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Today's guests are Leigh Drogen, CIO of Starkiller Capital, which applies quantitative strategies to the blockchain based digital asset space, and Corey Hoffstein, co-founder of and CIO at Newfound Research, and a research partner and advisor to Starkiller. In today's episode, the guys update us on a wild year in crypto. We talk about the GBTC trade, the value of FTX bankruptcy claims, and even some conspiracy theories around Binance. Then we get into their recent paper, which looks at the momentum factor in crypto markets, and the benefit of using trend-following strategies within crypto to avoid drawdowns like the one we've seen in the last year. As we wind down, the guys say if they think crypto is starting a new bull market. ----- Follow Meb on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube For detailed show notes, click here To learn more about our funds and follow us, subscribe to our mailing list or visit us at cambriainvestments.com ----- Today's episode is sponsored by YCharts. YCharts enables financial advisors to make smarter investment decisions and better communicate with clients. YCharts offers a suite of intuitive tools, including numerous visualizations, comprehensive security screeners, portfolio construction, communication outputs, and market monitoring. Visit YCharts to start your free trial and be sure to mention "Meb" for 20% off your subscription. (New clients only). Today's episode is sponsored by The Idea Farm. The Idea Farm gives you access to over $100,000 worth of investing research, the kind usually read by only the world's largest institutions, funds, and money managers. Subscribe for free here. ----- Interested in sponsoring the show? Email us at Feedback@TheMebFaberShow.com ----- Past guests include Ed Thorp, Richard Thaler, Jeremy Grantham, Joel Greenblatt, Campbell Harvey, Ivy Zelman, Kathryn Kaminski, Jason Calacanis, Whitney Baker, Aswath Damodaran, Howard Marks, Tom Barton, and many more. ----- Meb's invested in some awesome startups that have passed along discounts to our listeners. Check them out here!
The Block is reporting that U.S. federal lawmakers want to question Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of FTX, about the bankrupt crypto exchange's collapse. They'd also like to hear from Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao about his company's role in FTX's demise. Also, Binance is said to be preparing to acquire the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital that FTX had won at auction, and centralized exchange Gemini is experiencing elevated withdrawals. Nico Brugge and Ash Bennington welcome Leigh Drogen, a general partner and the chief investment officer at Starkiller Capital, and Miles Deutscher, a crypto analyst at Crypto Banter, to talk about the latest developments in the FTX crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What should we make of the recent crypto crash? A sign this is all a scam? Or just another dip in the cycle? Gather round; you're in for an interesting chat with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Disciple on Twitter @LDrogen. A Long Island surfer turned quant turned crypto fund manager who shows us how you have to be able to hold two separate thoughts in your head to succeed in the wild world of crypto. We're hanging ten and talking Crypto with Starkiller Capital's Leigh Drogen. In this episode, Jeff and Leigh bond over their love of skiing, the inception of Starkiller, how he's doing trend-following on a portfolio of coins with dynamic yield farming. Jeff gets Leigh to dive deep on the long list of warts in crypto: shadow banking, yield swaps, yolo trades, Ponzi schemes – but also wants to know what the real opportunities are. They then talk just how you can do trend following on assets so volatile, how you even start to go about doing due diligence in this space, and how to hedge the book. Plus, Leigh's in the hot seat giving us his views for preparing for the next 10x cycle — SEND IT! Chapters: 00:00-01:44 = Intro 01:45-10:50 = Big Wave Surfing, Skiiing & Montana scenery 10:51-31:45 = The Warts of Crypto: Shadow banking, Yield Swaps, Yolo trades & Ponzi schemes 31:46-43:19 = Trading the coins: Trend following in the Volatile Crypto space 43:20-58:02 = Hedging the book, Coin rewards & farming for extra yields and liquidity 58:03-01:09:57 = Managing Risk & Stepping into the pool with a hazmat suit 01:09:58-01:16:11 = Hottest take: Preparing for the next 10x cycle Follow along with Leigh on Twitter @LDrogen and @StarkillerCap and for more information visit www.starkiller.capital Don't forget to subscribe to The Derivative, and follow us on Twitter at @rcmAlts and our host Jeff at @AttainCap2, or LinkedIn , and Facebook, and sign-up for our blog digest. Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, business, or tax advice. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of RCM Alternatives, their affiliates, or companies featured. Due to industry regulations, participants on this podcast are instructed not to make specific trade recommendations, nor reference past or potential profits. And listeners are reminded that managed futures, commodity trading, and other alternative investments are complex and carry a risk of substantial losses. As such, they are not suitable for all investors. For more information, visit www.rcmalternatives.com/disclaimer
Leigh Drogen is the General Partner and CIO of Starkiller Capital, a quantitative asset manager in the digital asset space. Leigh came to the crypto world after experience at a quantitative hedge fund, as an early employee at StockTwits, and as the founder of Estimize, a buyside-driven earning estimate platform that today is one of the largest in the world. Our conversation covers Leigh's background and lessons on markets from both a retail and institutional lens. We discuss Estimize, insights into hedge funds, and his shift to crypto. We then dig into the investment process at Starkiller, the nuances of fundamental modeling in crypto, and managing risk. We close with Leigh's perspective on what's to come for crypto and hedge funds. Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership
Ever wondered what it's like to manage a crypto investment firm? Leigh Drogen, the CEO of Starkiller Capital, is walking that walk, and he joins Corey Hoffstein, the CIO of Newfound Research, to describe his journey so far. Leigh explains to Corey how, in his experience, TradFi investment trading strategies such as momentum- and/or trend-following can lead to above-average performance in the crypto space as well. Their conversation highlights the importance of a healthy balance between consistency and flexibility, a requirement of those who'd like to successfully navigate any trading environment. Leigh and Corey share key lessons they've learned, including coping with high volatility, the importance of open-mindedness, and dealing with uncertainty. And Leigh describes the limitations of traditional investment valuation methods applied to crypto. Recorded on April 4, 2022.
