OP Investment Management Ltd (“OPIM”) today announces its partnership with China CR Capital Holdings Ltd. to launch the CR-Wellington AI Fund SPC. The Fund is Cayman-domiciled with investment open to Professional Investors only.

CR Wellington AI Fund SPC, managed by Mr. Ray Ko, will deploy a series of market neutral and arbitrage strategies. The quant fund will invest in highly liquid securities in multiple exchanges worldwide including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, US, and UK.

“Global market volatility is on the rise after delivering high yields across developed and emerging markets last year. It’s in these market conditions, the fund can profit from price deviations in equities and futures during the normalization.” Mr. Ray Ko, of CR Wellington AI Fund SPC said.

Mr. Ko is the Portfolio Manager of the Fund, with extensive experience in trading and asset management having served as Head of Proprietary Trading and Portfolio Strategies at Paine Webber and UBS AG respectively. Mr. Ko holds a Master Degree in finance at the University of Auckland.

“With pedigree and a unique strategy, CR is already seeing strong interest from family office and fund of funds. This will also certainly attract institutional investors coming to Asia. CR Wellington presents an opportunity for investors looking for early stage access.” Alvin Fan, Chief Executive Officer of OP Investment Management remarked.

OP Investment Management has launched a total of 12 funds off their platform in 2017, with CR Wellington AI Fund SPC already being the second fund to launch in Q1 2018.

View Full Article

OP Investment Management Ltd., (Hong Kong) (“OPIM”), a member of the Oriental Patron Financial Group, today announced the launch of the OP FundSeeder (“OPFS”) websitewww.opfs.com.hk. A localized version of FundSeeder in the US, OPFS provides free institutional-grade statistical analysis to traders to help understand, track and improve their portfolio management skills. The system also uses a proprietary algorithm to score and rank trader portfolios. Working with a network of investment partners, OPIM can help traders get recognized by institutional investors looking for new talent.

“Our mission has always been to discover the next generation of great Asian managers and connect them to allocators,” said Alvin Fan, Chief Executive Officer of OPIM. “With OP FundSeeder, we can now uncover hidden talent regardless of pedigree, background, or capital.”

The Hong Kong-based platform currently links to any trading accounts with Interactive Brokers including introducing brokers who clear through IB. In 2018, OPFS will be rolling out with more international brokers in Hong Kong.

“We’ve learnt that trading talent can come from any background. In fact, some of the greatest fund managers in history came from non-financial backgrounds. The goal of the system is to help traders improve by first helping them understand their decisions. The OPFS scoring rewards discipline, process, consistency, and precision – all necessary to achieve strong risk-adjusted returns. OPFS is free and available for anyone interested in improving their trading.“ Alvin added.

OPFS website will be updated on a regular basis and visitors are encouraged to explore the site and sign up atopfs.com.hk. Of course, as with any launch, there will always be room for improvement, so any feedback is welcome!

OP Investment Management Ltd., (Hong Kong) (“OPIM”), a member of the Oriental Patron Financial Group, announced its strategic investment into Fundseeder Holdings, LLC (“Fundseeder”), an emerging financial software company located in Florida, United States.

OPIM is a leading hedge fund structuring and incubation platform based in Hong Kong. Winner of Hedge Fund Magazine’s “Asia Regulated Platform of the Year” award in 2016, the firm partners with Asian investment managers to build offshore hedge fund products, combining early stage track records with the firm’s institutional infrastructure and ecosystem. OPIM also works with established institutional investors, funds of funds, and family offices to evaluate undiscovered trading talent in the ever-expanding emerging manager space.

Founded by US financial industry experts Jack Schwager, Emanuel Balarie, and James Bibbings, FundSeeder has developed an analytical software to help traders track their performance among other things. The company’s software also will assist institutional investors in connecting with undiscovered trading talent.

As of the date of this writing, Fundseeder has 8,000+ registered users and counting on its platform. Perhaps more exciting is that roughly half of these users have elected to sign up for the company’s daily verification option. This means that users are actively choosing to link their brokerage accounts directly with FundSeeder to showcase trading skill with actual capital in real markets.

