Ken Tropin - Graham Capital Management
Episode 2 of Perspectives our dedicated series where AIMA, in partnership with KPMG, speaks to alternative investment industry leaders from around the world continues with Ken Tropin, Chairman and Founder of Graham Capital Management.
Ken recalls how he started one of the largest investment funds in the world and how even a quarter-century later, his fervour remains as intense as ever. Ken also underlines the importance of impeccable risk management as the bedrock of any successful firm, and the indispensable need to stay on the cutting edge when it comes to AI, where the buzz shows no signs of abating.
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This podcast is the sole property of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). This audio production and content are intended as indicative guidance only and are not to be taken or treated as a substitute for specific advice, whether legal advice or otherwise. AIMA permits use or sharing of the content in media or as an educational resource, provided always that proper attribution is made. The rights in the content and production, including copyright and database rights, belong to AIMA.
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Ken Tropin
Chairman and Founder of Graham Capital Management
5 Lessons from Ken Tropin
Embrace change, but stay on mission
Make superior risk management the foundation of your firm
Ken has held risk meetings every morning since 2007, which allowed Graham’s management team to be “hyper-focused” on the risks the firm was taking. From an investor perspective, whilst delivering impressive returns is a must, boasting a comprehensive risk management function is a way to set you apart in today’s crowded marketplace. This is especially true for start-up managers, Ultimately, when embarking on the journey of launching a fund, transparency stands as a “non-negotiable”, he says.
This proficiency is pivotal in dispelling any investor scepticism. Reassure investors by putting yourself in their shoes, “be the person you’d want to do business with”.
Stay on the cutting edge
Amid the buzz surrounding artificial intelligence and machine learning, Ken brings a balanced perspective to the table. While acknowledging the game-changing potential of these technologies in finance, he underlines the unceasing need for education and exploration. It's not merely about harnessing AI for generating alpha – Tropin's firm intertwines machine learning and data analysis in broader, multifaceted strategies, showcasing how innovation should be woven into the very fabric of investment approaches.
Nurture a winning team
Ken underscores the undeniable worth of attracting and retaining top-tier talent. By assembling a cohesive team of seasoned professionals, he highlights the bedrock upon which hedge fund success is built. Beyond the numbers, Tropin emphasises the nurturing of positive workplace culture, mentorship opportunities, and avenues for personal growth – all of which combine to form a recipe for a thriving workforce. Looking ahead, “retaining top talent” is highlighted as a priority for Ken for the future success of his firm.
Size matters
Ken predicts that the hedge fund universe will grow in a “moderate and healthy way”, which he argues is preferable to a massive and unsustainable inflow of capital. A ballooning of assets would not be good for fund managers or investors, he says as it would drown out the alpha opportunities available.
Equally, Ken notes that individual firms should consider the challenges that come with growing too fast, to the point where it affects your ability to deploy capital effectively. Certain strategies have an optimal level of capital and that should be top of mind as high-performing firms attract increasing levels of capital.
Asked about the proliferation of multi-strategy fund managers, Ken acknowledges that there are a handful of firms that have executed that model very well, but warns that “it’s hard enough to take one style of alpha and get it right, much less have 10 styles of alpha and do any of it well enough to distinguish yourself”.
Read the transcript
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 00:04
Welcome back to The Long-Short. Over the coming few months, we'll be bringing something a little different, the ‘Perspective’ series, in partnership with KPMG. This podcast series will feature conversations with leading CEOs and founders of alternative investment firms from around the world. And today, we're excited to share with you one of a series of conversations we've had with them. Our guests share their visions in a variety of areas, including how to attract and retain top talent in the context of the fierce war for talent, as well as how to navigate the increasingly complex operational scaling challenges and much, much more. The discussions are being led by myself, Tom Kehoe, co-host of AIMA’s The Long-Short podcast, and John Budzyna, Managing Director and US national leader for market development for alternative investments at KPMG. So, sit back, we hope you enjoy the show. Thank you for joining us. Hello, and welcome to another episode of ‘Perspectives’, featuring conversations with alternative investment leaders from across the world.
John Budzyna, KPMG 00:55
Good morning, Ken. Thank you for joining us today for the AIMA, KPMG-sponsored, series of discussions with the leaders and titans of the hedge fund industry. Welcome.
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 01:06
Good morning, John, nice to see you.
