DAF: The Journey So Far

It's only been half a market cycle that I've been in the industry, but the journey in advising individuals/institutions on managing their money and investments has been nothing short of transformative. Each conversation, every portfolio crafted, and every financial plan executed revealed a deeper truth: investing is as much about about managing investors' trust, and expectations, as it is about numbers.

The gratification I felt from playing a part in creating a real, tangible improvements in people’s financial well-being, especially post-covid, has been unmatched. Over the years, listening to prominent fund managers in the industry ignited a profound curiosity to formulate my investment philosophy and build a meaningful track record.

A combination of these led to the creation of the ISOA Dynamic Advantage Fund (DAF). It represents more than just a way to share investment insights but a personal drive to make a tangible impact in this industry.

The initial idea back in 2021 was to try and test different strategies. Listening to fund managers, picking up a few points and trying and testing those with freely available public data, became a day-to-day activity. There were a lot of failed backtests, sometimes struggling to find data sources, sometimes there was a lag in data availability and more. Over time, things started to stitch together and I had a fair idea of how I wanted to set up my portfolio to look like.

The next couple of years were largely spent on building datasets, setting up triggers and linking it all together. The conversation then shifted to finding the right medium to present it and that's where the idea to build DAF came into the picture.

Over time, the idea with DAF is to make it flexible enough to run different sub-portfolios based on different risk profiles. For now, here's a quick snapshot of the journey so far and the year ahead:

As of July 2024, it remains a work in progress to build reporting templates and expand research coverage. There's a lot more to come and hopefully we continue to build on this step by step.

To exciting times ahead,

Shivam J