Benn Eifert

Benn Eifert is managing partner of QVR Advisors (Quantitative Volatility Research), a San Francisco-based investment firm that manages volatility and derivatives strategies. QVR offers an absolute return strategy and custom solutions. QVR Absolute Return is a capacity constrained alpha strategy. QVR Solutions runs custom separate accounts for institutional investors (e.g. tail risk hedging). QVR seeks sources of alpha from price insensitive end users of derivatives (corporates, overwriters, naïve hedgers, retail). The market impact potentially compensates relative value traders such as QVR for providing liquidity, warehousing basis risk and potentially owning mispriced convexity.

Benn was previously co-founder and co-portfolio manager of Mariner Coria, a relative value hedge fund on the Mariner Investment Group platform, which was seeded with $150 million by Alaska Permanent via the Mariner Incubation Fund. Before Coria, Benn was head of quantitative research and derivatives trader for the Wells Fargo proprietary trading desk, which became the hedge fund Overland Advisors. Benn started his career as an emerging markets macroeconomist at the World Bank. Benn has taught several classes in the Masters in financial engineering program in the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Benn holds a PhD in economics from UC Berkeley and BA in economics and international relations from Stanford University.