes and, and sort of talk

(10:55):
about our early takeaways fromthis summer month.
I was looking firstly at sortof market moves in the sort of most,
you know, common markets inthe, in a CTA portfolio, liquid financial
and commodity markets justsort of the month to date changes
and there has been some, youknow, decent moves.

(11:18):
You know, oil complex ingeneral has been pretty strong sort
of price wise up about 10% as,as we speak for the month.
You obviously have the equitymarkets that have continued to do
well.
And so that's going to be apositive for sure for, for CTA's

(11:41):
fixed income markets iscertainly more mixed, more muted.
US markets slightly down forthe month or US futures I should
say and you know so.
But generally speaking I don'tthink fixed income is going to be
a major decider for howmanagers are faring currencies of
course interesting.
I think this week actuallyprobably is the strongest month,

(12:04):
sorry, strongest week for theUS dollar since 2022.
And I think the dollar indexis up about 3% so far this month.
So that's a bit of a turnaround.
So that's probably not helpCTAs as the dollar has been weak
for a while but I wonder howmuch damage it's done.
I'm not entirely sure.
And then of course we get tosome of the other commodities that

(12:26):
are always interesting to follow.
Grains continue their downtrend.
So I think that's a, that's apositive for, for many managers.
As I mentioned copper, that'snot going to be a positive because
it had broken out to theupside and then suddenly you get
a 20% drop.
But it will be interesting tosee maybe how differently it may

(12:47):
have impacted different typesof trend following managers strategies.
So I'll be you know, watchingout for that when we get the, the
numbers.
Let me give you the indicesand then you can kind of comment
from your perspective what youthink has been going on lately in

(13:09):
our industry.
I should say my own trendbarometer actually finished yesterday
at 55 so that's a pretty good reading.
Slightly increasing over thelast ten days or so.
Although yesterday's probablya down day thanks to things like
copper and a few other things.
But anyways, as of Tuesday the29th the beta 50 was up 67 basis

(13:31):
points in July and it's downonly 2.6% for the month of.
Sorry.
For the year The Soc Gen CTAindex up 85 basis points, down 6.82%
for the year.
Soc Gen trend up one and aquarter, down 8.88 for the year and
the Short Term Traders Indexup half a percent ish and down 4.76%

(13:52):
so far this year.
In the traditional world theMSAI World Index was yesterday as
of yesterday 1.72% in July andup 10.5% for the year.
The S&P US aggregate bondindex is down a quarter percent,
up 3.6% for the year and theS&P 500 total return index is up
2.62% as of last night in Julyand up almost 9% so far this year.

(14:19):
What are your thoughts?
What are your takeaways fromrecent Performance trends, the environment.
Well, two parts.
One, I think that it'simportant to realize for our major
asset classes which areequities and fixed income, there's
a very different behaviorbetween those two that overrides

(14:42):
a lot of what occurs in models.
One is that equity markets areextrapolative so that usually they're
going to continue on in alonger term trend.
And part of this is we'll callit equity investor optimism.
So they will, you know, sort of.
So we're extrapolating outsome positive news in stocks and

(15:05):
that's been occurring sincealmost the post liberation day.
On the other hand, fixedincome markets are often mean reverting.
So they're going to move tosome extreme and then they mean revert
in terms of how they behave.
And so what we're seeing isthat the fixed income markets are

(15:27):
still in a mean reverting mode.
And by that is that we knowthat yield curves have to be slightly
upward sloping.
In general, the inversion ofyield curves for years when we had
QE was more of an anomaly asopposed to normal behavior.
So what happens is that we'reseeing this in the actual behavior

(15:50):
of markets right nowextrapolative on equity markets and
more mean reversion or morerange bound in the fixed income markets
because they're still tryingto sort of say how do I sort of move
to a fair valuation.
And for fixed income the fairvaluation is always what is expected
inflation which you know is,is coming down.

(16:12):
But let's say even if it's twoand a half percent plus, you know,
what is the expected growth?
If we say expected growth it'sgoing to be we had 3% top line for
the second quarter but let'ssay it's 2, 2 and a half percent.
Well then we're going to sortof say you're going to look at for
a 10 year around 4 and a halfto 5% which is where we're, where

(16:33):
we're at right now.
So, so you always have tothink in terms of in those markets,
you know, extrapolative versusmean reverting.
And then the other markets areseen to be very much affected by
you know, sort of thecomplexity of tariffs and the complexity
of what's going oninternational trade flows.

(16:57):
So Mark, I'm going to take aslightly different approach to that
topic.
Not that I prepared anything,but when you talked about it now
it remind me about aconversation I had a few weeks ago
with Nick Bolters.
I think it was and I think wehe was reviewing a paper by Anti
Ilmen, as far as I rememberfrom AQR on this topic about, you

(17:20):
know, bonds and equities,they're kind of, you know, two different
things.
But you know, the conclusionwas a little bit different as far
as I recall because eventhough we think about fixed income
as being more mean reverting,in fact they kind of trend better

(17:41):
and vice versa.
Even though we think ofequities as being something that
always goes up to the topright corner, actually from a trend
following perspective, they'renot that great.
And if you look at performancein the last, say 20 years of managers
in general, pretty sure youwould find that equities has not
been a great sector to tradewhile bonds has been pretty good.

