Table of Contents
Andres Granger sits down in Seoul to unpack how he grew from grinding solo sessions to managing a multi-strategy crypto fund with separately managed accounts and real infrastructure behind it. He matters because he’s one of the few traders who’s paired market-neutral rigor with scalable execution—discussing AUM growth, award-recognized performance, and the unglamorous operational grind that keeps client capital safe while still compounding. You’ll hear why he’s obsessed with minimizing drawdowns, which dashboards he actually checks, and how trading still takes 90% of his day even as the team scales.
In this piece, you’ll learn the core of Andres Granger’s playbook: a market-neutral futures/cash basis edge, a directional trend-following sleeve, and an options-driven volatility-arbitrage strategy—plus the execution habits that make them work. We’ll cover how he scouts liquidity and spreads, why short review loops (recording and assessing trades) sharpen entries, how he adapts across Asian/European/US sessions, and what it really takes to build a fund that delivers consistent returns without swinging for the fences. Expect clear, beginner-friendly takeaways you can adapt to your own trading routine—without the fluff.
Andres Granger Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core Stack: Three Complementary Edges That Drive Returns
Here’s the high-level mix: a market-neutral basis engine, a directional trend sleeve, and an options/volatility program. Together they aim to keep drawdowns shallow while compounding steadily, so you’re not relying on one market regime to make your month.
- Run a split: ~50–70% capital on a market-neutral basis, ~20–40% in directional trend, ~10–20% in options/vol-arb; rebalance weekly.
- Cap total expected daily VaR at 0.50–0.75% of equity across all books; halt new risk if rolling 5-day PnL < −1.5%.
- If two sleeves are negative 3 days in a row, reduce gross exposure by 25% until the trailing 10-day P&L turns positive.
Market-Neutral Basis: Cash-and-Carry That Actually Stays Market-Neutral
This is the bread-and-butter carry: buy spot (or synthetic spot), sell futures when the annualized basis is attractive, hedge basis risk, and keep it boring. The goal is smooth carry, not hero trades.
- Enter only when the annualized basis ≥ 6% and the term spread slope is positive from near-to-next expiry.
- Enforce 1:1 delta hedge on entry; re-check hedge every 60 minutes or when underlying moves > 1.25%.
- Position size = min( (TargetBasisYield/12) ÷ (FundingCost + BorrowCost + Fees), desk max per venue ).
- Close or rotate when the annualized basis compresses below 3% or borrow costs rise above 50% of gross yield.
- Diversify across at least 3 venues and 2 collateral types; max 25% venue concentration per leg.
- If funding spread widens by > 100 bps intraday versus 5-day mean, cut 50% and re-price the leg.
Directional Trend: Simple Rules So You Don’t Overthink Entries
This sleeve catches the meat of moves without overfitting. You want a rule-based framework that survives regime changes and reduces screen-time decisions.
- Trade only the top 3–5 liquid underlyings on your venue list; no alt illiquids.
- Execute longs when 10/40 EMA crosses up AND price above 200 EMA AND ATR(14)/Price between 1.5% and 4.5%.
- Place initial stop = 1.2 × ATR(14); move to breakeven after +1 × ATR; trail at 2 × ATR thereafter.
- Risk per trade = 0.25–0.40% of equity; stop stacking more than 3 correlated positions (pairwise 30-day corr < 0.65).
- Exit on 10/40 cross down or two consecutive daily closes beyond 2 × ATR against the position—whichever hits first.
Options & Volatility: Premium Harvesting Without Blowups
The options book monetizes elevated implieds and mean-reverting realized vol, but it’s run with tight risk rails. You’re selling time when it pays and hedging gamma so you sleep at night.
- Favor short 15–30 DTE strangles only when IVR ≥ 60 and 5-day realized < 20-day implied.
- Keep net short vega ≤ 0.75% of equity per 1 vol-point move; cap total short gamma so a −3% spot shock < −0.75% equity.
- Use delta hedges at ±0.20 spot moves or at session open/close; never “hope” through funding resets.
- Auto-reduce at −1.0% daily PnL or if spot gaps > 2 × 20-day ATR; roll losers early to keep risk centered.
Risk Framework: Prevent Big Dents Before They Happen
Good process beats good opinions. Most mistakes come from too much size or too much correlation just when liquidity thins.
