137: Dr. William Ziemba – The horse bettor exploiting anomalies in financial markets

Dr. William Ziemba’s an academic, a practitioner, gambler, trader and an author. He’s worked with and consulted to many well-respected names in the field, such as; Edward Thorp, Blair Hull and the very successful horse bettor, Bill Benter.

In the beginning, horse betting was William’s field of expertise (he even published a book titled, Beat The Racetrack!) And in many ways, for William, horse betting worked as a gateway to trading financial markets—which he’s been doing since 1983.

Now in current times, William manages a fund; Alpha Z Advisors—which started trading in July 2013 and as of May 2017, has returned 527%.

Much of William's trading revolves around calendar anomalies, arbitrage strategies and behavioral biases. We spend a good amount of time discussing these few things, plus William shares one anomaly he's been trading for many years.

In the later part of this episode, we also talk about position sizing, the Kelly Criterion and finally, horse racing.