John Budzyna, KPMG 01:08
Ken, you currently run a very extremely successful alternative investment firm focused on a variety of quantitative and discretionary alpha strategies with perhaps an emphasis on global macro. Can you just share a short history of Graham Capital and how it was founded?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 01:27
Yeah, it's been almost 30 years now and, you know, prior to starting Graham, I had been the CEO and President of John Henry, which was one of the early managers in the quantitative future space. And, and I guess it was ‘93, he and I saw things differently, and we parted company. And in late ‘93, early ‘94, friends of mine in the business, Paul Jones, and Mark Dalton, who run a very successful firm, Tudor, and I talked about me starting my own hedge fund. And it made a lot of sense, some of the things we were talking about. And so, I began designing and developing trading systems, that sort of encapsulated things that I thought were different than what others were doing in the space and those are the early days of the industry. And it was in June or July of ‘94, we started Graham, with the systems that I designed. Our capital base was proprietary. You know, even in those days, investors were not going to participate until you had some type of a track record and had built some credibility. So, it was Tutors capital, and my capital was our initial starting asset base, and we got off and running in the second half of ‘94. And then in December ‘94, I remember going to Geneva to meet some of my early investors, which were relationships with Tudors, and ultimately, a few of them decided to, you know, based on their competence, to give Graham a chance. And we were fortunate enough in ‘95 to have a pretty good year if I recall correctly. And that's kind of how we got started.
Then, some years later, I think it was ’98, I decided to diversify, to not just do quantitative trading, but also to bring discretionary trading to Graham, for a variety of reasons, the least of which wasn't correlated to the results of our current quantitative strategies, and frankly, continues not to be correlated today. So, we've been doing quantitative trading at Graham for 29 years, and discretionary trading at Graham for about 24/25 (years).
John Budzyna, KPMG 03:57
I'm sure along the way, there were many defining moments in your career and in the success of the firm, could you just describe some of those that were particularly meaningful to you?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 04:08
Yeah, sure. I think about how excited I was to get Graham up and running and one memory comes right to mind. I was driving to our new office space in Stanford, Connecticut, at some point in December or something in ‘94. It was a Monday morning and I'm in my car, and I'm driving to work and about seven o'clock and everyone else on the road looks kind of pissed off and I was so happy to be going to my new office space and beginning to get Graham going. But, there are a lot of really interesting moments in running a hedge fund over these last three decades. I can think about the market of 2000-2001 when the tech bubble broke. It was a very good cycle for what we did and the trend following we performed at a time and some other things that, you know, in time, our equity-oriented investors really needed us to perform.
Obviously, the 2008 financial crisis was a crazy time. It was a time that brought a lot of stresses into how we manage our business, and how we manage risk. And ultimately, we prevailed and had a good year, but it was not a particularly smooth process. And I think one of the things that we did, that was really the result of the start of the financial crisis of ’07, which was related to mortgage trading, which we had a mortgage trading team at Graham, we started having a daily risk meeting, and I think that was the third or fourth quarter of 2007. And every morning at 9:30, we'd look at every one of our positions, we'd look at our counterparty risk, we would look at stress tests, to see what happened if we had certain market events, we looked at what traders are doing, while our trading systems are doing well, what things weren't working. And just it was a mechanism for management to be hyper-focused on the rest of your taking and performance and making sure they're really comfortable and competent in everything that we're doing. We probably have had 4000 meetings like that, ever since we've had that daily risk meeting, you know, for the last 14 or so years. And I think that's an important discipline that's helped Graham get through some challenging market events over time.
