History

In late 2014, Alpha DNA Investment Management started investing capital for advisors utilizing its proprietary, cutting edge research platform.  Alpha DNA began as an affiliated advisor subsidiary to a larger derivatives sub-advisory firm (ZEGA Financial). Wayne Ferbert was a co-founder of both ZEGA Financial and Alpha DNA.

In 2017, Alpha DNA spun out of ZEGA to become an independent advisor and Wayne Ferbert left ZEGA to run Alpha DNA full time. 

Alpha DNA is committed to constant improvement of both its research platform and its hedging programs. Alpha DNA has expanded both its research offering and its machine learning capabilities each and every year of its existence. 

Alpha DNA launched its first hedged equity strategy in 2017 - the Large Cap Hedged Equity strategy. We followed up with the Mid Small Cap Hedged equity strategy a year later. Today, over 90% of its sub-advised assets under management (AUM) are invested in one of its three Hedged Equity strategies.

Alpha DNA has grown to over $100 million in AUM and it is an SEC registered investment advisor. 

This year, it launched its first ever ETF in partnership with AdvisorShares. The ticker symbol is SENT.

Meet the Team

Wayne Ferbert - Image

Wayne Ferbert

Managing Director

Wayne has spent his entire 22-year career in financial services. He founded Alpha DNA Investment Management to broaden the use of machine learning in the Hedged Equity space.

He previously co-founded ZEGA Financial to specialize in risk-management strategies using options. ZEGA’s founding principles grew out of the book Wayne co-authored entitled Buy and Hedge, the Five Iron Rules for Investing Over the Long Term.

Wayne spent 10 years in the online brokerage segment with TD Ameritrade. He managed Business Development as a member of the Senior Operating Committee-including M&A and Market Research--as well as ran Product Development. Previously, Wayne held planning & analytical roles at Fortune 500 insurance and banking firms.

Arun Muthupalaniappan - Image

Arun Muthupalaniappan

Arun is Managing Partner at alpha-DNA, a boutique research firm that specializes in growth analytics leveraging real-time digital information and machine learning to improve portfolio decisions in Investment management.

Through his 20+ year career prior to founding alpha-DNA, he has led data-centric capabilities transformation across Fortune 500 brands, designing and successfully monetizing information-based strategies across consumer finance, retail, e-commerce and advertising businesses.
 

Rod Fertig - Image

Rod Fertig

Rod is a Partner and co-founder of alpha-DNA. Rod has spent over a decade leading Customer and Digital analytics transformation inside large global Financial Services businesses. Rod is passionate about creating structure around unstructured digital data, and the real-world application of autonomous learning algorithms making it truly actionable for improved high-value decisions in Marketing and Finance.
 

Joshua Chartier - Image

Joshua Chartier

Associate Portfolio Manager

Joshua is an associate portfolio manager at Alpha DNA. He is a CFA charterholder, holds an FRM designation, and has over 10 years of experience in investment management. An MIT physics graduate, he began his career as consultant and software engineer.

He became deeply interested in finance after the 2008 financial crisis. He followed that interest to HighVista strategies where he wrote software and became a founding member of their portfolio monitoring team. Josh left to pursue his interest in the intersection of machine learning and finance which led him to Alpha DNA.