At a hedge fund conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1998, David Harding, the founder and managing director of London-based Winton Capital Management, went to the hotel bar to mingle with other attendees and was introduced to an American investor. When the man asked what kind of fund he ran, Harding replied, “an exchange-traded, directional global macro fund,” thinking he was being canny in describing his quantitative trading strategy, only to be told, “We don’t do CTAs.”
