The Blushing Quants Podcast

Jaksot

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  Antonio Berenguer: How Options Market Makers Price Volatility and Manage Risk | Blushing Quants #38 24.08.2026 1t 9min

  Antonio Berenguer is an options trading and market-making professional with a background in engineering, mathematics, computational research, quantitative finance, and cryptocurrency markets. Antonio completed a PhD in computational electromagnetics before moving into quantitative finance. After earning a master’s degree in Madrid, he joined an options market-making firm in Amsterdam, where he spent approximately six years working across liquidity provision, screen and broker trading, quantitative research, signal development, and position-taking strategies. He later moved into cryptocurrency trading and market making. In this episode, Antonio joins us for an in-depth conversation about options market making, volatility trading, liquidity, hedging, position sizing, portfolio risk, and quantitative research. Antonio explains how market makers generate returns by quoting bid and ask prices, capturing spreads, and managing inventory risk. We discuss how they adjust quotes, use correlated assets for hedging, and sometimes cross the spread when reducing exposure becomes more important than preserving their trading edge. The conversation explores the complexity of options portfolios across different strikes and maturities. Antonio explains how Delta, Gamma, Vega, Vanna, Volga, and other Greeks help traders summarize risk, while also highlighting the limitations of Black-Scholes and the dangers of relying too heavily on simplified measures. We also discuss position limits, correlation risk, internal netting, centralized Delta hedging, exchange rebates, quoting obligations, and how sophisticated firms reduce transaction costs by offsetting exposures across products and trading desks. Antonio examines the gap between academic theory and practical trading. Elegant models may fail when liquidity is limited, hedges cannot be executed, or transaction costs remove the apparent opportunity. He shares a research process built around exploring data broadly, identifying promising relationships, and focusing only on signals that can realistically be traded. Finally, we discuss crypto options, tokenized assets, and how blockchain technology may bring traditional and digital markets closer together. A technical and practical conversation on options, volatility, market making, portfolio risk, quantitative research, liquidity, and the infrastructure behind modern financial markets.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Gilad Bar-Ilan: Turning Crowd Sentiment into Trading Signals with AI | Blushing Quants #37 24.08.2026 53min

  Gilad Bar-Ilan is the CEO and co-founder of Crowd Wisdom Trading, with extensive experience across proprietary trading, equities, options, futures, foreign exchange, product management, software development, and financial technology. Gilad began his career as a day trader with remote U.S. proprietary trading firms before joining an Israeli proprietary trading firm and becoming deeply involved in options trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. He later worked as a product manager with Israeli technology startups, combining his trading experience with the ability to transform complex technical concepts into working financial products. In this episode, Gilad joins us for an in-depth conversation about crowd intelligence, financial sentiment, alternative data, artificial intelligence, and how thousands of market opinions can be turned into structured, actionable trading signals. Gilad explains how Crowd Wisdom Trading analyzes thousands of hours of financial content from YouTube and other online sources. Using large language models and task-specific AI agents, the platform identifies which assets traders are discussing, distinguishes between short-term and long-term views, and extracts concrete information such as direction, entry prices, targets, stop levels, and time horizons. We discuss why identifying positive or negative sentiment is not enough. A general opinion about a stock may provide limited value, while a specific trading plan containing an entry, target, stop, and time horizon can be measured, evaluated, and compared with other predictions. The conversation explores the challenge of separating useful information from noise. Gilad explains why aggregating every market opinion does not automatically create intelligence and why the quality, experience, and track record of the contributors matter. Instead of relying on the general public, his approach focuses on building a professional crowd of experienced traders with relevant market expertise. Gilad connects this framework to Philip Tetlock’s research on superforecasters. Just as groups of skilled forecasters can outperform ordinary prediction groups, Gilad believes that combining the structured opinions of successful traders can produce a stronger market view than following any single analyst or commentator. We also examine how raw information becomes actionable signals. Gilad explains why replacing unstructured noise with a larger collection of filtered opinions still leaves traders with too many decisions. The next step is therefore to rank opportunities by factors such as risk and reward, narrow the list, and present a manageable selection of potential trades. The discussion then moves to execution and simplicity. While collecting, classifying, and aggregating data may require complex technological infrastructure, Gilad argues that the final trading plan should remain clear and understandable, with a defined entry, stop, target, and method for measuring results. Gilad shares the entrepreneurial journey behind Crowd Wisdom Trading and explains how the emergence of ChatGPT, large language models, and AI agents made it possible to build a product he had wanted throughout his trading career. What began as a question about why traders should follow one financial commentator when technology could analyze thousands quickly developed into a scalable platform for extracting collective market intelligence. We also explore Gilad’s experience across equities, options, futures, and foreign exchange. He explains why risk management matters more than the specific financial instrument being traded and why traders must always expect that something will eventually break. Whether the disruption is a financial crisis, natural disaster, pandemic, or unexpected market event, survival depends on controlling risk and preparing multiple contingency plans. Finally, we discuss the future of discretionary and retail trading. Gilad expects professional tools that were once available
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  Paul MacGregor: Building Electronic Markets and Commodity Exchanges | Blushing Quants #36 24.08.2026 53min

