Savouring the Trend — An Evening with Niels Kaastrup-Larsen at Ristorante Bindella, Zurich

Savouring the Trend — An Evening with Niels Kaastrup-Larsen at Ristorante Bindella, Zurich In this edition of Savouring the Trend, Adam Havryliv and Richard Brennan traveled to Zurich to dine with Niels Kaastrup-Larsen at Ristorante Bindella, a refined Italian institution that mirrors the Swiss city’s quiet competence. Over prosciutto, burrata, and perfectly prepared scaloppine, the conversation explored Kaastrup-Larsen’s dual contributions to systematic trading: his role heading European and Asian investor relations at DUNN Capital Management, and his creation of Top Traders Unplugged, a podcast that has become essential listening for the industry’s most serious practitioners. From hosting legends like Richard Dennis and Bill Eckhardt to providing a platform for deep systematic thinking, Niels has built a career defined by consistency and intellectual openness. In a setting where even forgotten glasses are met with quiet preparedness, the evening affirmed what matters most: discipline, restraint, and respect for process. Zurich does not announce itself. It operates with a quiet self-assurance born of competence long practised. Everything feels considered: orderly, efficient and discreet. It was here, at Ristorante Bindella, an institution that reflects the city’s confidence, that we hosted this instalment of Savouring The Trend. The Aussie Turtles, Adam Havryliv and Richard Brennan, were joined for dinner by Niels Kaastrup-Larsen of DUNN Capital Management, founder & host of the excellent Top Traders Unplugged podcast. Bindella is a restaurant that refines tradition. Italian hospitality is delivered without theatre, valuing standards over spectacle. We began with shared starters: prosciutto, burrata, and bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar – simple dishes that rewarded quality and restraint. Each of us chose the scaloppine for the main course, served with vegetables and prepared with care. Steamed vegetables and creamed spinach were ordered as sides, while wine was skipped entirely in favour of sparkling water throughout. Dessert was declined; a round of espresso provided a more fitting conclusion to an exceptional meal. For the Aussie Turtles, it was a particular pleasure to sit down with Niels in his adopted home. Born and raised in Denmark, he has built a career that has carried him across borders and perspectives. Today, Switzerland serves as his base as he heads up European and Asian investor relations for DUNN Capital Management. Switzerland suits him: international, precise, and quietly focused on outcomes. Between courses, the conversation ranged easily across markets and media. Niels’ path has been defined by consistency. While his role at DUNN places him within one of the discipline’s most respected institutions, his broader contribution to the industry has come through dialogue. Niels’ podcast series Top Traders Unplugged has become a central forum for systematic and macro thinkers alike. It was a pleasure to reflect on Richard’s own participation on the show: a reminder of the platform’s openness and intellectual range. Over time, the microphone has been shared with an unusually deep bench of presenters and guests, including Katy Kaminski and Andrew Beer, through to Harold de Boer and Jack Schwager – and even the original architects of the Turtle Trading Program, Richard Dennis and Bill Eckhardt. The breadth is deliberate, allowing serious practitioners to explain how they think, not just what they trade. Midway through the meal, a small moment captured the tone of the Bindella experience. Niels realised he had forgotten his glasses. Seconds later, the waiter returned with four pairs, inviting him to try each until the right fit emerged. Quiet competence and preparedness. Switzerland, distilled. As plates were cleared and espresso arrived, our discussion touched on discipline, media, and the long arc of careers built by resisting noise rather than chasing it. There was no attempt to extract lessons or impose conclusions. The value lay in the exchange itself. Face-to-face conversations still matter. Shared meals build connection, and give discussions a weight that screens cannot replicate. In an industry increasingly mediated by distance and digital shorthand, evenings like this are increasingly rare and valuable. We left Bindella clear-headed and affirmed in the belief that the most enduring edges, in markets and in life, come from consistency, restraint, and respect for process. The Ledger Prosciutto (starter, shared): CHF 48 Burrata (starter, shared): CHF 42 Bread, olive oil & balsamic: CHF 18 Scaloppine (main, per person x3): CHF 204 Steamed vegetables (shared): CHF 18 Creamed spinach (shared): CHF 22 Sparkling water: CHF 24 Espresso: CHF 18 Subtotal: CHF 394 Service (~15%, rounded): CHF 56 Total: CHF 450 Using exchange rates from 27 August 2025: CHF 450 ~AUD 862 ~USD 506 ~EUR 482

