Brett Caughran (Ex. Maverick, Citadel etc.) Dropping Wisdom

Brett has more than 10 YOE, having worked at Maverick and running pods at DE Shaw, Citadel and Schonfeld. He knows his stuff solid and provides a lot of answers to questions that are frequently asked here.

I found him on Twitter a couple of days ago and I definitely think it can be helpful for aspiring L/S analysts.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FundamentEdge

33 Comments
 

His stuff reminds me how insanely granular the good pods go. So much talent slicing up every angle to make short term calls. It puts to shame most other processes, with the alpha to show for it.

The supreme irony is that for all their talent and hard work, these analysts are themselves cogs in a great business, with terrible longevity and risk-adjusted LTV for their own careers.

There was a comment on one of his tweets which I enjoyed:

https://twitter.com/Adam_Wyden/status/1552490219236098048?t=FYzH4o1LG07…

 

Curious what advice you'd have for someone interning at a pod as an undergrad next summer. I'm pretty set on public markets/investing and I find the factor/beta neutral style interesting/compelling; have an opportunity to join a HF potentially out of UG so I've gone for it but wonder what your 2C are.

 

Thanks for all the great content. Unrelated question I've been curious about: what approach do you take with your personal assets now? (asset allocation? specific process or investment profile you favor?)

I remember your tweets mentioning you had explored starting a small cap concentrated fund (may have those details wrong) - curious if you ended up doing some form of that even if just in PA.

 

While I was working in HF seats I got very interested in cash flowing real estate to diversify my exposure, so that’s a big part of what I do with my extra cash. But yes I still have the stock bug and I find that small caps have less competition due to liquidity and thus likely to be less fairly valued. But not for the faint of heart!

 

Bunch of reasons why he would do this instead. He likes/is good at teaching and it could be very lucrative given the initial interest.

On the other side, HF life is stressful and he’s likely made some dough. He was fired at Citadel and DE Shaw as a PM and doesn’t want to be someone else’s analyst.

 

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