On today's show we spoke with Leigh Drogen from Starkiller Capital about starting a crypto hedge fund. Find complete shownotes on our blogs... Ben Carlson's A Wealth of Common Sense Michael Batnick's The Irrelevant Investor Like us on Facebook And feel free to shoot us an email at animalspiritspod@gmail.com with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.
To close out 2021, we compiled a highlight reel of the Mashup's best moments. Part 1 covers January 2021 to May 2021. Part 2 will air next week. A huge, heartfelt thank you to every guest that took time to hop on and talk about options trading this year. And a huge thank you to everyone that took the time to listen. Your support means the world! Table of Contents Chris Prybal: (2:37), Tony Battista of tastytrade: (5:55), Cboe's Henry Schwartz (8:02), Adam Warner (12:30), Cboe Global Markets (14:13), Don Fishback (17:14), Bond Yields (21:50), VIX Roundtable (25:11), Leigh Drogen (28:00), Adam Warner (29:11) Jermal Chandler (33:27)
To close out 2021, we compiled a highlight reel of the Mashup's best moments. Part 1 covers January 2021 to May 2021. Part 2 will air next week. A huge, heartfelt thank you to every guest that took time to hop on and talk about options trading this year. And a huge thank you to everyone that took the time to listen. Your support means the world! Table of Contents Chris Prybal: (2:37), Tony Battista of tastytrade: (5:55), Cboe's Henry Schwartz (8:02), Adam Warner (12:30), Cboe Global Markets (14:13), Don Fishback (17:14), Bond Yields (21:50), VIX Roundtable (25:11), Leigh Drogen (28:00), Adam Warner (29:11) Jermal Chandler (33:27)
In episode 351, we welcome our guest, Leigh Drogen, General Partner of Starkiller Capital, an institutional investment firm employing both quantitative and fundamental strategies to blockchain based digital assets. In today's episode, we start with a brief overview of the asset management space and what Leigh learned from running Estimize, the largest estimates financial platform in the world. Then we turn to crypto. We hear what sparked Leigh's interest in the space and the process of building a trend and momentum model that led him to push his chips all in last October. We talk about the importance of crypto's incentive structure, what things like staking and crypto lending mean, and what some of the biggest risks are in the space. Please enjoy this episode with Starkiller Capital's Leigh Drogen. ----- Follow Meb on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube For detailed show notes, click here To learn more about our funds and follow us, subscribe to our mailing list or visit us at cambriainvestments.com ----- Today's episode is brought to you by Vinovest. Vinovest makes it easy to invest in fine wine. Vinovest's investment platform lets you buy and sell wines that have increased in value like Screaming Eagle and Chateau Lafite. Vinovest provides access, storage, and insurance. All you have to do is sit back, relax, and enjoy a glass of wine. In fact, fine wine has outperformed the S&P 500 over the last 20 years. You can get started in just minutes online. Go to vinovest.co to create an account and invest in fine wine today.
How Align Technology (ALGN) uses patents, data, 3D printing and artificial intelligence to stay ahead of increased Invisalign competition, Estimize founder Leigh Drogen explains. Spotify (SPOT) drops $60 million in another podcast investment taking out Alex Cooper's “Call Her Daddy.” Lionsgate Entertainment (LGF.A) positions itself to compete with Hollywood's streaming giants Netflix and Disney+ -- but only just a little. Blucora (BCOR) says good times are ahead when it comes to tax software. The Drill Down with Cory Johnson offers a daily look at the business stories behind stocks on the move. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
AirBNB return to growth, explaining Bill.com's multi-billion purchase of Divvy -- it's more than a high-flying stock, Roku's creepy targeting of its customers using artificial intelligence and machine learning, and after spending billions of dollars buying and selling Bitcoin, why can't Square make money on crypto? And we look at employment numbers, Dr. Copper and the Baker Hughes rig count. The Drill Down with Cory Johnson focuses on the business fundamentals of the most compelling publicly traded companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Entrepreneur extraordinaire Leigh Drogen, founder and CEO of Estimize Inc, stops by the pod for a wide-ranging chat Leigh and Patrick chart the origins and inspirations behind Estimize, what so many get wrong about earnings trends (6:30), Bitcoin (11:45), Cathie Wood (17:24), and much more!
Entrepreneur extraordinaire Leigh Drogen, founder and CEO of Estimize Inc, stops by the pod for a wide-ranging chat Leigh and Patrick chart the origins and inspirations behind Estimize, what so many get wrong about earnings trends (6:30), Bitcoin (11:45), Cathie Wood (17:24), and much more!
This week, Ursula Burns, the former CEO of Xerox and current senior advisor at Teneo, joined to talk about her work leading the Board Diversity Action Alliance and why she thinks corporate leaders should be speaking out even more on societal issues. Leigh Drogen, the founder and CEO of the open financial estimates platform Estimize, came to on to talk about how big tech's stay-at-home rally turned into a rout this week and if valuations are really that far off for the sector. Then Exante Data Founder and CEO, Jens Nordvig, joined to discuss the state of the global recovery and whether there is a clear data correlation coronavirus cases and economic indicators.
For years, the key to beating the stock market was to invest a lot in the big tech stocks like Facebook and Apple. But in 2018, they stumbled hard, amid a general selloff in the market, concerns about their growth potential, and concerns about regulation out of DC. So what's next for them? On this week's episode, we spoke to Leigh Drogen, the founder and CEO of Estimize, a site that gathers buy-side earnings forecasts. Leigh has a great feel for the business models of each company, and the challenges and opportunities that they face.
We recently published The Best Investment Writing, Volume 2. The first book was a hit, with MoneyWeek concluding that it “should be on every investor’s bookshelf.” But we made the second volume even better – we expanded it to include 41 hand-selected investment articles, written by some of the most respected money managers and investment researchers in the world. We thought it would be fun to bring on some of the authors so that they could read their specific chapter from the book. That’s what you’re getting in today’s special bonus episode. If you’re interested in picking up a copy of The Best Investment Writing, Volume 2, head on over to Amazon or our publisher’s website, which is Harriman House. Also, know that your purchase would benefit charity, as all writer-proceeds go to the charity of the specific author’s choosing. So, enough from me, let’s let Leigh take over with this special bonus episode.
Several weeks ago my conversation with Leigh Drogen on quant investing proved timely and popular--because everyone in asset management is facing the rise of big data, and the use of data science in investing strategies. Because of the rise of quants, many are asking themselves how to survive and thrive in a changing industry. In short, how can traditional managers compete with quants? This second conversation with Leigh was set up to answer many of the questions posed in the first one. If quants are taking over, what should other investors do about it? Leigh proposes a method by which old school asset managers can restructure their thinking and their process to compete with and even beat purely quantitative competitors. The method involves pulling the best from both worlds and combining them into a hybrid structure. But it will be impossible without a wholesale change in mindset, which is where we begin. Please enjoy round two with Leigh Drogen. Links Referenced Revenge of the Humans Part II: A New Blueprint For Discretionary Management Show Notes 2:14 – (First question) – What role will ego and mindset play for traditional hedge funds looking to transition into quantitative investing strategies 4:21 – Describes the traditional process that hedge funds use to make investment decisions and how the internal politics can hamper it 6:08 – What value has portfolio managers played at hedge funds traditionally as the quarterback of a fund 9:57 – A look at what Leigh has seen as he sits with teams 12:20 – A look at places that have tried to simply add quant to their firm’s strategies without “tearing it down to the studs” and properly integrating them into the process 15:00 – Leigh is asked to define the basics of a good investment firm’s strategies 16:57 – Strategies for writing down core beliefs, whether it’s for yourself or your firm 17:49 – Exploring the second step, finding a differentiating view and how to succeed with it. 21:43 – The importance of force ranking and structuring the unstructured 26:14 – Building