(18:04):
Do you, do you recognize that?
And how would you explain thatmaybe versus what you just mentioned?
Because I think that might bethere might be what we think about
the markets, that is equitiesgrowth always go up and we think
about bonds as being some kindof stable equilibrium staying at
a 5% plus minus.

(18:25):
But in actual fact, as a trendfollower they operate a little bit
differently and therefore weget very different results into those
two sectors.
Well, this is an ongoingproblem for any modeler because I
think what you commented on iscorrect, is that surprisingly is
that while we think ofequities as an extrapolative market,

(18:49):
and I believe that to be thecase, so the long term trend is going
to be following growth plusyou might, but you might have these
sudden stops for higher shortterm volatility.
But surprisingly is that mostpeople think it should be very easy
to trade trends and equitiesgiven its extrapolative behavior,

(19:10):
when in reality it's actuallysort of harder than what you think.
Alternatively, so we sort ofthink of fixed income as mean reverting,
which I, you know, it isbecause you sort of say there's a
valuation and bonds, which weknow is associated with growth term

(19:31):
premium plus expectedinflation that given the lower volatility,
once the Fed starts to move orstarts to follow a policy of either
going, raising rates orfollowing rates, it seems as though
that there's more trendingbehavior and you could make more
money in fixed income becauseyou're following the Fed and the

(19:52):
Fed behavior now you at yousort of say, so what's really going
on here is that what you'rereally picking up in fixed income
on quote unquote trend is thelong policy movements of a central
bank.
And I think that a researcharea that, you know, I've been focusing

(20:12):
on for a long time has alwaysbeen this Is that who are the, what
are the macro structure in the economy?
And that macro structure meanwho are the players?
And when you say who are theplayers is that who's the dominant
player in fixed income, who'sthe dominant player in equities?

(20:34):
We'll probably say that thedominant player in fixed income is
still central banks, even moreso than what it was in the past.
So consequently what you'rereally picking up is the trend in
central bank behavior.
Now that's the scary partbecause if this Fed or central banks
are such dominant players,then we're subject to the whims of

(20:59):
the central bank and when itwants to change its view, could.
We go as far as saying wellactually what we may be picking up
and this is not thoughtthrough at all, but I'm just going
to throw it out there.
Maybe we're picking up evenmore to more so the trends in inflation
and actually those trends tendto be much more consistent, gradual

(21:24):
than central bank policy forthat matter.
But, but also, you know, is,is, is that what we're really picking
up do you think?
Because I mean I, I mentionedthat bonds have been better to trade
for trend followers, but Ihaven't been better for the last
two years, that's for sure.
Equities haven't been greateither because of these, you know,
short term V shaped corrections.

(21:45):
But, but certainly bonds.
And actually even in July Iwould, I think there's a lot of flipping
around in, in fixed incomeexposure within trend following.
But do you think it's evenmore so just kind of long term inflation
trends we're picking up?
Well, you know, if you'velistened to me over the last couple
of years, you probably havepicked up is, is that I'm a closet

(22:09):
macro trend follower as wellas a price trend follower that macro
trends lead to price trends.
So price trends are adescription of what's happening in
the underlying economy.
So if inflation is going up,we're going to see fixed income going
up and that's the trend thatyou're actually picking on.

(22:30):
So if inflation is coming downand then yields are coming down,
that's what you're picking up on.
So, so, so I agree with that.
Now while I'm saying that I'ma macro trend person, sort of say
that it is hard to, I couldsort of say X post.
I could always sort of findthis association ex ante when I'm

(22:54):
trying to predict.
It's much harder to do this totry to see exactly what the direction
and the underlying macro isgoing to foreign.
Well, let's jump to, to yourtopics and I'm gonna try and tee
it up, but I'll leave reallylet you drive here.
But I mean 2025 has given ussomething, something rare.

(23:16):
You could say.
Maybe you could say it'sconsensus without real conviction.
Recession risk is probablylow, inflation is subdued, and yet
nobody really seems to trustthis calm that we are seeing right
now.
So what's really changed theworld or just the stories that we
tell about it?

(23:38):
Well, there's two things thatare really going on and I like to
focus in on.
One is, is that, and I thinkthat there's been some articles in
the Financial Times about thisis the fact that we're facing more
sudden stops in the economy.
Which means is that instead ofhaving longer periods of high volatility
or that that you have thesesudden stops in the economy based

(24:04):
on a certain event, it causesa high degree of uncertainty.
We'll see that then themarkets will have a large move.
Then within a relatively shortperiod of time that uncertainty is
resolved or reversed.
And then what we see is thatthe sudden stop stops.

