QFR · Capital and entrepreneurship
Investing through the financial crisis
I cofounded QFR and managed global macro portfolios across currencies, fixed income and credit through the financial crisis.
- Role
- Cofounder and principal portfolio manager
- Period
- 2007–2012 · New York
- Stage
- Completed tenure
Build the firm and manage capital
I cofounded QFR after working in emerging markets at J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. As a principal portfolio manager, I managed global macro portfolios across currencies, fixed income and credit.
While completing my Harvard doctorate, I traveled from Boston to New York one or two days a week to help establish the firm with my partners. In my conversation with Guillermo Laborda, I recall a period in which scientific work and the demands of a new investment business occupied the same week.
Protect capital. Reconsider the position.
Before the 2008 crisis, we bought credit default swaps: contracts that provide protection against credit defaults. In my conversation with Guillermo Laborda, I describe buying that protection while it was inexpensive. When markets reversed in 2009, we changed positioning.
The two decisions required different views of the same market: first preparing for credit losses, then reconsidering the position as conditions changed.
My retrospective account in Shot Financiero, with Guillermo Laborda, 7 October 2023. The institutional biographies document my role and historical firm scale.
In conversation
Preparing for a crisis.
With Guillermo Laborda, I recall buying credit protection before the 2008 crisis and the uncertainty of making that decision.
Opens the complete original recording.
About this conversation
Looking back on QFR, I describe how we prepared for the crisis and what it felt like to manage money through the upheaval.
In conversation
When the market turned.
In the same conversation, I describe the reversal in 2009 and the subsequent growth in demand from clients.
Opens the complete original recording.
About this conversation
I describe the firm's experience through the crisis and recovery, as part of a longer conversation about my career.
The institutional record
Institutional biographies published in 2019 report that QFR assets exceeded US$3 billion during my tenure, recording the historical scale of the firm.
In 2009, Instituto Balseiro listed me as a QFR portfolio manager on the IB50K evaluating committee for science based business proposals. The work connected scientific ideas with the practical judgment that a business requires.
- Markets
- Currencies · fixed income · credit
- Historical firm assets
- Above US$3 billion
- My tenure
- 2007–2012
Original sources
Documents, publications and original accounts behind this work.
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