In this episode, we talk with Jerry Haworth, CIO and co-founder of 36 South. Jerry has over 32 years of investment experience, and is well known for his thought leadership in the volatility space. He often represents 36 South as a speaker at high profile educational and professional events, and is a frequent guest speaker and writer on volatility in the financial media. 36 South seeks out long dated, pan asset class, global, convexity in the most cost efficient manner. We talk about Jerry’s background, starting with the nascent options market in South Africa. We go through the highlights on how options markets have evolved over decades. Why does he believe that long term options are the best way to play Vega. How to construct an options book and overlay with other assets. Jerry is always full of great anecdotes and analogies from a colorful personal trading history. I hope you enjoy Jerry’s insights as much as I did...

In this episode, I talk with John Krautsack. John is the Chairman and CEO of EMC Capital Advisors. John and I talk about the history of EMC going all the way back to the unbelievable story of the Turtle Traders. We touch on how EMC has adapted their trend following models over the decades. We discuss how advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence have helped their in-house team improve their risk assessments and monetization. I hope you enjoy this conversation with John as much as I did...

In this episode, I talk with Tim Pickering. Tim is the founder, President and CIO of Auspice. Auspice Capital Advisors is a quantitative investment specialist focused on Alpha and Enhanced Beta managed futures and commodity strategies. Auspice specializes in applying innovative rules-based investment strategies across a broad range of commodity and financial markets. Prior to forming Auspice, Tim was VP of Trading at Shell (North America). He began his career at TD Securities (Toronto) in their elite trading development program ultimately holding the Senior PM position for the Energy Derivatives portfolio. Outside of Auspice, Tim has been involved in grain farming in Western Canada. Through the founding of Auspice, Tim ties together a career in commodity and financial risk and portfolio management that has spanned institutional experience along with entrepreneurial vision.   Tim and I talk about his history as an institutional energy trader and how that lead him to want to start his own entrepreneurial venture.  We touch on where inflation manifests itself and how do you make sure you are there.  We also discuss how to deal with open profits within a trend system. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Tim as much as I did...

In this episode, we talk with Jerry Parker from Chesapeake Capital. Chesapeake has always been a classic trend following CTA. "Trend Following + Nothing" is their firm motto.  Over the years Jerry has focused on adding markets to their portfolio. They were one of the few CTAs to trade single stock futures. They started trading single stocks in the '90s and continue to do so today. They do not trade any stock indices. About 50% of their portfolio is commodities with FX, FI and single stocks making up the balance. They do trade BTC futures. They have added quite a few of the more exotic/less liquid commodities in the past few years: milk, lumber, sunflower seeds, maze, rough rice, palm oil, iron ore, rubber and look forward to trading the commodity markets in China. His philosophy is to trade any and all markets that are liquid and add to their portfolio diversification.    Jerry and I talk about his start as a Turtle Trader.  What is CTA, Managed Futures, Trend Following.  We talk about what he has learned over 4+ decades in the market.  Why he hates vol targeting.  Why discipline and sticking to your plan is the key to life.   I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jerry as much as I did...

In this episode, we talk with Aaron Larkin and Matt Laviolette, Co-Founders of Breakout Funds. Breakout Funds, LLC ("Breakout") incorporates quantitative global macro thematic views with current news events to place discretionary short term concentrated trades in futures markets. Our trading approach draws on a combined 30 years of experience in the proprietary trading space where we have learned that protecting principal is the primary goal of any trading strategy. We believe that there is always an underlying theme that shapes the direction of the market, and it is our goal to adapt and implement strategies suitable for each particular market regime. We talk about Matt and Aaron's background as Prop traders.  How they use a multi-filter approach to trading the global macro environment.  They wait until all their setups line up.  Take concentrated positions with very tight stop losses, coming from their days as prop traders.  We also talk about unique event risks. I hope you enjoy Aaron and Matt's insights as much as I did...

In this episode I am joined by Mutiny Fund CIO Jason Buck and our close partner at RCM Alternatives, Jeff Malec.  In this quarterly review, we discuss what we saw in markets in Q1 and how various volatility strategies performed.  To give a bit of context, Q1 2021 saw The S&P up 6%, and the VIX down about -14.87% though it was fairly range bound. The inverse PutWrite index which is a rough proxy for at-the-money volatility on the S&P was down about -5.82%. Accredited investors interested in learning more can contact us at info@mutinyfund.com for more information or submit an inquiry on our site, mutinyfund.com.

In this episode, we talk with Cem Karsan, CIO and Founder of Kai Volatility Advisors (formerly Aegea).  After his successful trading career, Cem decided to leverage his volatility arbitrage expertise by improving upon many of the flawed strategies he had witnessed during his tenure as a market maker. To that end, Kai Volatility Advisors has created a non-correlated and scalable investment vehicle that takes advantage of the structural mispricing inherent in option indices worldwide, while offering the superior transparency and liquidity that today’s investors demand. We talk about Cem’s experience as a market maker and how that affects how he thinks about trade flows.  We dive into the 3 components to his strategy: 30 day skew, dispersion, and VVIX.  We also discuss how dealer hedging can affect Vanna and Charm, which can pin the index or exacerbate moves depending on their hedge positioning.   I hope you enjoy Cem’s insights as much as I did...

In this episode, we talk with Jag Prakasam, CEO of Rotella Capital Management. Jagdeesh Prakasam oversees all aspects of the firm, including its investment, FinTech solution offerings and operations. He joined RCM in 2003 as a Researcher primarily focused on supporting the research efforts in portfolio construction, risk management, and overlay strategies for the firm’s core trading strategies. Jagdeesh Prakasam was appointed as the firm’s Chief Executive Officer in 2019. Prior to that he was the Co-Chief Investment Officer alongside Jagdeesh Rotella since 2014. Jagdeesh Prakasam has been managing various portfolios ranging from intraday to intermediate-term holding periods across both futures and equities spaces.   We talk about Jag’s decades of experience in the markets.  From doing his thesis in neural networks to being at the vanguard of trend following strategies.  We talk about how machine learning has evolved and what are the pros and cons to implementation on vix strategies. I hope you enjoy Jag’s insights as much as I did...

In this episode, we talk with Kris Sidial, CIO and founder of Ambrus Group.  The Ambrus Group is a volatility arbitrage focused firm that was founded in 2018. The firm takes pride in having a math driven ethos that specializes in leveraging an in-depth knowledge of volatility skew while applying a discretionary twist to quantitative volatility strategies. We talk about Kris's background working different prop desks at banks.  How Kris believes that the market microstructure has evolved and changed since 2017.  How to sell capped vega to fund the buying of out of the money wings with unique dispersion trades.  How chaos theory can be represented by positional inflection points by a multitude of players on the volatility space. I hope you enjoy Kris's insights as much as I did...

In this episode, we talk with Brett Nelson, CIO and founder of Certeza Asset Management. Certeza focuses on investments in volatility using proprietary algorithms to capture perceived mis-pricings in the VIX term structure.   We talk about the start of VIX trading from VRO to modern VIX products.  His background from winning math competitions, isolating Vega on S&P options, to being on the vanguard of VIX trading.  Brett has a unique entrepreneurial journey and has found his way outside the traditional paths to being a portfolio manager and volatility trader.   I hope you enjoy Brett’s insights as much as I did...