Ryan Hart has joined Coquest Inc as Director of Research and portfolio manager. Formerly with Altegris Advisors, Hart will find and perform due diligence on new managers to add to Coquest client portfolios.
Using his analytical background, Hart will be responsible for investment research and due diligence on commodity trading advisors and hedge fund managers. Hart formerly was a portfolio manager and Director of Research & Investments for Altegris Advisors, an affiliated company of Altegris Investments, where he managed a team of investment analysts and was part of the group responsible for strategic and tactical allocation decisions.
“Ryan is an invaluable addition to Coquest Inc. in building out our company, especially Coquest Advisors,” says John Vassallo, Coquest Inc. co-founder. “He provides more than a decade of experience in analyzing and helping select alternative investment managers to enhance and upgrade client portfolios. His insights will be welcome.”
Hart began his career as a hedge fund analyst at Franklin Templeton Investments. In early 2007, he became the senior hedge fund analyst with Meritage Capital, and then worked briefly with Wells Fargo Advisors (previously Wachovia Securities) as an alternative investment strategist. The past five years he was with Altegris Advisors, where he honed his expertise in vetting hundreds of investment managers and implemented a portfolio construction process that incorporated quantitative and qualitative factors as well as multiple risk measures. “The best traders have a disciplined and repeatable process to identify opportunities and generate attractive risk adjusted returns for their clients. Allocating to traders and structuring robust portfolios for clients is no different. I’m excited for the opportunity to implement the process I’ve fine-tuned over the course of my career for our clients at Coquest,” Hart says.
“Ryan understands the business and has an astute eye in evaluating trading managers,” says G Maxwell Eagye. “He will be the first contact in finding and critiquing new managers to be added to our stable of traders. In addition, he will continuously evaluate those managers already on board. He also is part of our investment committee, which will give final approval on any new managers.”
Hart, who was born in Napa, CA but raised in Seattle, will be working out of a San Diego satellite office for the near-term. He says his interest in investing started early when he saw his father buy stock in an upstart technology company and kept checking the paper daily to watch the investment grow. The company? Microsoft.
“I was always interested in business, even as a kid,” he says. He also was shrewd. “I used to set up kick ball games by my lemonade stand so I would get more business.”
He graduated Magna Cum Laude from University of San Diego with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration with an emphasis in finance. In 2006 he became a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) in 2008.
