Future Alpha published a spotlight Q&A with Vince (Qijun) Chen, CFA. At the time of the interview, he was VP of Public Equity & Portfolio Management at Abacus Global Management. Key insights from the interview:
On signal de-correlation: Chen argues the most durable filter is economic — “if Signal B pushes you away from a name that Signal A likes, can you articulate why in fundamental terms?” He warns that many “multi-factor” portfolios are really one bet expressed multiple ways.
On overfitting: “The best defense against overfitting is a strong prior. If you can’t explain why a signal should work — in terms of fundamental economics or investor behavior — you should be skeptical regardless of how impressive the backtest looks.”
On factor interactions: Chen favors transparency over optimization: “I’d rather understand how each factor contributes to the portfolio — even if that means accepting some redundancy — than engineer for an ‘optimal’ combination that becomes a black box.”
On signal quality: He emphasizes interpretability (“a signal you can explain is a signal you can stick with during drawdowns”), turnover efficiency, and macro sensitivity awareness.
On the future: Chen is skeptical of dynamic signal weighting (“in practice it often devolves into chasing recent performance”). He believes durable progress comes from better understanding of transaction costs, more thoughtful tax management, and intellectual honesty about what’s genuinely alpha versus beta in disguise. “The enduring edge in this business is temperament as much as technique.”
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