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Aspect Capital On Short Term Trading For Alpha Generation at The Amsterdam Investor Forum: The Skill of Capturing Ephemeral Market Alpha - Hedgeweek
Aspect Capital On Short Term Trading For Alpha Generation at The Amsterdam Investor Forum: The Skill of Capturing Ephemeral Market Alpha - Hedgeweek
“We are equally excited about this year’s forum as 2018 has so many
absorbing and captivating topics for discussion. We continue to
challenge our audience with great debate shared amongst a broad mix of
fund managers, investors and industry associates.”
Aspect Capital has evolved in recent years from being purely focused on
a single strategy – a traditional medium-term trend following CTA (the
flagship Aspect Diversified programme) – to more of a multi-product
solutions provider. Part of that initiative was to launch a short-term
trading programme, leveraging Aspect’s systematic expertise and
research capabilities.
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Aspect Capital on short term trading for alpha generation at the A… Forum: The skill of capturing ephemeral market alpha | Hedgeweek 29.12.2019, 12:43
To do this, the firm hired Dr Filitti and Antonio Botelho from Capula
Investment Management in July 2014 to develop a new multi-style short-
term trading programme, known as the Aspect Tactical Opportunities
Programme (ATOP).
The programme is just now approaching its three-year track record and
performance has held up well during a tough period for most short-term
traders.
“The SG Short Term Traders Index is down over 10 per cent over that
period,” comments Christopher Reeve, Director of Investment Solutions
at Aspect Capital. “We seeded ATOP with our own capital and earlier this
year it received its first client allocation. It now has over USD200 million
of institutional money in the programme.”
The ATOP programme trades global liquid futures markets and comprises
a set of four sub-strategies or themes, which include: relative value
trading; factor premium timing across different asset classes; short-term
trading – these are the fastest models in the programme, trading
positions over one to three days and are more event-driven or behaviour-
driven - and finally momentum trading; effectively a shorter-term
directional trading strategy than that used in the Aspect Diversified
programme.
“Combined, these strategies have holding periods that range from one
day to one month, with the average holding period typically being five to
eight days. It’s not ultra-high frequency, intra-day trading but it is
noticeably quicker than your classic medium-term trend following
strategy,” comments Reeve.
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Aspect Capital on short term trading for alpha generation at the A… Forum: The skill of capturing ephemeral market alpha | Hedgeweek 29.12.2019, 12:43
A key part of any short-term trading strategy is how to best manage and
deal with trading costs, giving the higher turnover of the portfolio. The
models that the team uses to trade global markets seek to optimise alpha
generation in such a way that gains are not adversely eroded by trading
costs. Determining the right entry and exit level for each position is highly
detailed as the trading models are designed to capture what is, after all,
ephemeral alpha.
“You have to make sure your trading strategies are deployed in the most
effective fashion. The Aspect Diversified programme takes more
medium-term views and is able to leverage its patience premium by
spreading trading out over time, whereas the Aspect Tactical
Opportunities Programme trades multiple times each day.
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Aspect Capital on short term trading for alpha generation at the A… Forum: The skill of capturing ephemeral market alpha | Hedgeweek 29.12.2019, 12:43
“It’s more than just a signal to noise challenge, it’s also looking for
reasons as to why certain people behave in a constrained fashion when
they trade, which gives rise to predictable behaviours when market
events occur. That is what our models seek to take advantage of.
“We’ve got some original ideas that we model, which goes someway to
avoiding the issue of crowded trades that other systematic models
sometimes fall prey to,” says Reeve.
This is fine when the trading models are able to recognise and capture
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Aspect Capital on short term trading for alpha generation at the A… Forum: The skill of capturing ephemeral market alpha | Hedgeweek 29.12.2019, 12:43
predictable behaviour in the markets, but it works far less well when
black swan events occur. Both Brexit and the Trump presidency
nomination are two obvious examples of where short-term CTAs are
simply not programmed to make alpha when the markets are thrown into
chaos and market participants disagree about the impact of the event.
“A lot of the strategy’s good performance has been over the last five
months, as markets have acted in a more predictable way; it’s harder to
make short-term alpha when unexpected events scupper the usual
market behaviour,” remarks Reeve.
Reeve confirms that the relative value sub-strategy has been the most
consistent alpha contributor so far this year, generating profits in global
equity futures. “Another area that has been good for the strategy is the
energy sector, especially in August and September this year,” adds
Reeve.
“The tempting thing to do is react to that and change things. You’ve got
to remain disciplined, in terms of running your trading models. Everything
we do at Aspect is disciplined. It’s about learning from what doesn’t work
but also not over-reacting to a particular period that either has or hasn’t
worked. That’s the skill; knowing how and when to adjust the model’s
behaviour,” concludes Reeve.
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Aspect Capital on short term trading for alpha generation at the A… Forum: The skill of capturing ephemeral market alpha | Hedgeweek 29.12.2019, 12:43
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