Jack Schwager, one of the firm’s founders, is also author of the best-selling and award-winning book series, “Market Wizards”. Within his books Schwager interviews some of the greatest trading and investor minds in the world. Jack’s books have inspired several generations of traders to pursue their careers in fund management. When asked about his vision at FundSeeder Schwager said: “Fundseeder was designed to further the Market Wizard’s thesis by helping traders take an introspective look at their investment process, as well as their trading and portfolio construction skills. With the right kind of feedback and determination I believe it’s possible that nearly anyone can become a better fund investor or trader”.

Emanuel, CEO of Fundseeder, opined, “We’re thrilled to be working with like-minded partners who share our vision of a democratized trading industry. OPIM’s leadership in Asia means we can accelerate our growth in the most important market in finance today.”

CEO of OPIM, Alvin Fan, shared the firm’s strategic view, “Fundseeder’s analytics technology bridges a fundamental gap in our industry, it provides real-time performance feedback for traders and will provide trusted analytics for investors. This traditionally requires expensive tools, which prices out anyone who lacks either the pedigree or financial resources allowing only the elite few access to the top. Is the industry really saying there’s no investment or trading talent available from the 99.8%? Our experience tells us that, in fact, anyone can be a great money manager, no matter where you’re from, what your financial background, or pedigree”.

Addressing the importance of emerging managers in Asia, Fan added, “OPIM’s mission has always been to find undiscovered talent in Asia. Our partnership with FundSeeder will help us with this search here in Hong Kong, China, and globally”.

BOCA RATON, Florida, October 26, 2017 – FundSeeder Investments has announced the addition of Gary Klopfenstein as its Chief Investment Officer.  Klopfenstein will also assist FundSeeder Holdings executive management team to provide his expertise in the areas of investment strategy across both traditional and alternative investment classes. Mr. Klopfenstein will work alongside a growing and pedigreed list of accomplished industry professionals who have already joined in FundSeeder’s efforts to disrupt the asset management industry. He brings valuable executive leadership experience, deep capital relationships, and overall business development expertise to FundSeeder Investment’s capital introduction efforts. Klopfenstein and the FundSeeder Investments division will report to Emanuel Balarie, Co-Founder and CEO of FundSeeder Holdings.

Klopfenstein has developed and earned a reputation for his thought leadership and unique transformative abilities within the financial industry. Prior to joining FundSeeder he served as the Chief Executive Officer of Berenberg Asset Management; the U.S. asset management arm of a 400-year-old German financial institution. In this position, he led all North American business development, and worked with institutional clients from around the world. He also served as a strategic advisor for the German parent company and helped to expand the company’s footprint in North America significantly.

When asked for comment about the hire, former head of Global Trading at Franklin Templeton, Bill Stephenson, who also recently joined FundSeeder had this to say “Gary has a wealth of global expertise including successful client relationships in the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia that will be strategically beneficial to FundSeeder Investments. I’m incredibly excited to have someone with Gary’s extensive expertise and experience on our team”

To further accentuate Stephenson’s remarks, Klopfenstein first established himself as a financial investment industry executive to look out for while serving as a Senior Managing Director and the Head of Direct Alternative Investment Strategies for Chicago based Mesirow Financial.  At Mesirow Gary was responsible for growing the company’s business from $1 Billion to $60 Billion in less than ten years; a staggering accomplishment especially for a privately held, Off-Wall Street firm.

When asked about why Klopfenstein choose to join FundSeeder Investments rather than an established, traditional, asset management firm he responded “I am incredibly excited to join FundSeeder Investments, we will be a driver of the next evolution in discovering and funding trading talent globally. FundSeeder’s technology provides the perfect venue to accomplish this by combining visionary leadership, cutting edge insight, and market experience to provide an alternative way for both traders and allocators to meet one another. FundSeeder’s technology and process will change the way the asset management industry operates.”