  Paul MacGregor is a financial markets executive with nearly 30 years of experience across exchanges, derivatives, electronic trading, commodities, technology, and international business development. In this episode, Paul traces his journey from strategic planning at BP to the open-outcry trading floors of LIFFE, where he witnessed the rapid transition from human execution to fully electronic markets. He explains how real-time data, systematic strategies, and execution costs accelerated that transformation, changing the structure of global markets. Paul shares his experience developing electronic trading platforms for bonds, equities, indexes, and complex interest-rate strategies. He also discusses the expansion of exchange technology across Europe, the rise of algorithmic and proprietary trading, and the infrastructure required to support market makers and increasingly sophisticated participants. The conversation moves into physical commodities and Paul’s time at the London Metal Exchange. He explains what makes markets such as copper, aluminium, nickel, zinc, lead, and tin different from purely financial products, including physical settlement, global supply chains, and the varied needs of producers, consumers, and investors. Paul also explores the challenge of building effective commodity benchmarks. From battery metals to LNG, contracts must reflect the underlying physical market closely enough to help participants manage risk. When the benchmark and the actual exposure differ, basis risk can significantly reduce the effectiveness of a hedge. The episode also examines auction mechanisms beyond traditional financial markets. Paul shares how electronic auction technology was adapted for the art market and later for climate projects, creating greater transparency and price discovery in areas that had previously relied heavily on private negotiations. Looking internationally, Paul discusses the development of capital markets in India, China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the Middle East. He reflects on India’s GIFT City, the growth of Asian commodity exchanges, and the opportunities created as financial activity becomes less concentrated in established Western markets. Throughout the conversation, Paul emphasizes that technology alone cannot create a successful exchange. Clear strategy, stakeholder support, participant education, migration planning, and strong relationships are all essential. Even as AI, automation, and quantitative trading continue to reshape markets, people remain at the heart of building trust, liquidity, and lasting market ecosystems. This episode offers a wide-ranging look at how exchanges evolve, how new markets are built, and how financial infrastructure connects technology with the real economy.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Roger McIntosh: Institutional Portfolios, Factor Models and Alpha Decay | Blushing Quants #35 24.08.2026 1t 6min

  Roger McIntosh is a Chief Investment Officer with an actuarial and quantitative background and extensive experience managing equities, fixed income, multi-asset portfolios, pension assets, index funds, and systematic investment strategies. Roger helped establish Vanguard’s investment team in Australia, built several of its index funds, led its equity and bond teams, and developed multi-asset portfolios for Australian investors. He later created and managed his own quantitative investment strategy, giving him a rare perspective across passive investing, active management, portfolio construction, and institutional decision-making. In this episode, Roger joins us for an in-depth conversation about how institutional portfolios are constructed, how quantitative factors are selected and combined, and why managing an index fund is far more complex than simply purchasing every security in a benchmark. Roger explains the difference between full replication and optimized replication. While some equity indexes can be replicated almost completely, bond indexes and broad small-cap benchmarks may contain thousands of securities that cannot all be owned efficiently. Portfolio managers must therefore reproduce the benchmark’s underlying factor exposures while controlling tracking error and active risk. We discuss how country, industry, value, momentum, quality, duration, convexity, and other factors can be used across equity and fixed-income portfolios. Roger explains why multi-factor models are generally more robust than relying on a single factor and why the factors that influence global technology companies may differ significantly from those driving regional Asian small-cap stocks. The conversation goes deeper into factor ranking, weighting, and signal construction. Roger shares how he uses point-in-time data, weekly model updates, ongoing ex-post testing, and percentile rankings to evaluate whether a signal remains useful or has started to decay. We also explore alpha decay and holding periods. Roger explains why holding a position is itself an active decision, how different factors lose predictive power at different speeds, and why momentum, value, and quality signals should not always be treated in the same way. Roger shares his experience with index rebalancing and the challenges created when large amounts of passive capital must trade simultaneously. We discuss how index additions and removals can influence price discovery, create predictable market flows, and affect the construction of both passive and active portfolios. The discussion also covers portfolio optimization, risk budgets, benchmark-relative exposures, concentration, portfolio capacity, and why optimization methods that work across thousands of securities may be less useful for concentrated portfolios containing only 20 or 30 names. Finally, we examine the growing abundance of financial data and the importance of data quality, interpretability, and client communication. Roger explains why quantitative models must remain understandable to investment committees and clients, how ESG requirements can affect portfolio construction, and why unconventional real-world information can sometimes provide useful signals that traditional datasets overlook. A practical and detailed conversation on institutional investing, factor models, index construction, portfolio optimization, alpha decay, data quality, and the decisions behind managing large pools of capital.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your
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  Nam Nguyen: Sell-Side vs Buy-Side Quants, Monte Carlo and AI | Blushing Quants #34 24.08.2026 1t

