Top Traders Unplugged1 Nov 2025

SI372: QIS Unboxed: Rules, Wrappers, and Reality ft. Nick Baltas

As equity markets grind higher and trend strategies navigate sharp reversals, Moritz Siebert welcomes Nick Baltas of Goldman Sachs for a conversation that moves beyond performance to examine structure. Together they unpack the machinery of the $1.3 trillion QIS industry - from index design and client behavior to the subtle forces shaping capacity and crowding. They discuss how trading speed has become a key axis of dispersion, why volatility remains the hidden cost in systematic portfolios, and what resilience in markets might really be masking. This is not just about strategy. It’s about how products scale, and how ideas hold.

-----

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

-----

Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.

IT’s TRUE ? – most CIO’s read 50+ books each year – get your FREE copy of the Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Books ever written here.

And you can get a free copy of my latest book “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.

Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.

Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.com

And please share this episode with a like-minded friend and leave an honest Rating & Review on iTunes or Spotify so more people can discover the podcast.

Follow Nick on Twitter.

Follow Moritz on LinkedIn.

Episode TimeStamps:

00:23 - Moritz opens the show and introduces Nick

01:16 - Nick’s quick life update and setting the tone

02:45 - Market resilience vs. fragility in 2025

04:18 - Performance rundown: CTAs, trend, equities, bonds

06:10 - October reversals: metals and livestock giveback

07:32 - What’s working: equities, gold, copper; sugar shorts

08:58 - Trend speed, April V-shape, and dispersion

10:40 - Position exits, re-entries, and neutral zones

11:55 - How QIS differs and why it’s opaque from the outside

14:40 - How big is QIS? Asset class split and caveats

18:05 - Who uses QIS: from asset owners to hedge funds

21:30 - What QIS really provides: rules, access, and efficiency

28:05 - The four pillars of product design (research, clients, tech, markets)

30:20 - Why thousands of indices exist (customization, wrappers)

33:22 - Delta-1 vs. options on indices: when each makes sense

36:58 - Vol targeting trade-offs for optionality and recovery

38:55 - Built for scale, but with capacity discipline

42:00 - Innovating without data-mining traps

47:12 - Crowding: congestion, vol carry, and trend mechanics

56:35 - Wrap-up and what to expect next week

----

PLUS: Whenever you're ready... here are 3 ways I can help you in your investment Journey:

1. eBooks that cover key topics that you need to know about

In my eBooks, I put together some key discoveries and things I have learnt during the more than 3 decades I have worked in the Trend Following industry, which I hope you will find useful. Click Here

2. Daily Trend Barometer and Market Score

One of the things I’m really proud of, is the fact that I have managed to published the Trend Barometer and Market Score each day for more than a decade...as these tools are really good at describing the environment for trend following managers as well as giving insights into the general positioning of a trend following strategy! Click Here

3. Other Resources that can help you

And if you are hungry for more useful resources from the trend following world...check out some precious resources that I have found over the years to be really valuable. Click Here

Disclaimer

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(928)

IL42: Redefining Sovereignty in a Borderless Financial System ft. Zoe Liu

China’s trade surplus with the US remains stubbornly large, but its appetite for Treasuries is fading. So where are the dollars going, and what does that say about the country’s evolving financial str...

1 Okt 20251h 3min

SI367: Portfolio Design in a Distorted World ft. Andrew Beer

Equities are up more than 50% since the April lows, yet the world feels anything but stable. In this episode, Niels Kaastrup-Larsen and Andrew Beer examine the widening disconnect between market behav...

27 Sep 20251h 7min

UGO06: Democratizing the Asymmetric Trade ft. Vlad Tenev

Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood joins Cem Karsan at the Hood Summit in Las Vegas, for a timely conversation about the shifting edge in markets. From memories of hyperinflation in Bulgaria to unlocking t...

24 Sep 202541min

SI366: The Strategy Didn’t Fail. The Investors Did. ft. Rob Carver

Rob Carver is back from summer break for a conversation that moves between past and present through the lens of lived experience. Starting with the anniversary of Lehman’s collapse, Rob and Niels unpa...

20 Sep 20251h 2min

ALO31: What If the Illiquidity Premium Was Never Real? ft. Richard Tomlinson

Richard Tomlinson joins Alan Dunne for a conversation shaped by experience, not theory. As CIO of LPPI, Richard is responsible for £27 billion in pension assets - but what stands out here is the clari...

17 Sep 20251h 3min

SI365: Design or Luck: Why Trend Following Results Diverge ft. Katy Kaminski

Katy Kaminski returns to explore why results in trend following rarely look alike, even when the rules sound the same. Using fresh research from Man Group and Quantica, she and Niels trace the fingerp...

13 Sep 202555min

GM87: Who Really Sets Policy Now? ft. Anna Wong

Anna Wong, Chief U.S. Economist at Bloomberg, joins Alan Dunne with a clear-eyed assessment of where policy and politics are headed. As markets bet on cuts and the Fed talks balance, she sees a differ...

10 Sep 20251h 4min

SI364: What makes an Alternative Investment Truly Valuable? ft. Moritz Seibert

What makes an alternative investment truly valuable? In this episode, Moritz Siebert joins Niels Kaastrup-Larsen for a conversation that moves past market moves and into the core design of systematic ...

6 Sep 20251h 11min