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Such is the case with John Hill, who can rely on the backing of Toby Crabel and his company. Crabel Capital Management -- one of the largest, longest-tenured and best-performing quantitative investment operations in the business, with almost $4 billion in assets under management (including notional equity) and a wide variety of strategies under its umbrella -- provides the operational support, trading technology infrastructure and marketing clout that allows Hill to focus on one thing: generating top risk-adjusted returns.
While many managers have struggled to simply survive the recent roiling markets, Hill says he has to go so far as to tamp down expectations after strong performance to date. "We've had an excellent environment for my type of models this year, but I think it's been a bit of an exception," Hill relates, quickly pointing out that the trading program is speculative and only appropriate for risk capital because losses can and will occur.
Hill attributes much of the program's success to his relationship to Crabel: "I've learned more from Toby in the past five years than I learned in the previous 20 years of my career," he says. That relationship actually runs in the family -- Crabel is a longtime friend of Hill's father, a fellow trader.
After comanaging his family's business, Hill Financial Group, along with his sister until 2002, Hill received an invitation from Crabel to form a joint venture. Crabel has extensive experience with this type of structure -- his joint venture with Paul Buethe has enjoyed years of success its own right -- so Hill was able to hit the ground running. The Hill Crabel Futures Fund was launched in May 2005 after several years of development.