  Nam Nguyen is a career quantitative finance professional with experience across both the sell side and buy side. Based in Toronto and working across North America and Asia, Nam began his career during the global financial crisis, building models for complex financial derivatives before moving into model validation, risk management, and eventually buy-side quantitative research. In this episode of The Blushing Quants, Nam joins us for an in-depth conversation about the differences between sell-side and buy-side quantitative finance, Monte Carlo simulation, derivatives pricing, risk modeling, backtesting, market anomalies, and the growing influence of artificial intelligence. Nam explains how sell-side quants work with risk-neutral pricing, exotic derivatives, volatility surfaces, stochastic-volatility models, calibration, Value-at-Risk, and Expected Shortfall. He contrasts this with the buy side, where researchers focus more heavily on time series, statistical anomalies, arbitrage opportunities, portfolio construction, and the search for alpha. We discuss the evolution of Value at Risk and why highly sophisticated models can become difficult for regulators and risk managers to audit. Nam explains why financial institutions moved toward more transparent simulation-based approaches and why Expected Shortfall may provide a better view of tail risk than traditional VaR alone. The conversation also examines the limitations of historical simulation. We explore bootstrap scenarios, Monte Carlo methods, stress testing, and whether AI-generated scenarios could help researchers model future crises and market conditions that have never appeared in historical data. Nam shares his perspective on building reliable backtesting environments across equities, fixed income, credit, options, and volatility products. We discuss calibration, rolling and expanding windows, out-of-sample validation, parameter stability, overfitting, and why strong historical performance does not automatically justify capital deployment. We also explore how quantitative researchers select risk factors. Nam discusses volatility, correlation, liquidity, credit spreads, and the trade-off between interpretable models built from a small number of well-understood variables and machine-learning systems that can process a much larger feature set. The discussion then moves to market anomalies, including seasonality, liquidity changes, volatility risk premiums, and the importance of combining practitioner knowledge with statistical testing. Nam explains why an observed anomaly must be validated before it can be treated as a reliable investment signal. Finally, we discuss portfolio diversification, the difficulty of finding stable negative correlations, the role of options in managing downside exposure, and how AI may change market behavior itself. Nam shares why momentum, mean reversion, correlations, volatility, and market-maker hedging dynamics may evolve as more participants adopt advanced quantitative tools. A technical and practical conversation on derivatives, quantitative risk management, Monte Carlo simulation, market anomalies, portfolio construction, and how AI is reshaping both financial research and market structure.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liab
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  Antonio Marrazzo: How to Build Robust Factors with Data and Machine Learning | Blushing Quants #33 22.07.2026 46min

