Today on the podcast, Michael Covel interviews Roland Austrup. Austrup is Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer at Integrated managed Futures, part of the IAM group out of Canada. Austrup’s firm comes at trading from a slightly different perspective: very systematic, but also using fundamentals systematically. Austrup and Covel discuss how Austrup got started in the industry, and whether he was always a “quant” thinker; early experiences with Ed Seykota; whether Austrup uses a systematic use of fundamentals or a discretionary use of fundamentals; why systematic can be frightening to certain people; managing risk and the return to risk profile; why Austrup targets a downside volatility of 13%; why “the returns will take care of themselves” if you manage risk correctly; trading trends and not market noise; being on the right side of a trend; the phrase “equity-like returns”; reviewing trend following performance in recent years; why Austrup’s strategy is not based on prediction; the importance of a broadly diversified portfolio; lack of correlation to traditional long-only equities strategies; and the current low rate environment. Want a free trend following DVD? Go to trendfollowing.com/win.