Strategy · market neutral, very low risk budget
Independent Return
Market-neutral ETF arbitrage from our sister company, Leyland Cypress. It finds ETFs that imperfectly track their underlying portfolios and holds long and short positions to capture the error, with little exposure to the stock or bond markets.
- Manager
- Leyland Cypress LLC
- Live since
- 11 Dec 2024
- Annual volatility
- 2.1%
- Record as of
- 20 Oct 2026
What it is
An uncorrelated alternative to bond funds
A low-volatility strategy designed to diversify both stocks and bonds. It uses long and short ETF positions rather than lending to bond issuers. It can lose money and carries short-selling and margin risks.
Independent Return runs several uncorrelated sub-strategies, each holding long and short ETF positions that capture the gap between an ETF and the portfolio it is meant to track. Rebalanced daily, with a very low risk budget, it is built for investors who want part of a bond allocation’s steadiness without its link to rates or to the stock market. Our goal is to take approximately AA investment-grade bond risk for a BB high-yield return.
- For family offices, institutions and sophisticated investors who want a hedged, long-short position that does not move with the market by design.
- Can stand in for part of a bond allocation: low volatility, with its own source of return.
- Managed by Brenden O’Connell, who founded Leyland Cypress in 2022, with Ritwik Kumar leading technology and data.
Conflict of interest. Life UnLocked Partners holds a 50% interest in Leyland Cypress and receives a share of its fees. Leyland Cypress is the adviser of record for this strategy. See Form ADV for this conflict of interest.
The live record
Since December 2024, against stocks and bonds
- Return (net)+16.0%Cumulative, since inception
- Annual return (net)+8.4%Annualized
- Annual volatility2.1%Annualized, daily
- Maximum drawdown−0.94%Peak to trough
- Sharpe · Sortino2.03 · 2.92Against ^IRX T-bill yield
- Days up65%Of 465 trading days
Quarter by quarter
Observed| Quarter | Days | Return (net) | Annual volatility | Max drawdown | Days up |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q4 (stub) | 14 | +0.03% | 1.7% | −0.27% | 57% |
| 2026 Q3 | 64 | +1.16% | 2.3% | −0.94% | 58% |
| 2026 Q2 | 62 | +2.07% | 1.8% | −0.27% | 65% |
| 2026 Q1 | 61 | +2.88% | 1.7% | −0.25% | 72% |
| 2025 Q4 | 64 | +2.27% | 1.5% | −0.18% | 66% |
| 2025 Q3 | 64 | +2.35% | 1.8% | −0.56% | 78% |
| 2025 Q2 | 62 | +1.12% | 1.9% | −0.34% | 60% |
| 2025 Q1 | 60 | +1.34% | 2.5% | −0.79% | 58% |
| 2024 Q4 (stub) | 14 | +1.79% | 4.0% | −0.31% | 71% |
Leyland Cypress record. Every return on this page is net of the fee reported by the strategy manager, exactly as FlightDeck publishes it; it is not netted again here. Leyland Cypress is the adviser of record for this strategy and reports it against SPY. Sharpe and Sortino ratios use the CBOE 13-week Treasury bill yield as the risk-free rate. The current quarter is in progress. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Terms
Held at Schwab, advised by Leyland Cypress
- Vehicle
- Separately managed account, custodied at Charles Schwab. Leyland Cypress is the adviser of record and bills its own accounts; Life UnLocked Partners bills its own.
- Accounts
- Taxable accounts, and IRAs that qualify for margin at Schwab. Margin required: the ETF pairs are held long and short.
- Minimum
- $50,000.
- Fees
- 2%.
- Rebalance
- Daily.
- Capacity
- Limited, allocated by inquiry.
Backstage tour
See it running live
A live screen-share of FlightDeck with Mark Tennenbaum, CIO: the command center driven in real time, how today’s market is classified and what the book does about it, and the record with the tests behind it.