756: Meet The 21 Year Old Who Runs His Own $5m Hedge Fund

Julian Marchese. Julian was introduced to Nathan by a mutual friend and he's the CEO and portfolio manager at Marchese Investments in New York City. Julian is only 21 and was already featured in Bloomberg, CNBC and Dragon's Den, which is Shark Tank of Canada, where he managed to get 4 out of 5 dragons in the den that showed interest.

Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Market Wizards What CEO do you follow? – Peter Jones Favorite online tool? — Quantocracy.com How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Multi-strategy"

Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:51 – Nathan introduces Julian to the show 01:47 – Going into the hedge fund world has always been Julian's passion 01:55 – Julian was introduced to the world of investing by his parents when he was 11 years old 02:50 – When Julian turned 18, he decided to start his own firm 02:58 – He waited until he reached the legal age 03:27 – Julian took a course in Toronto and people in press found it fascinating that he was studying trading at a very young age 03:48 – A lady took it upon herself to take Julian's story and publish it 04:05 – Some of Julian's first investors saw his story from the media 05:00 – Julian wanted to build a community for young learners like himself 05:10 – A lady emailed Julian because she wanted her daughter to join 05:36 – Julian met the lady and her daughter when they were in Toronto 05:51 – 2 years later, the lady invested $75K for 1% of Julian's management company 06;11 – The management company has raised $675K with a $4M valuation 06:38 – Hedge funds usually have multiple entities who have different roles 07:28 – Julian also pays himself for personal expenses which is around $25K to $30K 07:53 – The other costs are on the management company side 08:44 – The investors make money from the GP interest accumulated 09:43 – Julian was able to raise the $6M capital through value generation 09:45 – "I've been managing money since October 2015" 10:07 – The best months for Julian are the months where the market is down 10:28 – Julian latest deal was an institutional money manager 11:03 – Julian isn't doing traditional investments 11:42 – Julian explains how he does his investments 11:45 – First, they're able to trade volatility and how much the market moves up or down 11:59 – Most people invest in the stock market, they want to benefit with the stocks are up, but they also want protection when things go down 12:21 – One of Julian's strategies is to systematically sell insurance 13:04 – The investment return depends on the investors 13:40 – If you put in a million dollars in October 2015, today you will now have $1.2M 13:50 – You can take it all or leave any amount you want 14:09 – They now cater to different types of clients 14:36 – Julian doesn't worry too much about what other hedge funds usually worry about 15:10 – Julian worries more about their process and how can they develop more 15:20 – The real risk for Julian is when there's something wrong with his analysis process 15:45 – Strategies are reciprocal 17:04 – Julian has multiple strategies and none of those strategies are correlated 17:53 – Brexit can affect the volatility strategy but it's a selective strategy and not always in the market 19:03 – "The main risk to us are not macro events like a stock market crashing" 19:40 – Julian makes money from 53-55% of their trades 19:49 – They try to limit their exposures 20:02 – "The risks are very circumstantial" 21:20 – Julian is unsure of his future positioning, but it's completely content specific 23:23 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points: Having multiple strategies can help you stay on track. Start as early as possible—you are building your skills and knowledge base for the future. People desire taking risks in trading and stocks, but they also need the securities in place.

Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives