For a fund manager responsible for US$14 billion Tim Wong doesn't have very strong views on the direction of the futures markets he invests in. He declines to hazard a guess on where oil prices will go, or which currencies will be hot this summer.
Instead, like the engineer he studied to be, Mr Wong prefers to rely on his computer models and systems. It's how all the investment decisions are made at AHL, the managed futures fund unit of Man Investments.
'It sounds like we have a bunch of geeks in a room who work on systematic modelling, which by and large is true. None of the people recruited for my team have any financial background,' said Mr Wong, who head's the London-based AHL, which sells the Man AHL Diversified Futures fund in Hong Kong.
AHL funds invest through systems trading, which uses computer programmes to detect and analyse market trends, volatility and risk levels. System trading works well in futures markets because they have a low trading cost and are highly liquid, making it easy to enter and exit the market.
The computer programmes detect small market inefficiencies on exchanges around the world and exploit them by taking long or short positions.
'If you can gather together a lot of this inefficiency, you can build up quite a stable return portfolio,' Mr Wong said.
A computer may not be able to beat a good market analyst every time, but it delivers better results over the long run, Mr Wong said.