Alpha Exchange
The Alpha Exchange is a podcast series launched by Dean Curnutt to explore topics in financial markets, risk management and capital allocation in the alternatives industry. Our in depth discussions with highly established industry professionals seek to uncover the nuanced and complex interactions between economic, monetary, financial, regulatory and geopolitical sources of risk. We aim to learn from the perspective our guests can bring with respect to the history of financial and business cycles, promoting a better understanding among listeners as to how prior periods provide important context to present day dynamics. The “price of risk” is an important topic. Here...
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Libby Cantrill, Head of Public Policy, PIMCO
<p>It is busy time, to say the least, for Libby Cantrill, Head of Public Policy at PIMCO. Today’s markets are grappling with vast uncertainties…in US fiscal policy, in Fed independence and leadership, in geopolitics, and in global trade. Libby is charged with helping both the clients and risk-takers of PIMCO better understand the implications of policy that is changing rapidly.<br /><br />Through her conversations with institutional, retail, and international clients, she outlines how uncertainty around US policy has become a central driver of investor concern early in 2026. Our discussion highlights how recent geopolitical developments — including tensions with E...
GME 5 Years Later…Lessons and Threats
<p>Five years ago, on January 27th, 2021, the frenzied buying and speculation in Gamestop hit its apex. In this short podcast, I look back on one of the more fascinating, and dare I say, dangerous, risk events in modern day markets. The stock was subject to an outright speculative attack. But not the kind most CEOs complain about. This was not Soros taking down the British pound in 1992. This was a retail army of Reddit bandits whose buying power was nothing individually, but everything collectively. This was an attack not by a short seller, but against one. We learn a...
Alex Urdea, Founder and CIO, Deep Ocean Partners
<p>It was a pleasure to welcome Alex Urdea, Founder and CIO of Deep Ocean Partners to the Alpha Exchange. Alex traces his career from credit derivatives trading at a large bank to a risk management function at a hedge fund focused on distressed investing to ultimately building an asset-backed private credit platform focused on smaller, less trafficked segments of the lending universe. The conversation centers on how regulatory changes following the Global Financial Crisis, prolonged periods of low interest rates, and shifting investor preferences have reshaped where and how credit risk is priced.</p><p> </p><p>Alex describes h...
Andrew Lapthorne, Global Head of Quantitative Research, Societe Generale
<p>Today’s market landscape is defined by extremes that challenge conventional portfolio construction. A small group of mega-cap stocks now represents an unprecedented share of index weight, profit generation, and capital spending, raising important questions about valuation, diversification, and risk concentration.</p><p> </p><p>With this in mind, it was great to have Andrew Lapthorne, Global Head of Quantitative Research at Société Générale, back on the Alpha Exchange. Drawing on long-run valuation distributions and profitability data, Andrew examines whether today’s market qualifies as a valuation bubble, not through narratives, but through measurable historical comparisons. His analy...
Closing Thoughts on 2025
<p>As I share my closing thoughts on 2025, I want to look back with an eye towards pointing out this year’s unique characteristics from a market risk perspective. I start this exercise by highlighting what I consider to be 2025’s three most interesting days from a vol and risk perspective: 1) the April 7th roller-coaster in the VIX 2) the September 10th surge in ORCL and 3) the October 21st melt-down in the GLD. Each of these helps us better understand some of the forces at work in today’s market. Next, I explore two important themes and their implications. First, the “stock up...
Ian Harnett, Co-Founder and Chief Investment Strategist, Absolute Strategy Research
<p>It was a pleasure to welcome Ian Harnett, co-founder and Chief Investment Strategist at Absolute Strategy Research, to the Alpha Exchange. Our discussion explores how long periods of low volatility and abundant liquidity can quietly allow systemic risks to accumulate outside the traditional banking system.</p><p> </p><p>Drawing on lessons from the Global Financial Crisis, Ian explains why today’s financial system—now dominated by non-banks rather than banks—requires a different risk framework. While post-GFC regulation focused on large banks and insurers, much of the system’s leverage and liquidity transformation has migrated toward pension funds, private eq...
Kumaran Vijayakumar, Co-Founder and CEO, DataDock Solutions
<p>Kumaran Vijayakumar has spent his career in the equity derivatives market, first as an exotics trader and later in running large risk-taking desks in listed and OTC options. Now, the CEO of DataDock Solutions, a firm he Co-Founded in 2018, Kumaran and his team are developing analytical tools that allow sell-side flow desks to better understand the risks they take and clients they take it for. Our discussion explores the challenges inherent in evaluating client flow, and how data-centric infrastructure has changed the way risk is assessed.</p><p> </p><p>With the premise that “what you can measure you can...
Mark Rosenberg, Founder and Co-Head, Geoquant
<p>Risk generally falls into 4 categories, monetary (Central Banks), economic (growth and profits), financial (leverage, carry and correlation) and finally, geopolitical. This last category is non-market, market risk. And in this context, it was a pleasure to welcome Mark Rosenberg, Founder of GeoQuant and adjunct professor at UC Berkeley to the Alpha Exchange for a discussion centered on political risk as a measurable market variable.<br /><br />Mark’s work evaluates how governance, social instability, institutional stress, and security dynamics influence asset pricing. Tracing his path from academia to his time at Eurasia Group, he describes the gap that existed in...
Todd Rapp, CEO, Fortress Multi-Manager Group
<p>Todd Rapp got his career started in equity options at Goldman Sachs in the late 1990’s, a wild time in which a bubble inflated and burst and provided critical lessons in both gamma and vega risk in the process. Now the CEO of the Fortress Multi-Manager Group, Todd leans heavily on his derivatives DNA in the areas of sourcing uncorrelated return streams, portfolio construction and both measuring and managing risk. Early training has shaped his long-term view that markets express probability through delta, option curvature, and distribution structure rather than through static price movements.<br /><br />Our conversation connects ea...
Jessica Stauth, CIO, Systematic Equity, Fidelity Investments
<p>It was a pleasure to welcome Jessica Stauth, CIO for Systematic Equities at Fidelity Investments, to the Alpha Exchange. Our discussion explores how quant investing has evolved through cycles of market stress, technological change, and today’s extraordinary concentration in the equity landscape. Reflecting on her start in markets in the aftermath of the 2007 Quant Quake and the onset of the global financial crisis, Jessica highlights the foundational lesson that markets contain far more uncertainty than models can fully capture — a theme as relevant today as investors confront narrow leadership and elevated fragility. She explains how early dislocations demonstrated the...