(24:25):
So that has really had animpact on trend followers and overall
market behavior.
So what's the perfect exampleis this, is that even let's say,
you know, we're only in July,but so it's a six month span.
This is that, you know, wehad, you know, sort of a view that

(24:47):
we'll say we'll start out theyear that most people thought that
maybe we were going to be in arecession in 2025.
We only got worse when we hadsome tariffs.
We had tariff liberation Dayis that you see the huge market decline
and then we've had a hugereverse almost to the point, which
we'll talk about in just asecond, that people are now thinking
about equity bubbles asopposed to what we're thinking out

(25:11):
at the beginning of the yearis that we are on the verge of equity
collapse.
So what we'll sort of say thatwe're in a period of higher complexity
and complexity.
What will mean is that thenumber of factors that are necessary
or needed to explain what isgoing on in the economy and markets

(25:33):
is much greater than maybewhat we saw in years past.
So we say what are the factors?
This is that if you could sortof say like gee, I need to have some
idea of growth, expectedinflation, term premium, I could
cover most of what's going onin bonds.
So relatively simple model.
So if you could sort of say Ineed to know a little bit about what

(25:54):
Earnings.
I need to know what interestrates are.
I could have a pretty goodidea what's happening in equity markets.
It seems as though that wehave a higher level of complexity
than what we've seen in the past.
Yes, no, absolutely.
Well, I'm going to let youdrive through some of these topics
that you have.
I just wanted to tee up thefirst one where you wanted to talk

(26:15):
about what's changed in, inthe world.
But, but do continue and thenI think you might want to drill down
a little bit further intomarkets and, and so on and so forth.
Well, we'll talk about marketsin just a second.
But along with this complexityis the fact is, is that what is the
real problem that we arefacing and we'll say on a macro sense

(26:39):
and then also on a, we'll callit a trend follower sense is the
timing of events.
And what I mean by that isthat should tariffs have an impact
on pricing earnings in theeconomy and should those tariffs
actually be negative?
I think most people and mosteconomists would agree the answer

(27:01):
is yes.
The question is we don't knowwhen or we'll say, say we're not
sure when.
We could sort of say that.
The same with a lot of theuncertainty we're facing.
We think that that's going tohave an impact on investment, it
should impact on the economy.
We just don't know when.

(27:21):
And so what we're seeing isthat we probably have more agreement
about what should happen, butwe have less agreement about when
it will happen.
And I think that what we findis that if you want to make money,
whether it's on followingtrends or just following macro event,
it's the timing more than the actual.

(27:44):
The why is not as importantbut the when is the more important.
But in a world like that, Markwhat it seems like the only thing
you kind of can do as aninvestor is really kind of going
back to portfolio constructionthen making sure that you have something
that is truly diversified,including trend, hopefully.

(28:09):
Well, I think that this is oneof the key issues that you know,
is started to resonate with meis the fact that there have been
a few people and I, I probablywould sort of say I follow this to
a degree is, is that goodportfolio construction is based on
do, on a do nothing principle.

(28:31):
And a do nothing principlewill say, you know, find your weights
and leave it alone.
So I will sort of say that ifyou followed a equity bond allocation
at the beginning of this yearand if you sort of said like well
okay, I want, I think I'm Diversified.

(28:51):
Should I, should I maintainthis diversification?
If you did that through thefirst half of the year, you probably
would be better off thantrying to react to tariffs.
And then similarly this isthat when you think about a do nothing
plus strategy would be tofollow trends in within your overall

(29:12):
portfolio.
So, so do nothing except and,and that means is that if the trend
is going higher, continue tohold or to keep your exposure in
a certain asset.
On the other hand, this isthat and then do nothing plus strategy
which is you know, do nothingplus trend.

(29:34):
If markets are going down wellthen what you should do is to continue
to reduce your exposure tothat particular asset.
The simple reason is thatthat's what the prices are telling
you.
So in a complex world, this is it.
First, it may be the simple,simple strategy of doing nothing
works and second is that ifyou want to sort of do something

(29:57):
in that world, follow a donothing plus strategy which is to
follow the trends.
Yeah, I think actually yousent me like a quote also in terms
of this complexity versussimplification point.
But when I look at, I meanthere's so much going on at the moment.
Right.
And on one sense you can saywell this is kind of normal.

(30:19):
There's always something thatmarkets will react to but changes
in the markets at the moment,let's call it this year or this quarter,
whatever.
I mean where do you thinkmaybe things are changing?
Because something seems justvery range bound at the moment.
Maybe, but maybe there arekind of the early, the early signs

(30:41):
of certain things that mightactually lead to much bigger price
trends hopefully, I guess.
But, but what, what are youseeing and what wouldn't you say
you wrote to me in the sort ofhow the markets are changing.
What are you, what are youseeing at the moment?
Well, you know, I think thatthe, the key and what I'm seeing

(31:02):
in markets is the fact is thatthere's always a quick reaction to
now policymakers andspecifically is this is it President
Trump and we'll sort of, we'renot going to make a value judgment
about, about his style otherthan the fact that if you're, we'll

(31:24):
sort of say generallypoliticians have been taking the
view that I'm going to besomewhat cautious in my statements
and I'm going to sort of, youknow, be somewhat, you know, when
I make a public pronouncement,I'm, I'm not, it's going to be very
muted and we'll sort of saythat the current environment is,

(31:46):
is leading to politicians tobe less muted in Their, in their
statements and that causes themarket to react quicker which causes
this, these sudden shocks.
When we have these suddenshocks on the other hand is is that
then you're going to have, is,is that you're going to have a spike
in prices if you're asystematic trader, is that, that

(32:10):
you, you can't sort of saywell I'm going to discount that information,
I have to react.
And then, and then thatreaction causes you to move away
from your sort of do nothing approach.
And then that means is thatyou're going to have to rebalance
your portfolio, you know, fortrend follow your rebalance because
you might get stopped out or achange in signal.

