ETF Trend Trader (Remote, Funded) — Los Angeles, CA

An ETF trend trader at Maverick runs systematic trend-following positions on US ETFs — broad market (SPY, QQQ, IWM), sector ETFs (XLF, XLE, XLK, XLV, etc.), and selective thematic ETFs. The strategy is rule-based, position sizes are calculated, and discretion is limited to a small number of decisions per week.

Los Angeles is the second-largest financial center in the country by a number of measures — Capital Group, TCW, PIMCO, Oaktree, and dozens of independent funds are headquartered in the LA/Pasadena/Newport Beach corridor. Pacific Time means the market opens before most of LA wakes up; the trade-off is a clean afternoon free by 1pm. Many of our West Coast traders prefer this rhythm explicitly.

Liquid US-listed ETFs across broad market, sector, and thematic categories. Some traders extend into commodity ETFs (GLD, USO) and bond ETFs (TLT, IEF) for cross-asset trend exposure. We exclude leveraged and inverse ETFs from primary positions due to decay characteristics.

Trend-following has long, frustrating drawdowns followed by strong runs. Maverick traders in this role are sized so that a typical drawdown is survivable across a calendar year, and the firm's risk framework caps both per-position and portfolio-level loss limits. The strategy works on a 3–5 year timeline, not a 3-month one.

Trend-following is one of the most studied and best-documented edges in markets. The retail problem is rarely the strategy — it's the discipline to follow it through drawdowns. Maverick funds traders who have already done the psychological work, with firm capital that lets them size properly.

• Traders who can sit through 6+ months of choppy, low-return conditions without abandoning the strategy
• People who think in expectancy and Sharpe, not in win rate
• Candidates who have backtested their own trend systems and understand what 'live' results look like
• Traders with patience — this is one of the slower-rhythm roles at the firm