  Antonio Marrazzo is a quantitative researcher with a background in economics and actuarial science, focused on factor investing, portfolio construction, market regimes, data analysis, and machine learning in financial markets. Originally from Argentina, Antonio began applying quantitative methods to investing before formally discovering the quant profession. He translated concepts such as Markowitz portfolio optimization into Python, built his own research pipelines, and developed a systematic approach to understanding markets through data. In this episode, Antonio joins us for a detailed conversation about how quantitative strategies are researched, tested, and transformed into realistic investment models. The central question is: How do you know whether a factor is real, tradable, and persistent rather than the result of statistical chance? Antonio explains why a factor should be supported by economic reasoning and a plausible relationship with returns. We discuss multiple-testing bias, false discoveries, factor orthogonality, risk premia, and why testing thousands of ideas will almost always produce something that appears statistically significant. We also explore why factors must be evaluated using realistic and tradable investment universes. Antonio explains how attractive historical results can disappear after accounting for microcap exposure, liquidity constraints, bid-ask spreads, short availability, transaction costs, and other practical limitations. The conversation goes deeper into multi-factor portfolio construction and dynamic factor allocation. Antonio shares why each factor may perform differently across market regimes, including why momentum can behave better in lower-volatility environments while short-term reversal may become more relevant when volatility increases. We then examine one of the most important parts of quantitative research: data quality. Antonio discusses missing values, outliers, time-zone alignment, interpolation, point-in-time data, reporting dates, survivorship bias, look-ahead bias, financial statement revisions, and why researchers must understand exactly when information became available to the market. Finally, we explore machine learning in quantitative finance. Antonio explains why feature engineering can matter more than selecting the most sophisticated model, why classification may be more practical than directly predicting returns, and how models such as logistic regression, random forests, and XGBoost can identify relationships that traditional linear methods may miss. We also discuss expanding training windows, stationarity, realistic labeling, meta-labeling, purged cross-validation, embargo periods, and the importance of including trading costs throughout the research and validation process. A technical and practical conversation on factor investing, regime-aware allocation, data engineering, machine learning, portfolio research, and the discipline required to avoid fooling yourself with attractive backtests.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Vincent Randazzo: Market Breadth, Risk and Systematic Portfolio Management | Blushing Quants #32 14.07.2026 47min

  Vincent Randazzo, CMT, is a portfolio manager and technical market strategist with more than 25 years of experience across firms including Morgan Stanley, UBS, ICAP, CFRA Research, and Lowry Research. After observing that investors have access to more market data than ever but often lack clarity on how to use it, Vincent developed Defender, a quantitative, rules-based framework designed to support more objective portfolio and risk-management decisions. He is also the founder of ViewRite Advisors and manages the Defender Risk Adaptive 500 ETF, ticker SPDF. In this episode of The Blushing Quants, Vincent joins us for a practical conversation about market breadth, regime detection, technical analysis, systematic investing, and how portfolio managers can respond when the market’s apparent strength does not reflect what is happening beneath the surface. The central question is: Can market breadth reveal risks that traditional market indexes fail to show? Vincent explains why market-cap-weighted indexes can create a misleading picture when a small group of large companies drives most of the market’s performance. We discuss how breadth indicators measure participation across large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap stocks to assess the market’s underlying health, detect fragility, and identify changing conditions. We explore Vincent’s rules-based approach to adjusting equity exposure across different market regimes. He explains why market deterioration often happens gradually, why market bottoms can develop more quickly, and how historical evidence can help investors distinguish between healthy pullbacks and more serious changes in risk. The conversation also covers momentum, relative strength, moving averages, trailing stops, changing correlations, and the importance of interpreting technical indicators within the correct market environment. Vincent explains why being above a moving average is not enough, why its direction also matters, and why context is essential when evaluating any signal. Vincent also shares lessons from his own investment mistakes and from navigating the 2008 financial crisis. We discuss the danger of becoming emotionally attached to an investment thesis, why successful risk management requires both an exit and re-entry process, and how systematic rules can reduce the influence of ego and emotion. Finally, we examine active versus passive investing, the role of technical analysis within institutional portfolio management, and how market technicians can complement fundamental portfolio managers by improving timing, risk awareness, and decision consistency. A thoughtful and practical conversation on market breadth, portfolio management, regime detection, momentum, technical analysis, and building a systematic approach to investment risk.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Jerome Busca: Inside Citadel, Alpha Decay and the Future of Quant | Blushing Quants #31 14.07.2026 1t 13min

