David Murrin isn't a run-of-the-mill hedge fund manager. His Soros-style investment strategies might not be for everyone and might appear daunting at first. After graduating with an honours degree from the University of Exeter in physics with geophysics, he spent two years working in oil exploration in the jungles of Papa New Guinea, living and working with local tribes and beginning to formulate personal theories on collective emotional behaviour. These have enabled him to develop a unique method of analyzing behavioural patterns in the markets. By his 30th birthday, Murrin wanted to be running his own business. In preparation, he spent the next seven and a half years at JPMorgan gathering skills in price prediction and modelling. He traded the major bond, interest rate, bullion, FX and equity index markets and founded and managed the European technical analysis group there. He co-founded Emergent Asset Management with Susan Payne in 1997.
The company prides itself on not just being any old discretionary macro fund management firm. “There are a lot of so-called macro funds but they don't do what we do,” he says. “From the response we get from our investors, they notice that we are very different in the way we formulate and articulate our ideas.