About FundSeeder Investments:

FundSeeder Investments is a mandate-driven investment firm seeking to connect the world’s top undiscovered trading talent with qualified eligible investors. The firm aims to work with capital allocators to identify traders that meet specific, hard-to-find, and unique investment criteria. FundSeeder Investments seeks to create value by identifying and vetting trading talent to best serve investor portfolio needs. The company intends to utilize a variety of proprietary tools and offers a “curated” approach to match the right traders with the right investors to meet distinctive mandates.

For more information about FundSeeder Investments please visit www.fundseederinvest.com

Copyright © 2017. FundSeeder Technologies LLC. All rights reserved.

BOCA RATON, Florida, October 4, 2017 – FundSeeder Technologies, a data and performance analytics platform for the trading industry announced the appointment of Bill Stephenson as Chief Strategy Officer. In his role, Stephenson will join the management team and provide strategic direction to the firm’s goal of disrupting the asset management industry by sourcing, seeding, and distributing undiscovered trading and investment talent. Stephenson will report to Emanuel Balarie, CEO and co-founder of FundSeeder Technologies.

“Bill brings more than two decades of trading, strategy, and management experience with wide-ranging expertise across technology, analytics and trade execution that will prove invaluable in leading our efforts to grow our platform of emerging investment managers,” said Balarie. “We are excited to tap his fresh perspective as we continuously strive to enhance our suite of analytics and provide an innovative product to both traders and asset allocators.”

Previously, Stephenson was the Global Head of Trading at Franklin Templeton Investments in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where he held various trading and leadership positions over a twenty-year span. At Franklin Templeton, he led the equity, foreign exchange, and derivatives trading teams located in 13 locations across 5 continents. Stephenson is also the founder and lead organizer of the AIR Summit which is a highly acclaimed annual industry-wide event focused on emerging and innovative technologies that help investment managers generate or preserve alpha in their portfolios. In 2014, Mr. Stephenson was included in the Trade 100 by The Trade magazine as one of the top 100 most influential people in buy-side trading.

As the Chief Strategy Officer, Stephenson will also work closely with co-founders, James Bibbings and Jack Schwager, the famed author of the Market Wizards book series.

“When I first met Emanuel and heard the FundSeeder vision, it become clear to me that FundSeeder can actually disintermediate the traditional fund management business by providing a unique platform for emerging or even more established talent. The future investment products created from this crowdsourced talent pool could dramatically change and expand the investment options for asset allocators,” said Stephenson.

About FundSeeder Technologies:

FundSeeder Technologies, LLC is a data and performance analytics platform for the trading industry, designed to democratize and globalize the capital investment and portfolio management process for undiscovered trading talent. The company’s software allows traders to verify their track records, benefit from performance analytics and risk management tools and provide access to an emerging manager support structure. Alternatively, sister company FundSeeder Investments provides investors with a unique tool to find emerging skilled managers globally and to invest with them within various types of investment structures. Some of FundSeeder’s investors include FIS Global, a leading financial technology firm and OP Investment Management Ltd., a leading Hong Kong based asset management company. FundSeeder is based in Boca Raton, Florida.

For more information, please visit www.fundseeder.com

Copyright © 2017. FundSeeder Technologies LLC. All rights reserved.

Recently thought leadership publication Dimple. interviewed FundSeeder’s founders and subsequently ran a story about our vision. A link to the full article follows below, excerpted from “FundSeeder Is Looking For The Best Traders In The World”:

“When the average person thinks of the stock market, they think of Wall Street with its fast-paced trading floors full of men and women staring at their Bloomberg Terminals. This vision is enforced by a high barrier of entry to the industry, where a small group of less than 700 hedge fund managers control 90% of the hedge fund market, a $3 trillion industry.

Sensing an opportunity, the founders of FundSeeder have developed a technology that opens this market up to new money managers from outside this small circle of established traders. With advancements in data and analytics technologies, these founders believed that new traders should have better access to the information that they need to grow and advance in the industry.

Emanuel Balarie, who founded FundSeeder along with Jack Schwager and James Bibbings, says they “came together on a core belief that some of the world’s best traders, money managers, however you want to really call it, are undiscovered.”