John Budzyna, KPMG 06:44
Well, we probably have some interesting times ahead as well and interesting markets. I'll hand over to Tom Kehoe who is going to go through some of the macro environments that we're facing.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 06:56
Yes. Great to speak to you again, Ken. Just taking a step back from it and looking at Graham Capital, could you provide a brief overview of the investment strategies that you pursue at your firm and why they are particularly relevant during this economic cycle?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 07:13
Sure. Well, Graham does a number of things. You know, we do quantitative trend-following which most people are very familiar with, it's been around for a long time. We do more fundamentally based, macro, quantitative investing, which looks at things like value and fundamentals, as well as just momentum. And it's, it gives us a somewhat less correlated way to perform and macro from a quantitative perspective than just pure momentum trend-based systems. Then we do discretionary trading, which most people are pretty familiar with at this point. It can be trading with momentum, and with trends, it can also be very fundamentally based, it can be very sector based, it can be very short term, whereas most quantitative strategies tend to be quite intermediate to longer-term in nature. We also do credit investing at Graham, we also do quantitative long-short equity. So, I would say 80% of our output comes from macro-oriented strategies, and then 20%, more than the multi-strat category.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 08:27
Thanks, and then focusing on that 80% piece, collective macro funds, for one better description. Why did they outperform other hedge fund strategies over the past year?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 08:40
Well, they're not long beta, right? And so, by definition, our strategies can be long beta, when it's a good idea to be long and short when it's a good idea to be short. We can be invested in asset classes unrelated to beta that can allow us to generate returns. For example, last year was a big year for fixed-income trading, for us. And so, as yields were rising, one of the things that really gave us an edge is our economists. In the second half of ’21, they made a very good call that the Fed was really signalling that they were going to have a sea change in how they were managing interest rate policy, and that they were much more hawkish than the market and other economists were thinking of at that time, and our traders listened pretty carefully to what they were saying and we, on the discretionary side of our business, had a pretty significant short, you know, short fixed income portfolio in the second half of ’21 and then going into ‘22. And obviously, with all the rate hikes we saw, we ended up doing pretty well, because of that.
Then there was a pretty good move in the dollar that we were able to participate in. The dollar, I think went from something like 120, the euro to 108. We were pretty long on the dollar throughout that move and did well with that. And commodities, we made some money on, energy went up, and so on and so forth. Then in the second half of ‘22, was more about risk management. Not pushing it when markets reached a consolidation phase, somewhere around October or something like that. So overall, a pretty good year for us.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 10:35
And, as you alluded to, is a very dramatic magnitude of increases that we saw over the last couple of years, when it comes to those interest rate increases, both in the US and in Europe, and here, with the Bank of England.
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 10:53
One of the things that people sometimes say or mention that macro was quiet for some number of years in the period between 2011 and 2021. And it was, and there's a good reason for that, if you measure the amount of activity in central banks, by how many rate increases there were over that 11-year period, if you look at the ECB, the Bank of England and the Fed, and you looked at all of the rate hikes combined between those three central banks over 11 years, there were 13 25 basis point equivalent rate hikes. In contrast, in 2022, there were 49. So obviously, there was a lot more to work with, if you're a macro manager.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 11:41
I mean, those numbers are quite stunning. Are we then., in your view, at the beginning of the end of this monetary tightening from central banks, or is there anything further to run?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 11:55
Yeah, I think we probably are. Most market participants think that the Fed today is going to pause, as we believe is going to happen, they're going to pause, and they're going to evaluate the data. There are some people who think there may be one more rate hike, you know, it's hard to say for sure, I think they've done a pretty good job in not going so far that we're in a market crash and a deep recession, but hard enough turn around inflation and slow it down. But inflation is sticky. And there are a number of reasons why it may stay sticky. And so, I'm not one that believes that we're going to go to a 2% inflation target in the US, for example, which is our inflation target, all that quickly. Things like globalisation, or green energy policies, globalisation was a very deflationary influence for many years. And now, sort of the opposite is true, where globalisation is not so popular. All the bottlenecks in the supply chains are not necessarily over. And you look at our green energy policies, which with global warming, we probably need but they also are not particularly helpful, you know, when you're looking at energy supplies. So, I think there's some combination of factors that are going to cause inflation to be stickier than maybe central banks would like, and therefore, interest rates may be more elevated than they were in the past, and we may see a return of inflation, although my base case right now is that inflation continues to moderate. So, I just think it's going to be interesting for what we do for a while.
John Budzyna, KPMG 13:52
And I guess, given all those interest rate hikes that have taken place, and the inflation that, as you mentioned, is sticky and all the geopolitical forces and events that we're dealing with every day. So, how would you describe the appetite of investors for these types of strategies in their portfolios?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 14:11
Yeah, you know, clearly people saw last year that having non-correlated alphas is really valuable. I think last year was a tough year for investors, a year where we had really pretty outsized, positive returns, and we had some redemptions that were not insignificant. One of the reasons for that was that we were overweight people's portfolios because we outperformed everything else by a lot. And so, we had some rebalancing that went on, if someone wanted us at 8%, and all of a sudden, we grew to 13% because we were up and everything else was down. You know, you had some redemptions to correct that. All of that's behind us at this point. And I think investors also were in a bit of damage control mode last year where, you know, if you're a CIO and you're trying to answer to your, your board, it was it was a rough period because your hedge funds, in theory, which were hopefully not going to be so correlated with what the broader market was doing, in many cases were, and I think that was a bit of a rude awakening for some CIOs. And they are beginning to reevaluate just how important it is to have non-correlation in their hedge fund portfolio, and it made me think about the earlier days in my career, you know, back in the 80s, all of the early hedge funds, were macro-oriented. I mean, all of the very famous traders in the 80s, in the 90s, whether it's Bruce Kovner, or Paul Jones, Louis Bacon, and all of these are all macro-focused people, George Soros, and the whole word, hedge fund, really, what does that imply? It implies that it's some sort of a hedge against everything else we're invested in.
