John and Walter are taking a break from their whirlwind MFA tour here at the office, and reporting on their meetings with two emerging managers: QMS and SCT Trading.

QMS is run by soft-spoken, knowledgeable Dr. Peter Nolan and Dr. Michael Brant. Dr. Brant, a professor at Duke, has harnessed the research power of the Duke Ph.D. program for finance to help push their still new multi-strat trendfollowing and relative value CTA to the next level (I guess they’re willing to sacrifice any UNC fans as clients). After looking through their September 2010 research piece, “Don’t fear the Quants (but fear some Quants),” we’re looking forward to seeing more of their research and perhaps collaborating on future research projects. (if you can’t tell yet – we’re very biased towards those managers who actually help promote themselves via their own research papers – i.e. Welton, Quest, QMS)

SCT Trading was another enlightening meeting this afternoon. Another relatively new program, SCT’s AQT program was developed by portfolio manager Dr. Vasant Dhar. After developing systematic futures and equity trading strategies at Morgan Stanley in 1994, as a sub-advisor to Deutsche Bank, penning two books, and serving as a faculty member at NYU’s Stearn School of Business since 1983 – he’s got years of experience backing up his systematic program.

Looking forward to hearing more from these promising CTAs in the future.

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