Research Directions
Methods for position sizing, drawdowns, tail risk, and stress testing.
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Moontower host Kris Abdelmessih breaks down an interview with LTCM co-founder Victor Haghani, arguing that investment decisions consist of two parts: instrument selection and position sizing, and that LTCM's failure stemmed from flawed position sizing rather than poor instrument selection.
Read originalQuantpedia released a study comparing four four-state Gaussian HMMs that only differ in training start year (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000), evaluating market state recognition performance on the same 2010-2023 test set.
Read originalGoogle DeepMind is advancing the widespread deployment of Gemini 4 Argon while expanding the coverage of trusted cyber defenders in the Fairwind Program. The model solved all 12 scenarios in end-to-end simulated cyberattack tests, a significant improvement from 5 in the previous generation. Its refusal rate for violating requests nearly doubled compared to the previous generation, and violations accounted for only 2% of attempts in coding benchmark tests.
Read originalWhen evaluating AI heat risk models used in company valuations, investors should focus on whether they fully cover the entire transmission chain from heat hazards to asset exposure, operational sensitivity, financial impact, and ultimately valuation. Existing heat risk estimates from different institutions show significant discrepancies and often omit key impact dimensions such as employee productivity. Investors can reference the case of Électricité de France (EDF) and require companies to disclose quantifiable operational thresholds, financial sensitivities, and adaptation costs to determine whether heat-related losses are already reflected in company value.
Read originalAuthor Kris Longmore shares content from his 72-minute interview on The Algorithmic Advantage podcast, looking back on an early experience at a Sydney traders' meetup where he was unable to answer a proprietary trader's question about his own trading edge. He later joined that proprietary firm as a researcher and partner, and summarized relevant insights after leaving to trade independently.
Read originalMost portfolio managers and analysts in the investment industry have not yet adopted large language models in their daily work, with only a few well-resourced large institutions having implemented them. The article notes that LLMs can improve investment decision hit rates and long-term productivity, and that current barriers to adoption stem primarily from non-technical factors such as organizational processes, incentive structures, and psychological safety.
Read originalAQR has released the third part of its research series on tax-aware long-short (TA LS) strategies, clarifying two common misconceptions. As an active investment strategy, TA LS deliberately retains tracking error to express alpha models and capture excess returns and tax deferral benefits, rather than minimizing tracking error like direct indexing. Portfolio construction for TA LS requires balancing expected returns, risk, costs, and taxes, rather than simply realizing capital losses or deferring capital gains.
Read originalThis article treats the holding costs, behavioral pressures, and governance burdens of tail risk hedging during calm periods as design constraints rather than post-hoc inconveniences. The authors first break down three types of "bleeding" sources: direct holding costs, opportunity costs, and evaluation pressure, and provide a table of cumulative sleeve losses for different annualized carry rates over 3 to 15 years, as well as a table of portfolio-level annual drag converted by sleeve weight.
Read originalIn a trading lab at the Robinhood Summit, the author used Nike’s (NKE) after-hours earnings release on October 1, 2025, as a backdrop to demonstrate how to express a specific directional view using vertical spreads. At the time, NKE traded around $36, and the $36 straddle implied an expected move of about $3 (8%). The author chose to buy the 38.5/39 call vertical for a premium of $0.12, which would pay $0.50 if the stock closed above $39 at expiration, for a risk-reward ratio of roughly 3:1.
Read originalAlpha Architect interprets the paper "Competition, complexity, and security design: evidence from retail investment products" published in the Review of Finance in 2026. This study takes yield-enhancement products in the Swiss market as a sample and finds that issuers deliberately increase product complexity to weaken price competition when competition intensifies.
Read originalThe author participated in an options buying education session and a roundtable for trading platform data providers at the Robinhood 2026 Summit in Houston, recapping the Kelly Criterion supporting course, the profit and loss comparison logic of buying options versus holding the underlying stock, and the analytical approach for unusual INTC options flow.
Read originalQuantocracy released its latest roundup of quantitative research links on September 30, 2026, covering areas such as quantitative strategy replication, machine learning cross-sectional factors, quantitative trading podcast analysis, and correlation and volatility research. This includes the launch of the Quantpedia Awards 2027 competition, a replication of the intraday momentum strategy proposed by Gao et al. in 2018, and a systematic summary of the 335th episode of a quantitative trading podcast.
Read originalMoontower author Kris Abdelmessih released this newsletter, first sharing Adam Mastroianni's article on 'thickness', distinguishing between deep works that require attention to extract value and content-free AI-generated 'slop', then step-by-step deriving the optimal Kelly bet size formula from first principles.
Read originalBridgewater released a research report pointing out that current carbon pricing mechanisms cover approximately 30% of global emissions, mainly dominated by the emissions trading systems of the European Union and China. The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is amplifying its impact and promoting the adoption of carbon pricing worldwide.
Read originalAQR has published a research article noting that the market often incorrectly analogizes tax-aware long-short investing (TA LS) to direct indexing strategies, clarifying two core misconceptions.
Read originalAQR has updated its previous analysis of inflation sensitivity and inflation hedging, based on over 50 years of market data. While global inflation has fallen rapidly from its 2022 peak, inflation uncertainty persists in major markets, stock-bond correlations are at multi-decade highs, and traditional stock-bond portfolios are vulnerable to simultaneous losses during inflation shocks. Commodities and trend-following strategies perform strongly during inflation upcycles and can serve as inflation diversification tools, with implementation methods significantly affecting long-term returns and macro diversification outcomes.
Read originalAQR’s latest research, "Liquidity without Liquidation", shows that tax-sensitive long-short strategies can extract large amounts of cash without fully liquidating the portfolio, while maintaining pre-tax returns, target tracking error, and leverage levels.
Read originalRob Carver has completed the final edits on his fifth trading book, "The Art And Science of Trading," scheduled for official publication on December 1 and now available for pre-order. Aimed at the mass market, this book serves as the unleveraged counterpart to his third book, "Leveraged Trading." It covers an introduction to trading delta-one instruments such as stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies, explains trading science concepts like backtesting and the Kelly Criterion, and explores the integration of art and science within a semi-automated trading framework.
Read originalEpisode 125 of Deribit's Crypto Options Unplugged podcast, hosted by Imran Lakha and David Brickell, explores whether pressure in the global bond market could serve as a catalyst for Bitcoin's next major move.
Read originalAQR has released the research Investing in a Warming World, noting that mainstream portfolio carbon metrics such as carbon footprint and carbon intensity are easily affected by rising stock market valuations, and may show improvement even when corporate emissions change little, potentially overestimating decarbonization progress when used as time-series measures of decarbonization. Financed emissions are more directly linked to real-world emissions outcomes. The study also explores approaches to constructing climate-oriented portfolios, noting that combining multiple metrics can provide a more comprehensive assessment of climate-related investment progress.
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