Read the rest of the article here

Chicago – On September 14, 2017 FundSeeder’s Jack Schwager will be the Keynote Speaker at the National Introducing Brokers Association (“NIBA”) annual conference held at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange building.  Mr. Schwager is a Co-founder and Chief Research Officer of FundSeeder and is a widely recognized industry expert in futures and hedge funds. He is also the author of a number of widely acclaimed financial books. Previously, Mr. Schwager was a partner in the Fortune Group (2001-2010), a London-based hedge fund advisory firm. His prior experience also includes 22 years as Director of Futures research for some of Wall Street’s leading firms, most recently Prudential Securities.

At the event FundSeeder intends to introduce a new opportunity for deeper industry involvement in the companies FundSeeder Investments project.  Interested traders and brokers who might like to attend the NIBA event may do so by following this link.  We hope to see you there!

Yesterday marked the close of FIS Global’s 2nd Annual Accelerator program in Little Rock, AR. At the culmination of the program FIS Chief Product Officer Rob Lee announced that FIS had directly invested in FundSeeder (more news about this to follow in August!)  An article covering Lee’s announcement recently ran in Arkansas Business and discussed FundSeeder further.

Below are a few key excerpts taken directly from the aforementioned article which we would encourage readers of this blog to review in its entirety:

“Lee told Arkansas Business that FIS made a small investment in and has a distribution partnership with FundSeeder, which offers a data and performance analytics platform for traders designed to democratize the capital allocation process.

FundSeeder CEO Emanuel Balarie said, “Having FIS in our corner gives FundSeeder a real competitive advantage in the space.” 

FundSeeder COO James Bibbings said, “FIS has provided FundSeeder with great product insights. The financial industry expertise FIS has brought to the table has been invaluable. It’s apparent that they desire to make FundSeeder as successful as possible.”

He also said, “Alternatively, FundSeeder’s innovations and overall vision for industry disruption is pushing FIS. As a new company, we have the opportunity and autonomy to think outside the box a bit more than a Fortune 500 might. By challenging the asset management and trading industry paradigm, I believe we are already helping FIS to innovate and bring new value propositions to their clients as well.””

Does a trader need to be lucky? Or is there a skill that can be learned to get stock market trading success?  FundSeeder’s Jack Schwager, author of the Market Wizard series, recently had a chance to discuss this question and offer his opinions. On July 24, 2017 Jack was invited on the Goldstein on Gelt show hosted by Israeli Public Radio to examines the difference between having “luck” as a trader and having a well-informed system or process which informs trader skill to choose trades.

Readers who are interested in listening to the show may do so here.

FundSeeder is continually adding new functionalities and improvements to our free unique account analytics software. This newsletter provides a summary of the major new features added since our last newsletter update.

Benchmark Overlay Now Available for Account Equity Curves

The screenshot below shows an example of a futures trading account with a benchmark comparison of the SG CTA Index. Traders can display one or multiple benchmark comparison lines.

Switch Account Displays Between Local Currency and USD

Non-U.S. traders can now toggle account displays between denomination in their local currency and USD.

 Add Flag for Strategy Change

FundSeeder recognizes that over time some traders may significantly change their trading methodology. These traders can now use our new flag feature to set a point on their cumulative equity curve at which their approach changed. This feature allows users to better visually demarcate the two periods.

NAS Selection Now Simplified

A user who wants to use NAS instead of NLV for defining the trading account size now only has to check the Nominal Account Size in the Calculation Method box (see screenshot below) [see 1 below].

Now Possible to Change Calculation Method for Whole History

FundSeeder provides two methods for defining the account size used to calculate returns and other performance statistics:

1. Net Liquidating Value (NLV)—This straightforward method simply defines the account size as the value of the account at the close of each day—i.e., cash plus the marked-to-market value of all open positions.

