Leda Braga
The Pioneer
The frontier and an appetite for the unknown, goes first.
Leda Braga embodies the Pioneer archetype throughout this interview. She recounts building systematic trading capabilities at Bluecrest from scratch with no prior quant investment experience, describing how her engineering and derivatives background led Systematica to do things differently from established trend followers.
“I think cynicism. I had a colleague who used to be always very sarcastic in his comments, very cynical about all the things that we're trying to do. And once it became appraisal time and I said to him, how about you write me two paragraphs on how cynicism and leadership interact? What do you achieve with sarcasm, cynicism, and pessimism?”
“Career wise, in the running of the various strategies that we have run over the years, the mistakes that I have made, which I regret, have almost, all of them probably, been related to unwinding strategies in the drawdown. Then you say, okay, what is the mistake then? Is it because you lost confidence and unwound in the drawdown?”
“The signal from the time series of prices. So you look at the time series of prices, if you think of a price chart, you try to determine whether that price action is in a trend or not. And if that trend is up or down. And it's simple as that. So the assumption is there's a bit of forecasting power in the trend signal.”
“Yeah, so systematica was actually, in fact, my third startup. In one of these conversations, in fact, it was a forum organized by a group of women. Somebody asked me, do you think preference for the high-risk startup is something that goes with the opportunity or goes with the person?”
Money Maze Podcast: “Why Quant is the Future – With Leda Braga, CEO & Founder of Systematica”
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