Wall Street veteran builds AI hedge fund, with investment decisions mainly delegated to artificial intelligence.

November 10 - Wall Street veterans Alex Popa and Charles Elkan are raising funds for a new stock hedge fund primarily operated by AI agents and models.

According to a statement on Tuesday, their investment firm Poesis's first strategy, AI Clarity, will open to external clients early next year. Popa and Elkan have been managing their own money in the strategy since August. Popa, 46, worked at Capital Group for over 15 years, where he was a portfolio manager for its US growth fund. Elkan, 63, was responsible for machine learning at Goldman Sachs Group.

According to people familiar with the matter, the pair plans to add strategies and eventually create a multi-strategy fund for institutional investors. Popa and Elkan may manage billions of dollars with fewer than 100 employees, keeping their operating costs lower than those of massive multi-strategy funds like Citadel and Millennium Management. AI Clarity invests in 80 to 100 large-cap US-listed stocks, with a target holding period of three years. AI agents use quantitative models to research and select stocks and decide when to buy and sell. When the agents detect a potential market downturn, they hedge risk by shorting stock indexes. Popa and his team set risk limits and other parameters, review and approve trades.