  Jerome Busca is a quantitative trader with more than 25 years of experience across mathematics, quantitative research, portfolio management, global futures, foreign exchange, and crypto markets. After beginning his career in academic mathematics and applied research in France, Jerome moved into quantitative finance and later joined Citadel’s hedge fund business. Working on the mortgage desk before the 2008 financial crisis, while also helping develop a systematic CTA-style futures operation, gave him a front-row view of how institutional quantitative research, technology, and market risk evolved during a defining period in modern finance. In this episode, Jerome joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about how quantitative trading has changed and what remains fundamentally difficult despite better data, infrastructure, and artificial intelligence. The central question is: As technology makes quantitative research faster and more accessible, does finding sustainable alpha become easier, or does the competition simply become more intense? Jerome explains how global futures research was conducted before Python, modern data infrastructure, and AI transformed the industry. We discuss why technological infrastructure became a competitive advantage for firms such as Citadel, how arbitrage makes markets more efficient, and why the lifespan of many trading edges has fallen from seconds to microseconds. We also examine portfolio construction and the limitations of traditional correlation-based optimization. Jerome shares his perspective on Markowitz optimization, regularization, Bayesian approaches, factor models, hierarchical covariance, equal-risk allocation, fat-tailed returns, conditional correlations, copulas, and why simple portfolio methods can be surprisingly difficult to outperform. The conversation goes deeper into causality, hidden common drivers, changing market regimes, crisis correlations, and the danger of confusing statistical relationships with genuine economic mechanisms. Jerome also explains why researchers and portfolio managers should remain cautious when translating attractive academic findings into live investment decisions. Finally, we discuss the growing influence of AI on quantitative finance, including how individual researchers can now build tools that once required institutional teams, why professional data infrastructure remains essential, and how easier backtesting can create an even greater risk of overfitting and false confidence. We conclude by exploring emerging markets and new areas of quantitative research, including crypto, perpetual futures, prediction markets, alternative data, and even the possibility of applying systematic methods to art valuation. A thoughtful and practical conversation on alpha decay, portfolio construction, causality, artificial intelligence, emerging markets, and the continuing evolution of quantitative finance.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Paul Chalmers: Trading Education Done Right - AI, Risk & Real Market Education | Blushing Quants #30 08.06.2026 54min

  Paul Chalmers, CEO of UK Trading Academy, for a raw and practical conversation about what most traders misunderstand about the markets. Paul breaks down why trading education often fails, why theory alone is not enough, and how real market experience, risk management, psychology, and disciplined execution separate serious traders from the crowd. We discuss how markets have changed, the role of AI and algorithms in modern trading, and why technology should support human decision-making rather than replace it. Paul explains how his team approaches dynamic algorithms, probability-based signals, market movements, and the importance of combining data with practical trading judgment. The conversation also goes deep into geopolitical events, GBP/USD, oil, institutional traders, market makers, retail trading mistakes, trading plans, position sizing, drawdowns, and why backtesting should be used to understand risk — not just to chase beautiful profit curves. This episode is for traders, quants, market researchers, and anyone who wants to understand the difference between learning to trade and actually learning to make decisions in live markets.   PODCAST LINKS: UK Trading Academy: https://uktradingacademy.com/ Paul's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulchalmersuk/   PODCAST INFO: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4jw3ouXrmbsToKtGY9q80O Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blushing-quants-podcast/id1864851089 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/cf63850e-9f1f-491d-a794-0695e85ccaa6 RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/theblushingquants/feed.xml Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFHtE5XlBV_VdWEnca58iQSTAXj6O-CfG   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Jonathan Davies: The Theory That Challenges Every Trader and Investor | Blushing Quants #29 01.06.2026 1t 5min

  Jonathan Davies is an economist with over 30 years of experience in financial services. Jonathan has worked across several areas of the investment world, including fixed-income research, portfolio strategy, and portfolio management. His career has focused mainly on the macroeconomic side of markets, examining areas such as interest rates, bond yields, currency movements, equity-versus-bond allocation, regional market preferences, and multi-asset portfolio construction. Unlike a single-stock analyst, Jonathan’s perspective comes from understanding how the broader market system works: how economies move, how asset classes interact, how portfolios are built, and how professional investors communicate strategy and risk to clients. In this conversation, we explore one of the most important ideas in financial theory: the Efficient Market Hypothesis. If markets already reflect available information, what does it really mean to be an active investor? Can portfolio managers consistently beat the market, or does outperformance require a clear philosophy, discipline, and a deep understanding of where market inefficiencies may still exist? Jonathan explains why EMH is such a compelling idea, why active management is a strong claim, and why a portfolio manager needs more than past performance to build trust with clients. We also discuss what happens when an investment thesis stops working, how managers think about risk, and why different strategies may work well in some market environments and struggle in others. This episode is a thoughtful conversation about market efficiency, active investing, macro strategy, and the real responsibility of managing capital in uncertain markets.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Eren Biri: How Volatility Traders Think and What Defines AI-Native Hedge Fund | Blushing Quants #28 25.05.2026 1t 13min