Of course, that changed in the 2000s, as the most popular form of hedge funds became equity long-short and many other strategies that were correlated to equities. And that was for a good reason. That's where a lot of the best returns were, particularly in that cycle between 2010 and 2020, where interest rate policies were on hold, and there were really these outsized returns in a risk on portfolio. As I look at the world today, now, it's not so clear to me, that a very heavy weight towards equity is going to be as rewarding as the previous decade. And it makes much more sense to not just me, but to our investors, to be truly diversified, and to try and have an allocation to macro where it's not going to be correlated to equity returns. If there's a lot of activity with central banks, there's a lot to do in macro and it may have compelling returns.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 17:12
Yeah, so that value proposition when people think about the 60/40 portfolio versus a diversified portfolio is really starting to pay dividend now, by diversifying.
If I could pivot for a few moments can talk about some of the disruptive influences. We will describe them as being ESG, sustainable investment, and technology. Taking the first of those, how do you view ESG and sustainable investment through the lens of your firm's investment strategy? I'm thinking about primarily the macro piece, and what investors expect from your firm.
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 17:50
You know, ESG, we've had some number of questions about that over the years. And my frank answer is that I don't really see how it relates to what we do. You know, if we were an equity shop, and we were looking at different companies through the lens of who are doing things that are ESG friendly, that makes some sense. But if you're a macro shop, and you're trying to decide whether you want to be short UK bonds versus long European bonds, or if you want to, you know, be short commodities, or if you think there's a value in one foreign currency over another.r ESG does just not, in my opinion, really relate to that. So, it has not really been too much of a factor at all in how Graham manages its business.
18:54
KPMG is a global professional services firm, providing audit tax and advisory services to many of the world's leading alternative investment management firms to address the specific challenges and opportunities unique to alternative investments. KPMG has dedicated practitioners focusing on hedge fund, private equity, and real estate organizations. Our professionals devote their time to provide innovative and strategic solutions to alternative investment managers in areas ranging from strategy to operational and compliance functions. Through the knowledge of industry-leading practices and customized technology systems. They provide advice and support that deliver value to these organizations and their investors. For more information, please visit kpmg.com.
John Budzyna, KPMG 19:45
I guess one of the other forces that you can't escape in any conversation in this industry is talking about the impact of OpenAI and ChatGPT and how that might be used in the future by alternative investment firms. What's your view on or your early view on that?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 20:08
Well, it's something to watch really carefully. It's astonishing how fast the world is moving. I think we want to be all-in, in terms of understanding how this technology can help us with alpha or other parts of how we manage our business. I wouldn't be embellishing it, I said, we were using it for alpha in a big way, today, we do use AI, a little bit in some of our strategies for alpha, but not in a really substantial way. And that could change over time, as the technology continues to grow and evolve.