(32:30):
And then you, and then youfind out if let's say that there's
a reversal of those statementsthen you've got to do that all over
again.
The problem we're facing isthat markets seem to be less liquid
today than what they may havebeen in the past.
And we'll sort of say that'son two levels.

(32:51):
And this is with the macro structure.
This is it.
One is that, is that the roleof governments?
So one is that we've had veryactive central bank behavior.
Two, given the size ofsovereign debt, not only in the United
States and others, that thesupply of debt is much larger and

(33:12):
larger.
So that then the amount ofexposure or risk that dealers have
who are making markets is, isthey don't have enough capital to
make the markets you need toprovide liquidity.
So an interesting study that Isaw recently is this show that that
over the last 10 years or sothe bid ask spread in most markets

(33:37):
have actually, you know, tightened.
So, so we've got a tighter bidask spread.
And so by most measures, ifyou told me I had a market that had
a tighter bid ask spread, Iwould say it's more liquid, you know,
the liquidity is higher.
But what we find out is alsothat we're having periods of higher

(33:58):
kurtosis fat tails.
So, so that where the bid askspread gets really large or the,
or they are the there could bemore skew.
If you look at the underlying,you know, what is the amount that
you could trade at the bid askspread that number is probably more
volatile.

(34:19):
So you'd say I can make amarket at this spread, you know,
in normal times of it could bea hundred by 100 and then what we'll
sort of say at other periodsthat all of a sudden liquidity disappears.
Now if liquidity disappearsthen you're going to get these sudden
stops and you're going to haveall of a sudden increase in your
trading costs.

(34:39):
Now why is that so importantfor trend following is that generally
trend followers are liquiditytakers, not liquidity providers.
So if you're going to bebuying on the way up, then what happens
is that you're going to betaking liquidity so someone has to
supply it.
So what happens is that that'sgoing to have an impact on your returns

(35:04):
because the transactions costthat you're paying is much higher.
If there's more trendfollowers then you're going to have
more people maybe doing thesame thing, albeit not at all the
same time.
But you have liquidity takerson the other side and then you have
dealers who are undercapitalized One, you have highly
concentrated players, which iscentral banks.

(35:26):
Two and third is that thecomposition of the dealers are such
that, well, they'll provideliquidity in a very competitive basis
until they think that they'renot going to make a return on making
markets which times theydisappear and all of a sudden they
disappear.
Then you'll have this lack ofliquidity or pockets of illiquidity

(35:46):
that's going to have an impacton your behavior.
It's a lot going on here, butoftentimes you won't see that in
sort of the top lineperformance numbers.
But the real battle for in inby systematic traders trend followers
in particular is how do wecontrol or manage our transactions
costs because that's a placewhere you know the cost could be

(36:09):
fairly significant on anannual basis and if let's say you
have a year where performanceis not as great, transactions costs
could be and the cost ofliquidity that you have to pay could
be a significant portion ofthe overall return that you receive.
Yeah, no, I agree with that.
And actually it is somethingwe discussed last week on the show

(36:31):
with Andrew and Tom andcertainly Andrew has a lot of focus
on that at the moment.
So I do think it's somethingwe may come back to on the show for
sure.
I want to go off script, so tospeak, a little bit.
I noticed in your notes thatyou kind of mentioned the dollar
and.

(36:52):
But I want to take it in aslightly different direction where,
where it's not about thedollar, you know, where it's heading
or anything like that.
That's not my point.
But I was listening to anotherpodcast and this is about a topic
that I don't know anythingabout, really hoping you might know
a little bit more than I do.

(37:13):
But it's something I think ishugely significant and I think we
need to learn more about this.
And that's the current changesin the legislation about stablecoins
and how that might change theway say, for example, the US Funds
its deficit.

(37:34):
Say, for example, how a lot ofthe sort of the banking system and
also a lot of the privatesector, how they fund themselves,
where it doesn't have to gothrough, you know, banks per se anymore.
I don't know if this issomething you followed.
I don't know it will have animpact on the dollar as, as such,

(37:54):
you know, obviously it'slooked upon as a safe assets.
It's been a little bit weaklately, but probably, you know, not
to be too concerned about atthe moment.
But this stable coin, Iwouldn't call it a revolution just
yet, but this stablecoinevolution that's happening I find

(38:15):
very intriguing.
And it's almost like veryquietly away from the headlines.
Scott Besant is kind ofrewriting how the monetary system
is being done, not maybe notjust in the US Is this something
that has called your attentionat all?

(38:36):
I did have a discussion with aclose friend of mine concerning this
very, very topic, so.
Because what we'll sort of saythat, you know, to tee it up a little
bit more specifically is thatright now there are about $280 billion
in stablecoin.
If it truly is a stable coin,then for every dollar that exists,

(38:59):
there should be some, some,you know, dollars or some safe asset
behind that.
And usually it'll be treasury bills.
So that the idea is like, ohwell, we've got $280 billion of new
interest in treasury billsthat we didn't have before.
So therefore is that we needto push stablecoin because this will

(39:20):
be a mechanism in which wecould be able to help, you know,
finance, you know, our debt.
Because, you know, for everystable coin, there's going to have
to be someone, you know,holding or the issuer of the stablecoin
will have to hold Treasuriesand then that, that'll be sticky
money that we could finance.
Okay.