  Eren Biri is the founder of OneEye Capital, a volatility-focused investment firm built around a strong mix of quantitative research, discretionary overlays, and deeply engineered infrastructure. With a background in computer engineering, experience at Goldman Sachs and multiple hedge funds, and a career that moved from quant research into trading and portfolio management, he brings a highly practical perspective on what it really takes to run a modern options-focused fund. In this episode, we get into volatility trading, options markets, and the real mechanics of running a fund where risk management comes first. Eren explains how his firm combines systematic strategies with discretionary overlays, why discretionary thinking still matters even in a quant-heavy setup, and how macro awareness, cross-asset relationships, and scenario analysis shape the way he sizes, hedges, and protects positions. We talk about how options traders think in implied probabilities, how relative value opportunities show up across equities, rates, commodities, and volatility surfaces, and why the goal is often not to predict direction but to isolate the exact risk factor you want to own. Eren breaks down delta, vega, theta, gamma, hedging, and portfolio construction, and explains how his team decomposes option markets into tradable components rather than treating them as a single undifferentiated space. Also, explore how a small fund can compete by being engineering-heavy and infrastructure-native. Eren shares how OneEye built its own in-house stack, stores and processes massive options datasets on its own hardware, and uses AI and machine learning tools for signal calibration, regime classification, portfolio optimization, and empirical pricing, without sacrificing explainability where it matters most. On top of that, we discuss what it looks like to run a cross-border team, how to keep a small technical organization aligned around markets, and how to position a young fund in front of investors by offering institutional-grade discipline, strong risk management, and access to strategies most allocators usually only see inside elite buy-side firms.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Nikolai Nowaczyk: Credit Risk and Quant Infrastructure | Blushing Quants #27 18.05.2026 1t 16min

  Nikolai Nowaczyk is a mathematician, published researcher, and quantitative risk professional with a background spanning academia, consulting, and banking. With deep experience in counterparty credit risk, model development, and validation, he brings a rare perspective on how highly technical mathematical ideas are actually implemented inside major financial institutions. In this episode, we get into what counterparty credit risk really is, why it matters so much in derivatives markets, and how institutions measure and manage the risk that a counterparty defaults when a trade is in the money. Nikolai breaks down Monte Carlo simulation, CVA, collateralization, variation margin, initial margin, netting agreements, and the operational reality of managing risk across thousands of counterparties and massive derivatives books. We also talk about regulation, legacy systems, model validation, and why implementing new risk requirements inside large institutions is often far more complex than it looks from the outside. On top of that, we explore machine learning in quant finance, where it can genuinely help, where traditional methods still dominate, and why explainability, documentation, and production rigor remain essential in regulated environments.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Ufuk Tasdan: Physics, Crypto, and Energy Market Complexity | Blushing Quants #26 14.05.2026 1t 13min

  Ufuk Tasdan is a quantitative researcher with an unconventional background spanning physics, philosophy of physics, cryptocurrency trading, and energy market analytics. After studying physics and completing a PhD in philosophy of physics, he moved into applied quantitative work, first in crypto and later in European energy markets, where he focuses on price forecasting, market analysis, and model building for traders and market participants. In this episode, we get into what it means to come into quantitative finance from a non-traditional background, and why some of the most interesting market thinkers often come from outside the usual pipeline. Ufuk shares how philosophy of science, particle physics, and critical thinking shaped the way he approaches markets, model selection, and data interpretation. We talk about the differences between cryptocurrency and energy markets, why crypto can look simpler on the surface but remain deeply opaque, and why energy markets are more transparent in data yet far more structurally complex. Ufuk explains how he thinks about supply and demand in both worlds, why energy markets are uniquely difficult because of negative prices, physical delivery constraints, and spike behavior, and why modeling those spikes is often harder than modeling the trend itself. We also get into economophysics, non-stationary data, analogy-based thinking, return distributions, model robustness, and the limits of standard tools like the Sharpe ratio in highly volatile markets such as crypto. Ufuk shares why he starts with the distribution of returns, how he thinks about interpreting market structure through physics-inspired analogies such as earthquakes and diffusion, and why model simplicity at the core still matters even when the surrounding structure becomes complex. On top of that, we explore machine learning in production, why linear regression still matters, how neural networks can be useful for modeling residuals, and where human judgment remains essential, especially when regime shifts and spikes violate the system's assumptions.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Oded Shimoni: Low-Correlation Strategies, Research, and ETF Innovation | Blushing Quants #25 07.05.2026 1t 7min