2. Nominal Account Size (NAS)—For traders who trade financial instruments that require margins equal to only a small percentage of the position value (e.g., futures, FX), the NLV may sharply understate the account size needed to prudently trade the account. The NAS is the Nominal Account Size defined by the trader as the base to be used for calculating returns instead of the NLV. Since the NAS is subject to the restriction that it must be larger than the NLV, using the NAS as the base will lower both returns and all risk measures (e.g., percentage drawdowns, percentage cumulative losses, volatility, etc.).

Users can switch the calculation method (from NLV to NAS or vice versa) or change the NAS level at any point to better reflect the perceived account size required to trade the strategy. For example, after a significant withdrawal or deposit, a trader would want to change the NAS level if trading size is changed as a result of this cash movement. Previously, a switch in the calculation method would only apply to forward returns (beginning two days after the change was made). Now, the flexibility has been added to also apply the switch to the entire track record by checking the box “Adjust the change of calculation method for all trading history” (see screenshot illustration below). Forward returns only and the entire track record are, however, the only two options provided in order to prevent users from cherry-picking a date for the calculation method transition point.

Nominal Account Size Curve Added

 Previously, the account size graph was in terms of NLV, even for accounts that chose NAS as the calculation method. Now the Accounts Size History tab will show curves for both NLV and NAS (see screenshot below)

Trade Statistics Section Added

Until recently all the statistics and charts provided were based on portfolio level data. Our recently added Traded Statistics section (see screenshot below) provides the following trade level statistics:

• Profit Factor
• Total Open Profits/Losses
• Total Closed Profits/Losses
• Total Profits/Losses All Trades
• Average Profit per Winning Trade
• Average Loss per Losing Trade
• Average Profit/Loss of All Trades
• Percent Winning Trades
• Average Holding Period Winning Trades
• Average Holding Period Losing Trades
• Average Holding Period All Trades

Trade Station Account Back Data Now Available

When Trade Station was first added as a direct link to FundSeeder, account data was only available beginning on the account linking date. Now Trade Station users can access their prior account data history back through 2014.

Minimum Equity and Track Record Filters Added to Leaderboard 

Leaderboard now includes dropdown filters that allow excluding all accounts with track records less than specified minimum length and equity below specified threshold.

FundSeeder Indexes Display Toggle Added

The FundSeeder Indexes can now be displayed for either full track record or just past 12 months.

Benchmark List Added to Fundseeder Index Charts

You can now compare any of the FundSeeder Indexes with a wide range of third party index calculations and markets. The list of possible benchmarks is shown in screenshot below:

For example, the chart below shows the two FundSeeder Futures Indexes compared with the SG CTA Index.

Expanded Resources Section

FundSeeder now has additional affiliated webpages and services:

• FundSeeder Investments—Provides a link to FundSeeder Technology’s sister investor company website.

• FundSeeder Education—Contains advice, links and Resources for traders at different stages of development.

• FundSeeder News—Contains articles, videos and podcasts pertaining to FundSeeder and its three founding partners: Emanuel Balarie, James Bibbings and Jack Schwager.

• FundSeeder Support—FundSeeder Support Center has been completely revamped and reorganized into two major sections:

• FAQs by topic
• Video Library Support with 22 instructional videos

This link also makes it extremely easy to submit a query to FundSeeder if the user can’t find an answer to a question in the FAQ or video sections.

The Subscription Section Has Been Revised

See screenshot below:

Ready to Get Regulated?

FundSeeder has partnered with industry leading consulting firm Turnkey Trading Partners to assist those independent traders looking to take their trading careers to the next level. Contacting Turnkey through FundSeeder via this link will provide users with an opportunity to discuss registration options in the U.S.

——————————–

[1] Previously, users selecting NAS as the calculation had to indicate additional choices as to whether the NAS level should be adjusted for: 1) P/L changes and 2) deposits/withdrawals. The P/L selection was, in fact, superfluous since returns were added if the user chose not to adjust the NAS level for P/L changes and compounded if the user chose to adjust for P/L changes—and, mathematically, both methods yielded identical cumulative returns. We also defined the NAS calculation to not include adjustments for deposits/withdrawals, since the user has the ability to change the NAS level at any time to whatever level is deemed appropriate to reflect cash movements.