SI354: Everyone’s Different. Until They’re Not ft. Rob Carver

With markets drifting and conviction thinning, Rob Carver joins Niels to take stock of a moment that feels suspended... not quite crisis, not quite calm. They discuss why recent rule changes around bank capital and crypto assets may carry more weight than headlines suggest, and what falling shipping volumes might be whispering about global demand. Rob breaks down the math of drawdowns, the tension between Kelly sizing and real-world volatility, and how systematic managers can fool themselves into thinking they’re diversified. It’s a conversation about structure, discipline, and why most edges today come from avoiding mistakes rather than discovering secrets.

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Episode TimeStamps:

01:07 - What has caught out attention recently?

01:23 - Rob and Niels have done the unthinkable

02:59 - Fed is rolling back important capital rules

05:22 - What the shipping industry reveals about the economy

07:33 - Industry performance update

16:00 - Q1, William: Is it possible to apply the concept of decomposing returns in commodity trading?

27:24 - Q2, Raphael: About estimating the full sharpe and Kelly of trend following

37:03 - Q3, Dom: Has Rob come across any useful frameworks, research, or resources for designing systems that intentionally combine systematic structure with discretionary judgment?

41:52 - Are all managers the same, although we all claim to be different?

52:26 - Why are bond investors contrarian while equity investors extrapolate?

01:01:59 - "What if you missed the best days of a market?"

01:11:53 - Rounding up

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