(39:41):
And, and that, that's a greatview of what you'd like to see happen.
But in reality that's not,that's not going to, that's not really
what's happening.
So one is, is that you have toview is, is that if the money is
going into stablecoin, is itcoming out of normal banking transactions

(40:02):
that has already occurredwithin the financial system.
So if, let's say that youusually would go through your bank
to make payments and nowyou're using stablecoin well it's
the bank that might be holdingthe treasury bill before as part
of their reserves.
So what you have to look at isthat what is the amount of money
that's being brought intostablecoin that was somehow we'll

(40:26):
say either in the black marketor was not in the traditional banking
system.
We don't know what that number is.
So the amount of net increasein treasury holdings, if that's the
argument you want to sort ofpin on why you like stablecoin, is
that we really don't have agood idea what that number is.

(40:47):
So it could be a much smallernumber because in some senses that
most stable coin is, is thatthere's the uses is coming from two,
two places.
One is that there could beblack market activity that was occurring
with currency that's nowoccurring with stablecoin or crypto

(41:08):
that may still be a smallportion because in some sense there
is a ledger where you couldtrack where people are using the
money for.
The other, you know, major usewould be is, is it as a means of
payment for places where thecurrent banking system is extremely
expensive.
So you know, I think that our,our cost of, of of making a transaction

(41:35):
in the US is, is low.
In other countries it may beslightly lower.
If we go to the emergingmarket countries it's extremely high
to either pay with a check,even to pay with a credit card.
The fees that you're going tosee on that is much greater.
There's slippage in theeconomy because there's float that's

(41:56):
being taken advantage of thatyou don't have if you're the transactor.
So in some sense thestablecoin may have a usage case
for when there's hightransactions unfortunately is that
we have to ask the question isthat in a perfect world you would

(42:16):
like to have a place where youcould be able to hold your money
in a, in a money market fund,make a payment at a, with a very
cheap transaction and youreceive the interest on the money
market fund.
If you're holding a stablecoin you don't get that interest.
It's the stablecoin issuerthat's actually making that interest

(42:37):
interest.
So in some senses that there'sanother place where this is actually
becoming more interesting.
I think it was J.P. morgan andbank of New York have said that they're
going to start to tokenizesort of money market funds so that
then it could be easier to collateralize.
What you really want to haveis the ability to have a tokenize

(43:00):
or to have a digital ledgerfor money market funds so that you
could be able to sort of keepyour interest but then still be able
to use that, that your moneymarket funds as a, as a means of,
of collateral and you coulduse that as a, and still receive
the interest.
That's probably more important.

(43:20):
And what that does is itallows, you know, sort of money market
funds to behave more like asafe asset.
So which is, which is thecritical issue that some researchers
have talked about, but isreally important in our overall discussion

(43:41):
about the financial health ofcredit and financial markets.
Now you've mentioned the wordbubbles, and I'd like to return to
that.
I think you might have somemore to say about that.

(44:02):
But one of the things when Ithink about bubbles and I think about
my 40 years in this industry,I think about bubbles as something
we kind of feared becausethere was always going to be something
nasty happening after a bubble.
I guess people in the techbubble will remember that.
And the 85ish percent that theNASDAQ dropped since then.

(44:26):
Now we live in a world where Ifeel that bubbles have become much
more normal.
And even though we think ofthings as being in bubble territory,
I mean, there are so manythings that you could say is that
so it just doesn't have quitethe same effect, at least not on
me when I think about it.

(44:48):
So the question for me is notso much whether they exist, they
probably do.
But should we think of them differently?
Should we even care aboutwhether it's labeled a bubble or
not?
And that's kind of for generalinvestors, but for trend followers,
maybe we have an evendifferent perspective on bubbles.

(45:11):
What are your thoughts?
It's a good point.
I'm not going to be so glib asto say we need to embrace the bubble,
but, but we'll, we'll probablysort of say that the term is overused.
But that being said, is this,is that what I found when I look
at, you know, first six monthsof the year is that we went from

(45:34):
a period where we thought thatthe equity markets were going to
be in a great decline, theworld was a little histrionics, is
that the world was going tocome to an end because of tariffs
and slow growth.
Now if you look at in July,there's been a number of stories
that all talk about the, well,the equity market is in a bubble.

(45:55):
How did we go within a shortperiod of six months from a doomsday
scenario to a bubble scenario?
So that's a separate questionand that's an issue of narrative.
But we know that bubbles exist.
But what we have looked moreclosely at bubbles is that we spend

(46:16):
a lot of time and there's beena lot of research on bubble crashes.
What we find is that when youlook at you know, extreme price movements
that usually that they lastlonger than what we expect.
It's one and second timessecond is that oftentimes there isn't
a complete reversal of the bubble.