Savouring the Trend: With Michael Covel at Akuna in Ho Chi Minh City

Savouring the Trend: Michael Covel at Akuna in Ho Chi Minh City In this second edition of Savouring the Trend, Adam Havryliv and Richard Brennan journeyed to Akuna in Ho Chi Minh City, the Michelin-starred stage of chef Sam Aisbett, to share an evening with Michael Covel — the chronicler of the Turtle Traders and voice of trend following. Over a daring tasting menu that stretched from slipper lobster to porcupine, the conversation traced Covel’s decades-long mission: uncovering the secrets of the Turtles, distilling the power of simple rules, and urging traders to confront uncertainty with courage. From bestselling books and films to a thousand-episode podcast, Covel’s legacy is a living testament to systematic trading — and in Saigon’s restless energy, his philosophy feels right at home. For our second edition of Savouring the Trend, we travelled to the beating heart of Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon). Perched above its restless streets, Akuna – the Michelin-starred flagship restaurant of Australian chef Sam Aisbett – offered the perfect setting. Known for daring use of native ingredients and a boundary-pushing tasting menu, it mirrored the restless energy of our guest: Michael Covel, the man who chronicled the greatest trading experiment of all time. Covel is, at his core, an inquisitive journalist. In the early 2000s he was hunting for a big story when he caught whispers of an experiment that few outsiders truly understood: the Turtle Traders. Conceived by Richard Dennis and Bill Eckhardt, the project set out to prove that great traders could be trained, not born. The secrecy of the experiment and the outsized success of its participants lit a fire in Covel. But uncovering the tale wasn’t easy. He faced legal pushback from those who preferred the story never saw daylight. Yet, armed with persistence and a sense of purpose, he pressed on — convinced that what he had unearthed was too important to bury. Covel’s publishing journey began with Trend Following (2004), his first and still most influential book. It was a manifesto for systematic trading: rules-based, price-driven, and disciplined. The book struck a chord globally, carving him a space as the foremost storyteller of this approach. That success laid the foundation for The Complete TurtleTrader (2007), which finally told the inside story of Dennis and Eckhardt’s radical experiment. With interviews, documents, and narratives pieced together through relentless digging, Covel brought to light what had been whispered about for decades — a group of ordinary people turned into multimillion-dollar traders by following simple rules. He would go on to expand the philosophy: Trend Commandments (2011), a bold set of lessons aimed at debunking Wall Street myths, and The Little Book of Trading (2011), a compact, accessible guide emphasising courage and discipline. Today, Covel extends this legacy with online courses, encouraging a new generation to “relive” the Turtle experiment and test themselves against the same timeless principles. Not content with just books, Covel also turned filmmaker. In 2009, he released Broke: The New American Dream, a documentary that captured the failings of Wall Street, the fragility of conventional investing, and the urgency of thinking differently about risk. It remains a sharp visual companion to his written work. If the books and the film told the story, the Trend Following podcast made him part of the global conversation. Since 2012, Covel has recorded more than a thousand episodes, interviewing Nobel Prize winners, hedge fund legends, behavioural economists, and even military strategists. The breadth is remarkable: it is less a trading podcast than a catalogue of how humans confront risk and uncertainty. Since 2013, Covel has called Saigon home. He speaks often, and publicly, about his love for the city, its people, and – tastefully – the women who embody its openness, energy, and warmth. For him, Vietnam is capitalism at its rawest and most dynamic: ambitious, hungry, unapologetically forward-looking. Sitting with him, it’s clear the city has seeped into his worldview – alive, noisy, and full of possibility. Akuna’s tasting menu was itself a journey. We began with a sparkling sake on arrival: crisp, celebratory, a perfect start.  From there, each course paired seamlessly with our conversation: Live Hokkaido sea scallop, goose neck barnacles, sour quark, young lotus seeds, pickled green durian, plankton Hand shelled spanner crab, pickled banana heart, fennel marmalade, macadamia, horseshoe crab “caviar” Butter poached slipper lobster, slipper lobster velvet, local samphire, mountain pepper, golden pearls Smoked pork jowl, firefly squid, black moss, lettuce heart, caramelised fish sauce Roasted brush tailed porcupine, Australian winter truffle, celery root, yeast crumbs, coastal sea blight – Akuna’s audacious signature. Covel noted that, like trend following, it demanded courage! Vietnamese crown melon, verbena cream, caramelised filo, cocoa seed juice caramel At one point, chef Sam Aisbett himself emerged from the kitchen. Our applause earned a fist pump from him — a moment of Aussie solidarity that sealed the spirit of the night. When asked what lessons he would pass on, Covel distilled decades of work into four simple tips: Simple rules. Follow price. Work up the courage to do it. Seize the day. As night fell and the lights of Saigon glittered beneath us, Covel reflected that trend following, like life in his adopted city, is about confronting uncertainty with conviction. The rules are simple, but the courage to follow them is rare. The evening closed with a total of 31,000,000 VND: Food: 4,900,000 VND per person. Wine & supplements: the balance, covering pairings and additional bottles. Using exchange rates from 23 August 2025: ~AUD 1,815 total (~286 AUD pp for food) ~USD 1,176 total (~186 USD pp for food) ~EUR 1,004 total (~159 EUR pp for food) ~CHF 1,025 total (~162 CHF pp for food) A memorable investment, paid in porcupine, pinot, and perspective.