Nick Baltas on Trend Following in 2026: Signals, Structure & Strategy | Systematic Investor | Ep.282

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  January 17, 2026 at 17:28  |  1:00:09  |  Top Traders Unplugged
Speakers
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen — Founder & Host, Top Traders Unplugged
Nick Baltas — Head of Crypto, Goldman Sachs

Summary

Niels Kaastrup-Larsen and Nick Baltas review the start of 2026 for trend following, noting strong conditions but cautioning that recent speed and universe effects may be misleading. They discuss 2025 dispersion, the role of narratives and non-price data, and new academic research on nonlinear momentum and trend autonomy. The conversation reinforces disciplined, diversified trend following and the value of diversifying non-trend signals for maintaining allocations through underperformance.

  • Trend following started 2026 strongly, with seven consecutive months of favorable conditions.
  • 2025 saw wide dispersion among trend programs driven by speed and universe choice.
  • Slow trend signals and concentrated universes recently outperformed, but reacting to performance is discouraged.
  • New research explores nonlinear time-series momentum and neural-network-based signal construction.
  • Academic work on trend autonomy highlights crisis-alpha behavior even under IID return processes.
  • Non-trend diversifying signals performed well and can help maintain trend allocations.
  • Institutions have broader access to trend following through CTAs, mutual funds, ETFs, and QIS.
Ideas
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen Founder & Host, Top Traders Unplugged 7:09
Doubling down on disciplined trend following.
Niels is doubling down on trend following because it avoids prediction and narrative storytelling; instead it is disciplined at following what has already happened in prices, which he sees as an advantage in an increasingly unpredictable world.
DBMF MED
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen Founder & Host, Top Traders Unplugged 30:07
Avoid fixed income trend concentration.
Fixed income has been the worst sector to trade for trend following since 2022, despite many investors concluding after 2022 that they should focus mainly on fixed income markets; Niels warns against over-concentrating there.
TLT MED
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen Founder & Host, Top Traders Unplugged 30:33
Diversify trend following across all sectors.
Niels favors a truly diversified trend-following portfolio across all sectors because every sector has been profitable over the past 20 years, even though sector leadership rotates over time; full breadth is more intuitive than a concentrated universe.
Diversified trend following MED
Nick Baltas Head of Crypto, Goldman Sachs 35:47
Non-trend signals diversify trend allocations.
Nick cites new academic work on the autonomy of trend showing that trend following can still deliver positive returns in drawdowns even when the underlying return process is independent and identically distributed, because of the timing component; this supports trend following as a defensive, crisis-alpha allocation.
DBMF HIGH
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This Top Traders Unplugged video, published January 17, 2026, features Niels Kaastrup-Larsen, Nick Baltas discussing DBMF, TLT, Diversified trend following. 4 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Niels Kaastrup-Larsen, Nick Baltas  · Tickers: DBMF, TLT, Diversified trend following