(46:39):
So in some sense there was acertain level of truth in the bubble.
So, so what we really have toworry about is two parts.
One is that markets areovervalued and two, that there's
a continuing stories or thenarrative that markets are overvalued.
We're in a bubble but we stillcontinue to believe that prices are

(47:02):
going higher.
That's the like the worst casescenario that we have.
So that, that we sort of sayeverybody agrees that there's a bubble
but we're going to continue todo this behavior or further buy into
the bubble.
Now what do you need for a,for a bubble?
The best analogy is this is itis that we use a fire analogy and

(47:27):
a fire analogy is, is that youthink about is that the, the market
structure is your oxygen, youknow, your heat is speculation and
then the fuel is leverage.
So, so if anything it's harderto get leverage.
Right now we probably have theliquidity to have bubbles and you
know, speculative behavior is up.

(47:51):
Now if you're a long onlyinvestor, what you want to try to
do is at some point avoid bubbles.
The question is when.
So there has been some workby, by Professor Jarrow from Cornell,
longtime you know, researcherand a lot of different topics.
And so he's, he was trying tolook at this bubble issue and he

(48:13):
said like well maybe in a wayto do this is that you look at past
price extremes be able to lookat the statistical behavior of the
prices and say if it you know,goes little sort of parabolic or
it goes more exponential atsome point you sort of say that you

(48:36):
just get out.
Okay, so you ride a bubbleuntil you get to a point of extreme
and then you get out.
I don't know if I like thestory but he said that this is one
way in which you could playthe bubble.
If you're a long only guy nowyou know when to get out is is the
$64,000 question his math saysis that there you can find that point

(48:56):
of view.
I don't know if I agree withthat but from a trend followers perspective
is this is that it'sinteresting because we've seen Some
interesting cases in the lastcouple of years where bubbles have
existed and it's beenextremely profitable for trend followers.
Perfect example is Coco.

(49:18):
You could look at orange juice.
You could sort of say that thegold market currently, now there
may be some underlyingfundamentals that have been very
positive.
But from a trend follower wecould sort of say you want to try
to be embracer, an embracer ofbubbles because it's a trend, you

(49:40):
identified a trend, you couldcontinue to follow that trend.
And then you sort of say thatif the market reverses or the bubble
starts to reverse, well thenwhat you'll do is you'll, you know,
just get out because yoursignal will tell you to get out.
Or, or alternatively if youhave a stop loss, you could sort
of say, okay, you know, I'mriding this bubble.

(50:02):
If there's a reversal thathits my stop loss again, I get out.
So there's two ways.
Third is that if you sort ofsay that the market is at some extreme
that I think that there's aproblem with liquidity, I could just
then get out.
Which would be the, the Jarrowversion is, is that I write it until
I think that I've hit to theextreme and then I sort of cut my

(50:24):
exposure.
That would be somewhatdiscretionary, harder to actually
build into the system.
But from a trend followersperspective, you say I don't care
if there's a bubble or not, Idon't care if the bubble bursts,
I don't care if it continueson for a longer period of time, is
that I will follow the trendand then systematically get out.

(50:47):
And, and when you think about,you know, from, you know, some plate
and I followed fairly closelyis the cocoa market.
This is that, you know, thiswas a, this is a bubble but then
it didn't fully reverse itthen came it reversed and then we
had another big bout of cocoagoing up.

(51:08):
You can look at thefundamentals that, that suggested
that this made, you know,reasonable sense.
Now what happens is thatregulators have a big problem with
trend followers and bubblesbecause they think that speculation
actually forces the bubble higher.
Interesting work that I waslooking at is that you found is that

(51:30):
if you look at the commitmentof traders in the cocoa market, you
know, when the market wasstill going up, a lot of the long
speculative behavior actuallyleft the market before the, the bubble
reached a high.
So speculation was actuallydown because of higher volatility.

(51:50):
People took exposure offbefore it reached a high.
So there are other reasons forthem for, for why the market reached
a higher point.
So, so I would sort of saythat from a trend followers perspective,
you want to embrace or lovethe bubble.
Unfortunately, you'll haveregulators that will say that they'll
blame you for being the causeof the bubble.

(52:15):
Yeah, no, that's very true.
We see it especially incommodities over here in Europe,
certain countries where manyinvestors won't be able or allowed
to invest in funds that tradescommodities because they think inherently
that we are part of the reasonwhy commodity prices from time to
time goes higher and we're thecause of that.

(52:38):
Let's leave bubbles aside.
There are two other, I thinkmain topics that you wanted to touch
on.
Maybe three actually.
And just in the interest oftime, I'm going to ask you to select
what you would like to talk about.
One was, and I don't know ifwe talked enough about this complexity
issue that we are seeing atthe moment, there was also something

(53:00):
about thematic investingwithout a theme that you mentioned.
And then also risk, you know,is it a feeling, is it a factor?
Which one do you think wouldyou would most likely want to dive
into?
I'll hold off on risk as afeeling versus a factor because I
think that's a longer topic.
And let's, let's talk a littlebit about complexity because I think

(53:22):
from, from a lot of yourlisteners who may be, you know, either
thinking about buying asystematic investor or being a systematic
investor, the complexity issueis the, is the number one issue.
And so, okay, I love the wordcomplexity only because it fits within
the my VUCA framework whichyou know, that I bring up occasionally.