- Daily hard stop: −2.0% equity; weekly hard stop: −4.0%; hit either and flatten discretionary exposure.
- Max book correlation (equal-weighted) ≤ 0.55; if exceeded, cut the lowest-edge positions first.
- Keep 20–30% of collateral in stables/fiat to meet margin calls without forced unwinds.
- No new trades within 60 minutes of major macro prints or venue maintenance windows.
Execution & Venue Hygiene: Basis Points You Can Actually Keep
Tiny frictions ruin the edge. Standardize how you route, verify fills, and protect yourself from venue hiccups.
- Pre-trade checklist: venue status green, borrow lines live, API latency < 250 ms, failover keys tested.
- Use post-only or maker-favored limits for non-urgent legs; cross the spread only when carry decay > 2× the spread cost.
- If slippage on a leg > 0.5 × quoted spread, cancel remaining child orders and re-slice at a smaller clip.
- Maintain redundant hedges across two venues; if the hedge venue degrades, throttle new risk to 50% until stable.
Review Loop: Fast Feedback So You Don’t Repeat Errors
Short, frequent reviews beat marathon post-mortems. You want tight loops that spot leaks and fix them immediately.
- Record every discretionary trade with a 30-second voice note: thesis, trigger, stop, size, and exit plan.
- End-of-day: mark top 3 slippage outliers and top 3 process wins; assign one fix for tomorrow.
- Weekly: export metrics—win rate, average R, slippage, venue rejects, and PnL by sleeve—and cut bottom-decile tactics.
Position Sizing & Pyramiding: Add Only When the Math Agrees
Adding to winners is great until you turn them into losers. Keep a formula and stick to it.
- Base unit = equity × risk% ÷ stop distance; never exceed 4 base units per instrument.
- Add only at +1 × ATR advances with stop ratcheted to breakeven of the entire stack.
- If unrealized drawdown from peak > 1.5 × ATR after adding, drop the last add and revert to prior size.
Session Structure: Make the Clock Your Friend
Different sessions behave differently. Align tasks to the liquidity and volatility each window offers.
- Asia: maintain/rotate hedges, run carry scans, and harvest options theta; avoid fresh trend entries.
- Europe: probe first directional entries if signals align; raise alerting around basis slope changes.
- US: main risk window—deploy adds, manage exits, and clear any large re-hedges before the last 30 minutes.
Portfolio Health Checks: Keep the Machine Tuned
Treat the book like an operating system. A few daily and weekly checks keep risks from compounding.
- Daily: confirm delta-neutrality on market-neutral sleeves within ±0.05; verify borrow and funding rates vs 5-day averages.
- Weekly: stress-test a −5% spot shock and a 10-vol spike; projected loss must be < −3% equity—if not, de-gross.
- Monthly: re-score venue risk (outages, rejects, fee changes) and shift 10–20% of carry flow to the best-scoring venue.
Drawdown Protocol: Rules That Kick In Automatically
When the curve dips, your job is to stop digging. Pre-commit the throttle-down so emotions don’t decide for you.
- At −3% from equity high: reduce gross by 20%, switch to A-grade setups only, and halve new option shorts.
- At −5%: pause directional adds, cut market-neutral venue concentration by 10%, and ban same-day re-entries after stops.
- Recovery mode ends only after a +2% net regain with 10 consecutive trading days of process compliance.
Size Risk First: Cap Daily VaR And Cut After Losing Streaks
Andres Granger starts with risk, not setups, and that mindset drives everything that follows. He caps daily VaR so a bad day dents the curve, not the account, and he treats that cap like a circuit breaker—not a suggestion. If the rolling five-day P&L is bleeding, he halts fresh risk before the hole deepens. The message is simple: survival is the edge that funds all other edges.
When a losing streak hits, Andres Granger automatically dials down aggression instead of trying to “win it back.” He cuts gross exposure after consecutive down days, narrows to only A-grade plays, and waits for the equity curve to stabilize. That throttle-down turns volatility from an enemy into a speed limit he can obey. It’s a boring rule, but it’s the kind that keeps you trading next month.