  Oded Shimoni is the CEO of AlphaBeta, a quantitative R&D company focused on systematic, low-correlation investment strategies across products such as mutual funds, alternative ETFs, hedge funds, and tracking funds. His work sits at the intersection of quantitative research, portfolio construction, factor investing, and the growing world of liquid alternative investment vehicles. In this episode, we get into what it actually takes to build low-correlation strategies in practice, and how quantitative research can be used to construct broad, systematic portfolios designed to behave differently from traditional market exposure. We talk about long-short equity, merger arbitrage, factor investing, and the challenge of turning academic ideas into investable products that can survive real market constraints. Oded explains how his team approaches weight allocation, why machine learning and deep learning can be useful for dynamically allocating across factor exposures, and why economic rationale, clean data, and point-in-time discipline still matter more than model complexity alone. We also get into portfolio construction, explainability, missing data, normalization, correctly identifying lagging fundamentals, and the importance of working with liquid universes and reliable data providers. Beyond the research side, we explore the evolution of active and alternative ETFs, portable alpha, capital efficiency, and why the ETF wrapper is opening the door for strategies that were once mostly reserved for hedge funds.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.  
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  Ben Charoenwong: Academia, Hedge Funds, AI, and Applied Finance | Blushing Quants #24 04.05.2026 1t 34min

  Ben Charoenwong is a finance professor, researcher, and fund manager working at the intersection of academia, quantitative investing, and applied market practice. As an associate professor at INSEAD and co-founder of Chicago Global, he brings a rare perspective shaped by both rigorous academic training and the real constraints of building and managing investment strategies in live markets. In this episode, we talk about what it actually means to bridge academia and industry in finance, and why that gap is both narrower and harder than most people think. Ben shares how academic research can still produce ideas that matter in practice, but also why the market is a humbling force that quickly exposes weak theories, poor signals, and overconfident models. We get into financial education, opportunity cost, critical thinking, student training, and why AI is forcing universities to rethink not just how they teach, but what they are really supposed to teach. We also dive into fund design, market inefficiencies versus risk premia, diversification, investor fit, long-short construction, mid-frequency strategies, and the importance of building portfolios around the end client's actual risk tolerance. Ben breaks down how he approaches explainability, feature engineering, theory-driven quant research, model simplicity, alternative data, fraud signals, and geopolitical shocks, and why the best quantitative work still requires judgment, discipline, and a clear understanding of what kind of edge you are really trying to build.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Garret Brennan: Deterministic AI for Institutional Quant Workflows | Blushing Quants #23 27.04.2026 45min

  Garret Brennan is the co-founder and CEO of Epoch, an AI-native quantitative research startup building tools for institutional investors who want to integrate AI into their workflows without sacrificing rigor, determinism, or trust. With a background on the fixed income desk at Bank of Montreal in New York, Garret brings both market experience and startup urgency to the problem of making quantitative research faster, more accessible, and more usable in real institutional settings. In this episode, we talk about what it actually takes to build AI infrastructure for quantitative finance in a market that is both highly technical and deeply conservative. Garret explains why Epoch is not trying to let language models perform the computation itself, but instead uses AI as a structured interface atop a traditional institutional-grade research stack. We get into determinism, hallucination risk, backtesting infrastructure, internal libraries, multi-agent systems, and why infrastructure has to come before AI hype if you want a product that can survive real production use. We also discuss customer workflows across the buy side and sell side, what different types of traders actually need, how to think about product-market fit in a fragmented market, and why speed to decision is one of the clearest sources of value. Garret also shares lessons from his path from sales and trading into entrepreneurship, how his market experience shaped the product, and why building for quantitative finance requires a rare mix of technical depth, workflow understanding, and obsessive attention to correctness.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Roman Isachenko: Alpha Decay, Derivatives, and the Reality of Quant | Blushing Quants #22 14.04.2026 59min