(53:46):
Absolutely.
Which is the volatility,uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
But what there has been is anumber of researchers, especially
Kelly from AQR and YaleUniversity who's looked at, okay,
this complexity issue.
Now his argument is that youwant to make models as complex as

(54:08):
possible, meaning use as manyfactors as you can.
Because what you find is byusing more factors then what you're
going to be able to use.
This is that some machinelearning in particular you can use
random forests or other typesof approaches.
And what happens is, is thateven though you may not be able to
sort of come up with anexplanation for why all those factors

(54:32):
are necessary, that at the endthis is that they're better predictors
and that as a model builderyou don't really care about quote,
unquote, the econometrics ofY, all you care about is the prediction.
So he would argue is that wewant to increase and embrace complexity

(54:52):
in our model building given wehave the techniques, the computing
power and the Data to be ableto do it.
I'm simplifying in some sensesis that on the other hand is that
we have the more traditionalists.
We'll say the traditionalistwould say keep it simple.
This is that complexity willmean to lead to overfitting.

(55:15):
This is going to be problematic.
So if anything we should avoidthe use of too many factors and we
should keep the factorslimited so that we can say these
are the ones that are most important.
Only focus on those.
That means we may do poor in agiven period of time, but in the

(55:37):
long run will do and do better.
This is, this is sort of likehas come up in a number of different
issues.
I think that Frank Fabozzi didan interesting paper on, on you know,
fixed income equitycorrelation and he showed us is that
like he looked at about 135 factors.

(55:57):
He was able to show thatthere's, you know, that he could
group some of these things.
He gets a pretty good numberin sample.
Albeit is that simple modelsactually do really well.
We'll get you saying 90% ofthe way.
So the added factors, youknow, they, they contribute but they
don't, you know, addsubstantively to your, your overall

(56:18):
prediction.
But then he said if againyou're using so say say different
techniques in the predictionthat having more factors is actually
a good thing.
So we'll sort of see thatthere's the traditional academic
community who is probablydriven or focused on econometrics

(56:38):
where you need to have aspecific model.
They started to embracemachine learning to say let's add
complexity.
There probably are systematicmanagers say well how do I still
keep it simple as the key driver?
And I think that this isreally one of the major themes that

(57:02):
we're going to see for allsystematic managers is you know,
how much complexity should Iadd to a model?
That this is really animportant issue that we're going
to have to face.
Now the reason why this is soimportant is because there's another
stream of research that we'restarting to see more and more discussion

(57:26):
about is causal inference.
And the causal inference issaid like let's make sure that we
only add factors that we knowthat we think cause, you know, an
impact on stocks or causeimpacts on the market is that if
we can't find or measure thecausal influence, then don't use

(57:50):
that factor.
So what they're saying is thatit's not so much simplicity, it's
not so much complexity.
It's a matter of making theright causal inference.
So what you're going to seemore and more in the next year or
so, more discussion about thisissue of simplicity versus complexity.

(58:14):
And that's going to show up inresearch papers.
It's going to show up in howpeople present their, their modeling.
And second, we're going to seea much more work on this idea of
causal inference.
Can you tell me the factorsyou use?
How do they actually cause,you know, an event so that we can
actually make good predictions?

(58:37):
You know, I mean, it's afascinating area and it's also a
topic we discussed last week, actually.
Now, I think for many people,both really on the manager side,
but also on the investor side,I think complexity can be somewhat
seductive.

(58:57):
Meaning that we may mistakemodel sophistication, if we call
it that, for better market understanding.
How do you think about that?
I mean, is that where the realrisk lies, that we think, oh, yeah,
by doing all of this extrawork, we now know much more about
how these markets operate.

(59:18):
But in fact, we don't.
But we just don't see it untilit's too late.
Well, you know, this is theproblem with overfitting.
This is that when we train themodels, we could say, like, aha,
there's this relationshipthat, you know, I didn't see before
that I need this extra factor.
The question comes in is, isthat, and we go back to our, our

(59:40):
issue of timing is, is thatwhat may be important in one period
may be less important in another?
So we were doing some work on,you know, I did some work on housing
markets about, you know, youknow, different models and whether
they can explain housing behavior.
And what happens is, is thatthe coefficients or the models that

(01:00:00):
you use at a given point intime are fairly unstable.
So, so that the, the stabilityof your coefficients is constantly
changing.
So in some sense, the morecomplexity you have, the more likelihood
you're going to have thisproblem of instability.
So I didn't get to my quotefor the day, but the one that I found

(01:00:25):
interesting in the last monthis that knowledge is a process of
picking up facts.
Wisdom lies in their simplification.
So if we apply that to modelsis that, you know, knowledge is our
process of picking up morefactors, but the wisdom lies in their
simplification.
And so I think that while Iembrace more the machine learning

(01:00:46):
techniques, I embrace that ourgoal is always prediction.
At the same time, I sort ofsay, you know, say, like, if it,
how do we keep it simple?
And in some sense, I don'tknow if there are many more factors
we can find.
The question is, is ourTechniques that can extract the relationships

(01:01:07):
or the stability of thoserelationships better right now.
Yeah, Mark, this was.
These were some great topics.
I'd like to finish off with acouple of just observations that
I thought of during our conversation.
Things that I, you know,they're not strictly directly linked

(01:01:28):
to what we've talked about.
Maybe they are.
So the first one, it's thisthing about, you know, we are looking
at history when we developthese models, but we're obviously
developing models for acompletely uncertain future now.
I still feel very stronglyabout trend following, of course,
and in particular because itreally is designed to.

