Welcome to the In The Money Podcast by Zerodha, where we bring you the sharpest minds from around the world in trading, markets, and active investing. In this episode, we sit down with Rob Carver, systematic futures trader, former hedge fund manager, and one of the most practical voices in quantitative and rules-based investing. Rob spent years building and managing systematic macro and fixed income strategies at AHL, one of the world’s largest systematic hedge funds, after earlier roles in derivatives trading at Barclays and economic research at CEPR. Today, he trades his own capital, writes extensively on systematic investing, and teaches systematic trading strategies to finance students. In this wide-ranging conversation, Rob shares how real market understanding develops slowly over time, why trading your own money feels very different from managing institutional capital, and why starting simple is still the best advice for most traders. We dive deep into trend following, mean reversion, risk management, diversification, drawdowns, and the dangers of over-optimizing systems. We also discuss how the post-GFC world changed trend behavior, how to evaluate strategy performance beyond simple metrics, and Rob’s strong views on AI, LLMs, and automation in trading systems. You can check out our newsletter here: https://inthemoneybyzerodha.substack.com/