  Roman Isachenko is a quantitative researcher with a background in applied mathematics and rocket science who moved from engineering into finance, derivatives, and systematic trading. His experience spans risk management, derivative pricing, asset management, and small hedge fund environments, giving him a grounded view of how quant research actually works when capital, time, and market reality put every idea under pressure. In this episode, we talk about the realities of building and rebuilding quant strategies in an environment where alpha decays quickly, and competition keeps getting tougher. Roman shares his path from engineering into quant finance, explains why derivatives first pulled him into the field, and reflects on the difference between elegant theory and what survives in live markets. We discuss pricing models, calibration, volatility, and why even strong ideas can stop working when market structure changes. We also get into research discipline, overfitting, noise testing, Monte Carlo comparisons, strategy decay, and the hard decisions small teams face when a model starts to fail. Roman breaks down the differences between research at large institutions and at small funds, why execution and exits often matter more than entry signals, and why leadership, judgment, and genuine passion still matter as much as technical skill in quantitative finance.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Zach Marx: Where Retail Sentiment Meets Systematic Equities | Blushing Quants #21 09.04.2026 1t 5min

  Zach Marx is the Chief Investment Officer of Vineyard Quant Capital, where he works at the intersection of systematic equity investing, institutional flow, and data-driven portfolio construction. In this episode, we get into what it actually takes to build a quantitative investment process around how institutions and retail investors make decisions, and how that can be turned into a systematic equity strategy. We talk about Zach’s path from market data and S&P to running an investment strategy at Vineyard, why understanding how different allocators behave can be just as important as understanding the data itself, and how his team uses point-in-time information, forward expectations, and cross-sectional ranking to scale a fundamentally informed process across thousands of stocks. We also get into sector- and industry-level clustering, orthogonal factor construction, seasonality, in-sample versus out-of-sample testing, stock-level and portfolio-level risk management, and why running a successful quant strategy is as much about operations, relationships, and business building as it is about research. The conversation also touches on retail sentiment, alpha-capture frameworks, and how Zach approaches using AI to evaluate processes, without yet trusting it to make investment decisions on its own.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Mark Aron Szulyovszky: Crypto, Alpha Factors, and Market Neutrality | Blushing Quants #20 06.04.2026 1t 9min

  Mark Aron Szulyovszky is a crypto quant and an entrepreneur focused on cross-sectional alpha factors in digital assets. He works to surface crypto-native factors, build market-neutral portfolios, and turn research on derivatives, microstructure, and token-specific behavior into tradable products for both internal use and external clients. In this episode, we get into what it actually takes to build and trade crypto-native alpha factors in a market that is volatile, fragmented, and still structurally different from traditional finance. We talk about why Mark moved away from a more machine-learning-heavy approach toward simpler, more interpretable factor research, how he thinks about market microstructure and derivatives data in crypto, and why cross-sectional alpha remains more abundant there than in many traditional markets. He explains how his team classifies and cleans data, works with tradable universes, controls turnover, and looks for signals that can survive transaction costs rather than just look good in backtests. We also get into retail versus institutional flow, the relationship between spot and perpetual futures, portfolio construction under extreme non-stationarity, and why, in crypto, the biggest challenge is often not finding a signal but sizing and risk-managing it properly when the market regime shifts. The conversation also touches on his entrepreneurial path, including selling his first company and applying that builder mindset to quantitative finance.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.
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  Manuel Ritsch: AI, Asset Management, and the Business of Funds | Blushing Quants #19 02.04.2026 29min

  Manuel Ritsch is the founder of Alpha Rho Technologies, where he is building AI-native investment infrastructure for asset management. After seeing how much of the industry still relied on outdated tools and manual processes, he set out to replicate the work of human analysts with AI and turn that into a real operating model for funds. In this episode, we step slightly outside pure quant research to explore what it actually takes to build an AI-driven investment business from the ground up. We talk about the gap between traditional asset managers and newer AI-native approaches, why low-frequency investing may be one of the clearest use cases for agentic systems, and how Manuel structured a fund run by AI analysts, CIOs, and investment committees. We also get into go-to-market, fundraising, bank partnerships, product positioning, client education, and the hard reality that institutional investors still want a track record, transparency, and a process they can trust. Manuel also explains why explainability matters so much in asset management, why models themselves are becoming commodities, and why the real edge increasingly comes from orchestration, usage, and product design rather than just model access.   *DISCLAIMER* The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests at the time of recording. Nothing in this podcast constitutes financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and nothing should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, cryptocurrency, derivative, or financial product. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of all or part of your capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions, and you should consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. By listening to this podcast, you agree that the hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of any information discussed.