This is an external podcast with Investment Innovation Institute [i3], recorded on the 4th of March, 2025.
Suhail Shaikh is the Chief Investment Officer and the Portfolio Manager of Fulcrum’s Discretionary Macro and Diversified Absolute Return strategies. In today’s incredibly volatile environment of tariff wars and deglobalisation, investors tend to be more sensitive about the level of their absolute returns than their performance against the benchmark. In this episode, we delve into the philosophy of absolute return investing; we talk about the role of skill versus luck, the use of Nowcasting, learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ever controversial topic of market timing.
02:00 Started off working on the intranet and taught myself HTML
02:30 Internship at Goldman Sachs
03:30 A lot of well-known global macro traders made their money during equity market crashes
05:00 If you are constantly looking for the next accident, then 90 per cent of the time you are wrong. It is important to make money while the sun is still shining
10:00 Crisis risk offset and momentum during COVID
13:30 Leaving the model aside
15:00 Using Nowcasting for analysis
18:30 AI has been more useful to us in portfolio construction, risk management, scenario analysis and stress testing. I’m more sceptical about AI being helpful in alpha generation.
22:30 Behavioural finance and Fulcrum paper: ‘Don’t Bet the Ranch’
23:30 To determine whether someone is skilled or lucky, look at the number of views they take over time
31:30 Sizing [trades] is a complex topic
33:00 The role of dynamic asset allocation
34:00 “The biggest accidents in asset management happen when, in a draw-down, people don’t know whether they are benchmarked or absolute return”
35:00 “Dynamic asset allocation is market timing”
40:00 Global Macro and the Magnificent Seven
42:00 Bitcoin and momentum strategies
44:30 Some clients explicitly prohibit us from investing in Bitcoin
[i3] Insights is the official educational bulletin of the Investment Innovation Institute [i3]. It covers major trends and innovations in institutional investing, providing independent and thought-provoking content about pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds across the globe. The [i3] podcast is available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, or your favourite podcast platform.
This content is provided for informational purposes and is directed to professional clients and eligible counterparties as defined in Directive 2011/61/EU (AIFMD) and Directive 2014/65/EU (MiFID II) Annex II Section I or Section II or an investors with an equivalent status as defined by your local jurisdiction. It is not intended for retail clients. Information provided does not constitute investment advice and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. It has been produced as thought leadership which represents our intellectual property. Reproduction of this material in whole or in part is strictly prohibited without prior written permission of Fulcrum Asset Management LLP. Copyright © Fulcrum Asset Management LLP 2025. All rights reserved.
This content is provided for informational purposes and is directed to professional clients and eligible counterparties as defined in Directive 2011/61/EU (AIFMD) and Directive 2014/65/EU (MiFID II) Annex II Section I or Section II or an investors with an equivalent status as defined by your local jurisdiction. It is not intended for retail clients. Information provided does not constitute investment advice and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. It has been produced as thought leadership which represents our intellectual property. Reproduction of this material in whole or in part is strictly prohibited without prior written permission of Fulcrum Asset Management LLP. Copyright © Fulcrum Asset Management LLP 2025. All rights reserved.
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