Greg Taunt, Author at IASG
As IASG Vice President, Greg Taunt helps clients navigate the futures industry and find the best managers for their risk tolerance and portfolio needs. He specializes in maximizing portfolio effectiveness to potentially reduce risk while increasing returns through managed accounts in non-correlated vehicles.
Previously, Greg served as Midwest Regional Wholesaler for Superfund Asset Management, a $2 billion trend-following CTA working with brokers and registered investment advisors. Before that, he worked in the insurance industry, providing risk management solutions to financial institutions in the Midwest.
Greg holds a B.A. in finance from Michigan State University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He is licensed as a Series 3 Commodity Broker, a Series 34 Forex Broker, and a Series 7, Series 24, and Series 63 Securities Broker.
Contact Greg via email or 312-561-3147.
2021 Year in Review
The year of the pandemic led into another year of COVID but with a hefty dose of inflation. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the United States rose 7% in 2021, its highest level in nearly 40 years. The ramifications of this could impact every market going forward, especially as it affects central bank policy, […]
‘Twas The Taper Announcement Before Christmas
Investors held their collective breath as they waited on Jerome Powell to announce the newest Fed action the week before Christmas. Central bankers were unanimous in their decision to move to a less accommodative stance, and the market reaction was swift and fierce. The date, December 19th, 2018, when the Fed lifted the Fed funds […]
Carbon Markets: Trading Government Policy and Corporate Commitments
What if I told you there was a futures sector that was not only driven by governments but explicitly designed to appreciate over time? Given the monetary policy of the past few years, many of us intuitively understand the influence that central banks can have on our economics. What if I told you that corporate […]
How to Build a Sustainable Investment Portfolio
In recent years, sustainability has moved from the financial sector’s periphery to the mainstream, and the industry has increasingly embraced a transition to a more sustainable and inclusive economic model. This, in turn, has made ESG investing is a hot topic right now. Environmental, social, and governance programs look at not only financial factors for […]
Seasonal Stock Depression
If it seems like September is looking like a rough period for the market you might be surprised but you shouldn’t be. In fact, over the past 50 years, it is the worst performing month of the calendar year. The chart below shows where the saying, “Sell in May and Go Away”, comes from referring […]
Options Made Simple
For any profession, once you have done it for a while, some concepts become second nature to the point that you forget that not everyone (or very few) understands them at even a basic level. I find that options are the concept that confuses people the most and perhaps most valuable to understand. The futures […]
Who is Driving the Bus?
Nobody likes paying for insurance. It is intangible as you pay up front for an unknown risk that may or may not materialize. Many of us feel that we overpay, until we really need it. It is perhaps not surprising then that many investors spend little effort protecting against sudden and unexpected drops in the […]
Call me a Pessimist
All investors know the adage to “buy high and sell low” but few adhere to it. We can see this with record volume to start July trading coming mostly from retail investors as the S&P reaches another all time high. Perhaps I have been in the futures industry too long because when things are “too […]
Hedging an equity portfolio: Volatility
In our last article, “Why Traditional Hedges Fail,” we opined that most traditional hedges had significant weaknesses and did not have many characteristics of a great hedge. Volatility (long positions in VIX futures), while not perfect, has a number of these favorable characteristics for hedging an equity portfolio. The characteristics of an excellent equity hedge […]
A Better SPY?
Index investing is all the rage now, with over a trillion dollars invested in the SPY and VOO ETFs alone. Low fees coupled with broad market exposure are expected to be better for your portfolio than an actively managed strategy with higher fees. One could argue that as the indices’ components attract more capital flow, […]
When Good News is Bad
My favorite analogy for passive investing describes two men sitting at a bar. One is drunk and the other sober. When the night is over the sober man leads the other home to make sure he gets there safely. Historically, hedge funds and active investors pored over financials, looked at P/E ratios, and listened to […]
Inflation Coming?
Want to play a “fun” game? Go to Google and type “currency crisis (insert any country name)” and see your results. Luckily for Americans, you will find that the United States is one of the few countries that have avoided this designation so far. As one of my Polish friends who immigrated asked me, “Why […]
Futures Contracts are Easy. You are Already Using Them.
I have spent over a decade in the futures industry, so I am accustomed to blank stares when I tell people what I do. Most immediately assume it is too complicated to even try to understand. The ironic thing is that we all intuitively understand them already. We trade them all the time. We can […]