Let Volatility Set Position Size, Stops, And Add-Back Levels
Andres Granger builds size from ATR and IV, not gut feel. If volatility expands, he shrinks unit size and widens stops; if it contracts, he scales units and tightens risk to keep R constant. He anchors the initial stop distance to a multiple of the current ATR and lets the market’s movement dictate how aggressive he can be. That way, every trade risks roughly the same fraction of equity regardless of regime.
Add-backs are earned, not assumed: only after a full ATR of favorable movement does he add, and each add drags a stop up to protect gains. When realized volatility spikes beyond his preset band, he freezes, adds, and trades smaller until the band cools. He treats volatility filters like traffic lights—green to build, yellow to hold, red to cut. It’s a rules-first approach that keeps position size in sync with the market, not emotions.
Diversify By Edge: Basis Carry, Trend Sleeve, And Options Income
Andres Granger spreads risk across edges, not just tickers, so no single regime decides his month. The market-neutral basis book grinds steady carry while staying delta-flat, the trend sleeve hunts asymmetric moves, and the options program monetizes implied versus realized volatility. Each piece has different drivers, holding periods, and failure modes, which means drawdowns rarely sync up. That blend lets him play offense and defense at the same time.
He keeps allocation rules simple: the carry engine gets the bulk for stability, trends get nimble capital for bursts, and options run with tight risk rails to avoid tail pain. When one edge cools—say basis compresses—Andres Granger rotates size to the edges, still paying without forcing trades. Correlation is watched like a hawk, and he cuts overlapping exposures that sneak in through the back door. The result is a portfolio that earns in more than one way and survives long enough to let compounding do its work.
Trade Rules Over Opinions: Mechanize Entries, Exits, And Hedging Tasks
Andres Granger treats rules like guardrails, so he doesn’t negotiate with the market mid-trade. He predefines entries (signal + confirmation), initial stops (ATR-multiple), and profit targets or trailing logic so the plan runs without second-guessing. Checklists cover sizing, venue status, and correlation before any order goes live. If a box isn’t ticked, the trade waits—no “gut feel” overrides.
He applies the same discipline to exits and hedges: stops move only on predefined triggers, and delta hedges fire at set intervals or price steps. A timer pings for hedge checks, not his mood, and session routines dictate when to add, reduce, or stand down. If slippage or latency crosses his threshold, the system cancels and re-slices instead of “chasing.” For Andres Granger, process is the edge that keeps every good idea from turning into an expensive opinion.
Prefer Defined Risk During Turbulence; Throttle Undefined Exposures Until Conditions Normalize
When markets get jumpy, Andres Granger flips to a defense-first playbook and prioritizes defined risk over anything that can snowball. That means tighter stops on directional trades, smaller unit sizes, and options structures with clear max loss instead of wide-open short gamma. He trims leverage on the basis book if funding spreads wobble and refuses to chase carry when borrowing or venue risk spikes. The goal is simple: keep downside mapped and prepaid while the tape is chaotic.
Andres Granger only re-opens the throttle as realized volatility cools back inside his preset band and liquidity looks normal again. He rolls short options earlier, hedges deltas more frequently, and bans same-day re-entries after a stop during the storm window. If the correlation between sleeves climbs, he cuts the overlap first so one shock doesn’t hit everything at once. By insisting on defined risk during turbulence, he trades through the noise without letting a rough week become a rough quarter.
In the end, Andres Granger’s edge isn’t a single setup—it’s the way he stacks small, durable advantages and refuses to let any one trade or regime decide his fate. He sizes from volatility so every risk is pre-paid, caps daily damage with firm VaR rails, and pulls the throttle the moment a losing streak shows up. He diversifies by edge rather than ticker—basis carry for steady grind, a nimble trend sleeve for bursts, and options income with tight risk rails—so drawdowns rarely sync and compounding stays alive.
What makes it repeatable is the process: mechanized entries and exits, scheduled hedge checks, venue hygiene that claws back basis points, and a short feedback loop that fixes leaks fast. In turbulence, he flips to defined risk, trims leverage, and bans re-entry roulette until conditions normalize; when the tape calms, he scales back with rules, not revenge. The lesson for any trader is simple and hard: codify your behavior before the market tests you, let volatility set your size, keep multiple independent edges working, and protect the equity curve like it’s your only edge—because it is.
