Chad Karnes, CMT runs Absolute Strategies LLC, the general partner for Absolute Strategies Partners, a systematic trend-following hedge fund. The strategy was born out of the financial crisis in response to a need for a better trend-following system. The system targets equity like returns with lower risk, zero correlation, and the potential to hit home runs. In addition he has run the Austin, TX Chapter of the CMT Association (Chartered Market Technician Association) since the early 2010s.
Prior to launching Absolute Strategies Partners, he spent five years as a Founding Partner and CIO of IronBridge Private Wealth in Austin, TX where he developed and executed proprietary investment strategies for the $200MM IronBridge portfolios.
Previously, Chad was the founder of ProfitETF.com, where he developed systematic investment strategies as well as ran a subscriber based newsletter focusing on actionable investment advice. He also was a Senior Manager for 9Gauge Partners in Austin, where he specialized in valuation and transaction advisory services. Prior to 9Gauge and ProfitETF.com Chad served as the Chief Technical Strategist for ETFguide.com, publishing market research and investment strategies for their 2,000+ subscribers.
Earlier in his career, Chad served as the Senior Financial Analyst at Brand Energy & Infrastructure, a $1.5B private-equity owned energy services company. He was part of the team that, amongst other accomplishments, completed 9 acquisitions worth over $400MM, lead the cash flow and financial reporting processes, and filed an S-1 with the SEC in an Initial Public Offering.
Chad was a deep-value fundamental analyst at a successful $500MM hedge fund, Stadium Capital Management, analyzing firms across many different sectors often resulting in portfolio inclusion. Due diligence such as financial modeling, site visits, competitive landscape research, and other detailed analysis was performed on 50+ companies.
His professional career started as a Financial Management Program (FMP) graduate at General Electric. An FMP takes a new role at a different GE company every six months, which in his case included duties of controllership, audit, financial planning and analysis, budgets, operations, and acquisition due diligence and integration.
He holds a bachelor of science degree in business administration in finance from the University of Arkansas as well as an MBA from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