factor models 29:42 – How the portfolio manager position should have less room for subjectivity than at the analyst level 33:44 – Is anyone integrating this kind of high level data at the portfolio manager level into the decision making the way Leigh describes 35:07 – What blind spots are created by systematizing their processes 36:18 – Why much of this applies more to shorter and structured periods 38:23 – Shifting to portfolio constructions and what Leigh would do to create the right mix 43:39 – Shifting to management structures in these firms starting with the role of the CIO 45:24 – Looking at the different quant roles that exist in a firm and what they should be responsible for; data engineers, data analysts, pure quants, and quantitative engineer 48:20 – If you are an undergrad or grad student right now interested in asset management, what are the roles you should be thinking about targeting 49:25 – Why communication skills are still so important, no matter what role you are in 50:25 – With all of the tools and skills that Leigh has at his disposal at Estimize, why not institute an active strategy 52:01 – What has Leigh observed in the dispersion of skill in the Estimized data set 53:47 – What is the relationship between specialization and accuracy among funds 55:29 – The pros and cons of the generalist 56:56 – A look at Leigh’s background into War Theory and what lessons that he still draws on today 1:00:19 – How the field of study around war and battle relates to the investing world Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. For complete shownotes, go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/leigh. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
I’ve often joked that this show should be called “this is who you are up against,” because I am so often having conversations with brilliant people across the investment landscape who are effectively my competition and yours. This week’s conversation fits that description because it gives you an inside view into how things work among some of Wall Street’s most competitive investment firms. My guest is Leigh Drogen, who has worked as a statistical arbitrage portfolio manager and who founded and now runs Estimize, a data company which works with some of the world’s largest hedge funds. Our conversation centers on the massive shift from what we call discretionary portfolio management—basically stock picking—to a landscape that is increasingly dominated by quantitative investors of various types. We talk about how any investor might hope to earn alpha, and how doing so is harder and harder. There are so many great stories in this episode, told by someone with the perfect career experience to know how the system actually works. After many episodes where I’ve been learning on the fly about topics like venture capital, permanent equity, or health, this episode marks a return to my world of quantitative investing. I think you’ll learn a lot, and that you’ll likely finish with an even deeper appreciation of just the type of investors that we are all up against. Books Referenced Revenge of the Humans: How Discretionary Managers Can Crush Systematics Links Referenced The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds Force Rank (App) Founder of Estimize Explains How He Plans To Disrupt The World Of Wall Street Research Show Notes 2:45 – (First question) – A look at Leigh’s early career and how he got started in investing 3:13 – Revenge of the Humans: How Discretionary Managers Can Crush Systematics 5:39 – Leigh is asked to describe the inefficiency in sell-side analysts’ estimate set 8:04 – What happened when things stopped working towards the end of 2007. 9:35 – The proper dimensions to separate any sort of potential Alpha edge 11:15 – The traits that help a fund perform well 11:42 – The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds 14:05 – Force Rank (App) 14:49 – How the scientific process plays into Leigh’s research strategies 19:18 – Explain what Estimize is and what it does 20:55 – How people are compensated for the estimates 23:33 – The scale of how many estimates they get per company 24:57 – Why you need to be part of this informational arms race if you hope to survive 28:30 – What happens if everyone buys Estimize data and the Alpha built into it goes away 31:04 – What has been the evolution in these hedge fund platform type companies 35:00 – If Leigh was designing a firm from scratch, what would it look like 37:25 – Understanding Numerai and crowdsourcing in funds 41:41 – What is an example of interesting data set that Leigh as come across 45:38 – What is the potential for a hybrid model between a quant only with a discretionary picker. 51:35 – How do you know when something is busted or broken? 55:33 – Exploring his most memorable individual day in his career – Flash Crash 58:16 – With all the algorithms and automation, will we continue to see more of these unforeseeable dislocations like the flash crash? 1:01:00 – Bloomberg article about passive investing rates 1:07:50 – What is Leigh most excited about the future 1:13:15 – Kindest thing anyone has ever done for Leigh 1:13:41 – Founder of Estimize Explains How He Plans To Disrupt The World Of Wall Street Research Learn More For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/drogen For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Daniel sits down to chat with Leigh Drogen, Founder and CEO of Estimize, to hear what it's like launching a venture in the FinTech space and what Estimize is doing to help fix a broken financial system. Estimize crowdsources earnings and economic estimates from more than 7,000 hedge fund, brokerage, independent and amateur analysts. https://twitter.com/LDrogen https://www.estimize.com/
In episode #223, Leigh Drogen, founder and CEO of Estimize, explains how Estimize uses cutting edge technology to improve earnings estimates by ensuring the estimates are based on merit and not pedigree.