So, we need to be highly educated, and prepared to evolve as the technology around us also evolves. And, maybe that is tied into another point I would make, which is, how do you stay successful as a hedge fund over, you know, decades? The answer is, you can't stand still, you absolutely have to evolve, you absolutely have to continue to innovate. You know, if I think back to the early days of my career, and our trend following was a very popular way of making money in markets, and it still is, and it's still like the last year it had a great year, but we've had to be creative in how we do it, and we have. We've had to be innovative in developing other sources of alpha at Graham. So we're more of a multi strat without, you know, macro focus, than a firm that can only make a return with one very specific set of market conditions.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 21:51
When we talk about AI, we talk about generative AI, ChatGPT, Open AI, I mean, also AI can be misconstrued as being machine learning as well. How do you view it in terms of how you might use it now? Is it more the latter? Machine learning?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 22:09
Yeah, that's a very fair answer. Yeah, we're much more focused on machine learning and how it interprets data and how it may learn from the data and generate alpha signals accordingly, as opposed to ChatGPT, which is quite a bit different than that in what it really does,
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 22:30
Okay, useful to know, thinking about the priorities for Graham Capital, over the coming five years, you've mentioned yourself, you're in the business for over 30 years now. What are your priorities? Have they changed in any way? What are your priorities looking out for the next five years?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 22:48
You know, to be really honest, not so much as people might think. I mean, our number one priority has always been to try and have the best alpha with conservative risk management. I don't see it changing. Now, how do you get there? One answer is you have to have the best people. And you have to have a culture, which attracts the best people. So, part of that, of course, is always compensation. But part of that is how you treat people, how you mentor people, and how people can grow their careers at your organisation. And at Graham, we enjoy quite a number of people that have been with the firm for over 20 years and a really large number of people who have been over with the firm for over 10 years. I think one of the real keys to success in any business, but particularly the hedge fund business is, who are the people that work there. Are they happy? Do they want to stay? Because it's always interesting to meet new people, it's always important to have people join your organisation and bring fresh ideas and so on. But it's, it's really important to retain your top talent, so that's a priority of ours.
I would say, innovations are part of ours. You know, we got in the long short quantitative equity business a couple of years ago. We're very excited, cautiously optimistic about that, as a new source of alpha for Graham, and, you know, it takes time to get it right. It takes time to build a business that is, you know, uncorrelated and quite different from what you've been doing in the past, but because it's quantitative, it relates very well to what we do well at Graham, so I'm pretty enthusiastic about that. And, you know, we continue to pursue other sources of alpha that can diversify our firm and diversify the returns for our clients. Those priorities are not so different from what they've been in the past, but they continue to be on my mind and as you know, on my mind also is making sure that my senior management team can be as successful running Graham as I was when I was younger. And I feel really good about the people that we have at Graham.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 25:15
Yeah, I mean, you've touched on it already about talent and people being your most important asset. Is it fair to say when you think about the business you touch on the talent that you're looking to attract and retain? That's a combination of the data scientists, the quantitative people, and those who can build a business. Is that fair? What would you be looking at?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 25:40
Yeah and also, very importantly, strong discretionary trading talent. A very, very important part of our business at Graham for over 25 years now has been our discretionary trading business. And, you know, that's very people-sensitive. They of course need a lot of data and technology to support them. But these are people making decisions and it's quite competitive, as you probably know, to find the people that are truly not only experienced, but have a real edge and a real talent, and are also good at managing risks. But that's something we've been doing for a long time, and we continue to really prioritise it.
John Budzyna, KPMG 26:24
Ken, obviously your firm is part of a broader alternative investment management business, you know, in the entire hedge fund industry? When you look at the trajectory for the industry in the coming years, how optimistic you are about the fortunes of the hedge fund industry as we look out over the next five years?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 26:50
You know, I feel positive, I don't think there's some wild euphoria that we should all be feeling. Am I confident that the industry is going to grow? I think it will, I think it's going to grow in a moderate, but healthy way, if that is a reasonable answer. In other words, I don't think it'd be great for the industry if our assets were to double in five years, I don't think we have the capacity to generate the alpha that our clients are looking for us to generate, if we simply were awash in new capital all the time. So, I like the idea of the industry growing 5 or 10%, a year or some number like that. That to me would be very healthy and manageable.
John Budzyna, KPMG 27:44
Ken, structurally, when you look around, you see so many firms setting up multi-strat firms, as opposed to the single strategy hedge fund. Even at the outset, even emerging managers are doing this. What's your perspective? Is that the new protocol for the industry,
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 28:01
I'm not so sure it's going to make sense for all the people that are trying to do it. It's really, really hard to have one style alpha and get it right, much less have, say, 10 different styles of alpha, and put that all together, and do any of it well enough to really distinguish yourself. I understand why it's so appealing to people who look at either Millennium or Citadel and see what a great business model it is. And I don't disagree, it is a fantastic business model. But, you know, it's not so easy to replicate what they do. I think that a more successful path, for the majority of people who are starting funds, is to figure out what differentiates you in one particular style of investing and do that superbly. And if you do, you'll be successful,
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 28:59
That leads nicely to my next question, which is, what advice would you give, I think what you've answered is to differentiate yourself, distinguish yourself to any would-be startup hedge fund business. Knowing what you know, being in the industry as long as you have, what single piece of advice? Is it that just to be unique?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 29:20
Well, look, there are a few things you absolutely have to do right. You have to generate compelling returns. Not to state the obvious, but that is really important to any investor and it's going to be important to distinguishing yourself and attracting capital, over more established firms. You have to have some sort of alpha edge. I would say you want to be really good at risk management. That's something that sometimes investors are sceptical that younger managers are going to have the judgment that they need to have. So, you want to make that a priority. You need to be transparent with clients. When you're starting a fund, you don't have the luxury to say, we're not going to disclose to you how or why we make money, just look at our returns. And that ought to be good enough. People are going to ask a lot of tough questions, you’ve got to be prepared to answer them as candidly and openly as you possibly can without, of course, giving away your IP. I think perhaps, the simplest answer is, you got to put yourself in your investor's shoes and say, who was the kind of person I want to do business with? Are they reliable? Are they straightforward? Are they accessible? Are they the kind of person that I have confidence in, not just in terms of how they're going to perform, but who they are as people?
