Wisconsin-based commodity trading adviser Fall River Capital has hired Jake Carriker as director of research. Carriker has a background in trading system design as well as more than eight years' experience in finance and trading.

Fall River believes research is the basis for successful long-term trading and says it is committed to investing the time and resources necessary to explore, refine and develop trading strategies and to use its research to create the best possible products.

Carriker began trading his own funds in 1999 as a discretionary trader, and during his spell in the retail brokerage business developed expertise in researching systematic trading strategies and developing trading models.

In September 2003 he launched his own CTA advisory firm, Carriker Asset Management, to implement his trading strategies for his own account and for his clients. Over the next four years Carriker established a fully systematic trading programme for the firm's commodity pool.

Founded in 1999 by Robert Friedl and Charles Wright, Fall River Capital currently manages approximately USD120m using proprietary systematic approaches to trading of a diversified portfolio of futures contracts.