(01:01:51):
To handle an unknown future.
We've seen that for decades.
And it's the fact that it'sadapting along the way.
And I think that's such areally powerful part of trend following.
And I have said over the yearson this podcast that I think we need

(01:02:12):
to imagine the unimaginable.
And I do feel that the worldis changing significantly at the
moment, not least with this AIrevolution that we are seeing.
And then I came acrosssomething, again, not entirely sure
where I read it or heard it,but it was fascinating.

(01:02:34):
And I think it's within the last.
It's certainly within this year.
I think Japanese scientistshave been able to beam from space
the power of the beams fromthe sun essentially down to Earth
to extract energy.

(01:02:56):
And I'm just thinking, and Iknow this is completely left field
for us to talk about, but I'mjust thinking, what is if this means
that in 10 years time, 20years time, I don't know, we suddenly
live in a world where energydoesn't cost anything because we're
just getting it beameddirectly from things from space?
And how would that change theworld we live in?

(01:03:20):
Because again, right now,energy is kind of the structure of
everything.
It's so important.
We know that for everything wedo, we could talk about AI as well.
And we say, well, all thesethings will change dramatically in
a few years.
And the jobs we thought ofright now as being secure, well,

(01:03:43):
just they're just beingreplaced and we should all get used
to not having to work maybe,and just get paid something, you
know, what we going to spendour time, you know, something that
is so far out that you and Iright now and the people listening
to us think, you know, that'snever going to happen, but it may
happen.
And, and so I think this isvery interesting.

(01:04:05):
This is also why I'm so, youknow, as passionate about trend following
and this adaptive approach toinvesting, not predicting anything.
We're just going to Go withthe flow.
I think that process really isso useful and important for, for
all portfolios.
So this is just a thought.
I don't expect you to commentor have any thoughts on that.

(01:04:25):
But then I was also remindedwhile you were talking about this
trip to China that you hadabout something I also found fascinating.
Another news story.
I picked up something calleddark factories.
I don't know if you have heardabout the term, but apparently in
China now there are a lot ofdark factories where everything is
done by robots so they don'teven need to turn on the light in

(01:04:48):
the factory.
And I just found, wow.
What I mean, it'sextraordinary really.
So anyways, not sure whatyou're going to do with this as we
wrap up, but I'd love to hearyour first sort of thoughts.
You know, doing this for along time and always constantly looking

(01:05:08):
at, trying to say how do I add?
Whether it's macro factors ortrying to add more complexity or
at least trying to do that tosort of say because you want to sort
of see, can I create an edge?
You still go back and I thinkthat you make the great point is
that I don't know what thefuture will hold next year, next
six months, next five years.

(01:05:30):
So the only thing I could dois still embrace the idea that prices
are primal and that whateverthe future that starts to evolve
will be revealed in prices.
So therefore I should justfollow the prices.
And so I say I don't knowwhether what the cost of energy is
going to be.

(01:05:50):
I don't know who's going to bethe dominant economic player.
I don't know who's going to be President.
I don't know what the Fed isgoing to do, but I do know that it
will be revealed in prices andmy job is to try to sort of find
out about that revelation asquickly as possible.

(01:06:11):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
By the way, did you see anydog factories, Mark?
No.
Have you heard about the termdog factories?
Well, I will sort of say thatmy final point is that, you know,
like I look some of the EVcars there is this, is that like,
like some of them, you know, Iwas in, you know, one or two taxis

(01:06:33):
from some of the Japanesemanufactured cars and they are nice
cars.
I, I, I liked it.
I like being that.
So waiting for them to come tomarket here, that may not happen
but, but I'm waiting for that.
No, no, absolutely.
Well, this was wonderful, Mark.
Really, really great to haveyou back.
Love the way you think aboutthese concepts and how you share

(01:06:57):
them.
So I really appreciate that.
And of course for all of thoselistening to our conversation today,
if you feel the same, headover to your favorite podcast platform
and leave a rating and review.
It helps the show and itmotivates all the co hosts to come
back every week and deliversome some some interesting insights

(01:07:18):
for sure.
Next week I'm joined by Alan,so that will be also very interesting
without a doubt.
If you have some questions forAlan that I should bring up, email
them to infotoptradersunblocked.com and I will do my very
best to to get them answered.
Anyways, from Mark and me,thanks ever so much for listening.

(01:07:41):
We look forward to being backwith you next week and thanks until
next time.
Take care of yourself and takecare of each other.
Thanks for listening to theSystematic Investor podcast series.
If you enjoy this series, goon over to itunes and leave an honest
rating and review and be sureto listen to all the other episodes
from Top Traders Unplugged.
If you have questions aboutsystematic investing, send us an

(01:08:02):
email with the word questionin the subject line to infooptradersunplugged.com
and we'll try to get it on the show.
And and remember, all thediscussion that we have about investment
performance is about the past,and past performance does not guarantee
or even infer anything aboutfuture performance.
Also, understand that there isa significant risk of financial loss
with all investmentstrategies, and you need to request

(01:08:24):
and understand the specificrisks from the investment manager
about their products beforeyou make investment decisions.
Thanks for spending some ofyour valuable time with us and we'll
see you on the next episode ofthe Systematic Investor.
Sam.
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