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 30:55
In terms of headwinds for the industry to contend with. What do you believe might be the key risks looking out for the next five years, for the industry?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 31:04
Well, here's one that I'm thinking about today. We’ve had quite a bit, of hikes globally between the three major central banks, right? If you believe, and I do, that that's going to dampen the global economy and dampen earnings, at most companies, in theory, stocks look a little expensive at their current price. Perhaps it would not be so unreasonable to have a bit of a correction in risk assets. That's never been great for hedge fund investors who are allocated to hedge funds that are pretty correlated to beta. So, I think that's something to keep an eye on in the short run. Ultimately, that will also mean an opportunity, right? Because if we get a correction, it'll be a pretty good opportunity for managers to differentiate themselves from broader passive indices. So, it's just something to focus on or keep an eye on.
I think another one is just capacity. I think it's very healthy for the industry to grow. I don't think it's so great if we were to grow exponentially. And so, we're conscious at my firm, of being thoughtful about how much capital we manage and making sure that it's not compromising our alpha.
John Budzyna, KPMG 32:42
And I guess maybe the counter to that discussion on risk. What do you see sort of the greatest opportunities that the hedge fund industry has in the coming years?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 32:53
Well, you know, it's always hard to know that in advance, John. And if we trade accordingly. But, you know, I'm excited about the opportunity in rates trading, I think, with all of these central bank moves that we've seen in ‘22, and more in ‘23. You know, there's going to be an opportunity on the long side of bonds, at some point, that's going to be pretty compelling. I think watching Japan is interesting, you know, they've had, they continue to stick to essentially a ceiling on their interest rate policy of 50 basis points for the tenure. Yet they have inflationary pressures there, and are they eventually going to have to let go of that cap, that's going to be interesting in terms of trading and participating in Japanese markets. The geopolitical landscape continues to be very interesting. And, you know, we've got an election coming up in ‘24 in the US, that is obviously going to be really unpredictable. So, there's plenty for a manager to keep their eye on and I think there are lots of potential opportunities. But, you know, you take nothing for granted and take one day at a time.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 34:09
Ken, outside of the day job, you do a lot of work for charity as well. It'd be great for our listeners to hear a little bit about some of your charity work, in particular, the Robin Hood Foundation, what is that about? How long have you been working with that foundation?
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 34:31
Sure. Well, Robin Hood is an organisation very close to my heart, you know, I don't think I'd be where I am today if I hadn't started my career in New York and Robin Hood's charter for 35 years has been fighting poverty in New York and trying to help people who are not as fortunate as us to have a chance to be successful and break out of poverty. And so, I've been on the board of Robin Hood for seven or so years. I chair the development committee. I work very closely with that organisation to try and make sure that we're as successful as we can possibly be in terms of changing people's lives.
John Budzyna, KPMG 35:16
Well, look, Ken, this has been great. It's a pleasure to speak with you today. And thanks for sharing your views on the industry and your critical role in shaping our industry. So, on behalf of AIMA and KPMG, and the entire Alternative Investment Industry, thank you.
Ken Tropin, Founder of Graham Capital Management 35:35
John, you're very welcome. Thanks for your interest. And, Tom, thank you, it's good to see both of you guys again.
John Budzyna, KPMG 35:49
Thank you for listening to today's episode of perspectives. done in partnership with KPMG and part of AIMA’s The Long-Short podcast. We trust you found the discussion both interesting and insightful. You can get the latest episodes by subscribing to Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, or Amazon music or streaming directly from aima.org. Thanks for listening.