The Best Fund You've Never Heard Of: How Thomas Wehlen beat 98% hedge funds over 27 years

In this exclusive Opalesque.TV interview, pioneering quantitative investor Thomas Wehlen reveals the unconventional philosophy behind one of the hedge fund industry's most remarkable yet under-recognized success stories. 

With a 27-year track record that places his tactical asset allocation strategy in the top 0.5% of 170,000 Bloomberg-tracked funds, Thomas shares powerful insights on: 

• Why chasing alpha may be the wrong approach - and what investors should focus on instead 
• How intelligent diversification combined with strategic leverage creates a sustainable edge in global markets 
• The five core tenets of his investment philosophy that have delivered roughly 2,200% cumulative returns since 1998 
• Why his flat-fee model of 2% management and no performance fee better supports investor interests. 
• Strategic insights on navigating 43 global markets across equities, bonds, commodities and currencies without trying to predict the future 

Thomas's journey from computer science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology to developing his groundbreaking Global Leveraged Indexing (GLI) strategy at Goldman Sachs and UBS challenges everything conventional wisdom teaches about active management. 

Having grown $1,000 into over $23,000 over 27 years to August 2025 while maintaining lower correlation to equity markets than most funds, he brings a distinctly humble and mathematically rigorous approach to global macro investing.  

Don't miss this rare opportunity to learn from a fund manager who has not only survived but thrived through multiple market cycles - when less than 2% of hedge funds even make it past 25 years. 

00:10 Introduction to Coburn Barrett by Matthias Knab 

02:25 Computer, Dow Chemical, Goldman Sachs: How Thomas found his way into hedge funds (1997) 

04:01 Combining Global Macro, Tactical Asset Allocation, and Risk Parity. 
The defining roles of diversification and leverage. 

05:16 Investment Philosophy: How to outperform NOT by chasing alpha. 
(Hint: Apply Portfolio Theory across all asset classes) 

06:19 The five core tenets of Wehlen’s investment philosophy that delivered 2,141.70% cumulative returns since 1998 (as of July 2025) 

08:37 Why Wehlen’s contrarian flat-fee structure actually aligns better with investor interests. 

09:54 Investment Model: 

• Turnover
• The role of correlations and implied volatility
• Behavioural finance

12:05 27-year track record places Wehlen’s tactical asset allocation strategy in the top 0.5% of 170,000 Bloomberg-tracked funds 
How Wehlen adds more markets to trade 
“Long all the time”: Ensuring to benefit from global growth 

15:26 90% systematic 

16:56 Performance chasing vs. long-term investing:  
The confidence of a 27+ year track. 

18:16 How to adapt leverage and weightings in changing market correlations 
Correlation of only 0.55 to S&P 500 

Bio: 

Thomas Wehlen, Founder and Senior Fund Manager, Coburn Barrett 

Thomas Wehlen is the Founding Partner and Chief Investment Officer for Coburn Barrett. As company founder and Chief Investment Officer for the GLI fund, he is the principal architect of the fund’s quantitative methodology. 

In 1994 Wehlen joined Union Bank of Switzerland where he was Risk Manager on the Treasury Desk, managing both buy and sell sides for a $200 billion balance sheet, and developing a new model for measuring balance sheet risk that employed trader tools. Immediately prior to that he interned at Goldman Sachs, London, on the Proprietary Trading desk where he devised proprietary trading strategies for fixed income instruments. 

In fact it was at the lowliest position of summer intern at Goldman where his investment strategy was born, mostly by interviewing the revered proprietary traders on how they made money when interest rates rose (answer: they usually didn’t.)  He was awarded special recognition for the highest profits earned by a summer associate. Wehlen continued to develop what would later be known as Global Leveraged Indexing (GLI), which, since inception has risen in value 22-fold, and outperformed more than 99% of all funds. 

In 1989, Wehlen founded and owned his own business services consulting firm where he was involved in development of a non- linear trading model (which piqued his interest in finance) and served as technical adviser to banking and insurance clients including Credit Suisse and Dow Chemical. 

Wehlen has an MBA from the University of California Berkeley, an M.S. in Computer Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, as well as a Matura in Mathematical Core from Institut Montana Zugerberg. Away from quantitative methodology, Wehlen greatly enjoys back country skiing, swimming in the San Francisco Bay, sailing regattas with Rainer Genschel, squash, and distinctly mediocre golf and tennis. He takes responsibility for the fund’s obscurity relative to its performance due to his reticent nature and preference for solitary pursuits.

In this exclusive Opalesque.TV interview, pioneering quantitative investor Thomas Wehlen reveals the unconventional philosophy behind one of the hedge fund industry's most remarkable yet under-recognized success stories. 

With a 27-year track record that places his tactical asset allocation strategy in the top 0.5% of 170,000 Bloomberg-tracked funds, Thomas shares powerful insights on: 

• Why chasing alpha may be the wrong approach - and what investors should focus on instead 
• How intelligent diversification ...more