What we talked about
Narasimha Krishnakumar explains how QuantMomo translates institutional-grade factor models into simple, rules-based portfolios that everyday investors can follow. He breaks down the “why” behind momentum, all-weather, and value strategies, emphasizing process over hunches: position sizing, risk controls, and a clear rebalance cadence. By connecting directly to a user’s brokerage, QuantMomo helps investors execute consistently and reduce the stress that comes from discretionary, emotion-driven decisions.
Show notes
Narasimha Krishnakumar built QuantMomo on a premise that most retail investors resist: the first solution to any investing problem, buying a stock you believe in, acting on a tip, following the news, is almost always the wrong one. His momentum strategy, when tested in India, returned 100% in two years for early trial users. His all-weather strategy, by contrast, is designed so investors can set it once a year and not touch it.
What we covered
- QuantMomo’s name encodes its philosophy: quantitative momentum and more. The “more” refers to the fact that momentum alone is insufficient, it needs to be combined with other strategies, other asset classes, and other time frames to be durable across the kind of shocks the market delivered in 2008 and 2020.
- The Indian market is roughly where the US market was in 1998, the year the first online brokerage platforms launched in America. Narasimha sees a 300-million-person addressable market in India that is largely investing through mutual funds and fixed deposits, with stock market participation still below 100 million dematerialized accounts, and growing rapidly. The market cap is approximately $5 trillion.
- Backtesting means testing a strategy against historical pricing data to see how it would have performed. But Narasimha is direct that historical data cannot predict the future, it can only give you an estimate of the range of volatility you might face. QuantMomo follows backtesting with forward testing using Monte Carlo simulations before any strategy is offered to investors.
- The three ingredients of rules-based investing, as Narasimha describes them, are process (what strategy you follow), allocation (how much of your capital goes into each position), and time frame (when you rebalance). The momentum strategy rebalances monthly, holding approximately 20 stocks selected by algorithm. The all-weather strategy, which includes equities, gold, commodities, and bonds across different tenors, rebalances once a year.
- Gold has returned over 25% in 2024, outperforming US stock market averages, a result that traditional 60/40 allocation advice does not capture. Narasimha advocates for genuine multi-asset diversification, pointing out that most conventional financial advice ignores commodities entirely and underweights gold.
- The emotional breaking point for rules-based investors comes during drawdown periods. When a momentum portfolio drops more than the benchmark index, investors start questioning whether to override the system, which is precisely when overriding it is most costly. QuantMomo’s data shows that these drawdowns have historically recovered, but recovery requires patience that discretionary investors frequently run out of before it arrives.
About Narasimha
Narasimha Krishnakumar is the founder and CEO of QuantMomo, an investment management platform that makes factor-based, rules-driven investment strategies available to retail investors in both the US and Indian markets. He brings over 50 years of combined experience in software engineering, product development, and algorithmic trading.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nkrishnakumar-quantmomo
- Website: https://quantmomo.com
Episode 46 of the PreVetted Podcast.