Anna Svahn took an unconventional route into portfolio management, building her investment experience through personal trading, writing, and entrepreneurship rather than investment banking or sell-side or buy-side research. Her path eventually led to Cygnus, the strategy she manages at hedge fund boutique Antiloop AB. As Svahn puts it, “becoming a portfolio manager was never a childhood dream.” It was meeting Martin Sandquist, co-founder of Lynx Asset Management, that led her to see portfolio management as a possible career. Today, the two manage their respective strategies, Cygnus and Atlas, through separately managed accounts while working towards launching them in fund structures.
Svahn’s path into portfolio management began with experimentation rather than a defined career plan. As an independent trader, she developed a long-term strategy allocating between commodities and US equities. That approach became the first version of Cygnus. “It started with me experimenting with uncorrelated asset classes over longer market cycles because I wanted to build a more long-term strategy focused on higher risk-adjusted returns,” she explains. “Fund management became a consequence of that work rather than the goal itself.”
“Fund management became a consequence of that work rather than the goal itself.”
Anna Svahn
Learning from Experience and Different Perspectives
For Svahn, working alongside experienced investment professionals has been the most important factor in her development as a portfolio manager. “I’ve had the privilege of working alongside people with decades of experience, and that has shaped me more than anything else,” she says.
Sandquist, one of Lynx Asset Management’s co-founders, has been particularly influential in shaping her approach to risk. His strategies have consistently placed risk management at the foundation of the investment process, an emphasis that has influenced Svahn’s own thinking. “Commodities are often seen as a volatile, high-risk asset class, so working closely with him for many years has fundamentally influenced how I approach risk in my own work,” says Svahn.
“I’ve had the privilege of working alongside people with decades of experience, and that has shaped me more than anything else.”
Anna Svahn
The arrival of Alexander Zetterquist as Antiloop’s CEO almost two years ago brought another perspective to the team. “He brought a fresh perspective on both our strategies, helping us make them even more relevant through how we communicate and the processes we use,” Svahn explains. “Being surrounded by people who challenge and complement each other has been invaluable.”
Her intellectual influences extend beyond her immediate colleagues. Svahn points to Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, whose book “The Most Important Thing” she read early in her investment career and has since followed his memos closely. “Even if we have very different strategies, he has a way of describing longer market cycles, as well as microeconomic and macroeconomic phenomena, in a comprehensive way that is both fun and interesting to read,” she says. “He has really solved the hardest thing about fund management, which is storytelling and communication.”
A Changing Approach to Risk
Managing capital for outside investors has changed how Svahn approaches risk, particularly given Cygnus’s focus on commodities, a market characterized by pronounced cycles and volatility. “It’s the classic ‘the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know’, and over time that has changed the way I look at and manage risk,” she says. “The core thesis we’ve held since the beginning remains the same, but my approach to markets has evolved. Risk is now part of every step of the investment process, because the market takes no prisoners.”
“The core thesis we’ve held since the beginning remains the same, but my approach to markets has evolved. Risk is now part of every step of the investment process, because the market takes no prisoners.”
Anna Svahn
More than a decade of experience in financial markets has also changed her relationship with investment decisions. “I’m less interested in being ‘right’ about an outcome and more focused on adapting as the market changes,” she says. “Something can be true today and no longer true tomorrow, and when the rules change, I have to change too.”
Managing Investors’ Expectations
Taking responsibility for outside capital has also introduced a commercial dimension that was less relevant when Svahn managed only her own money. Portfolio management requires not only investment discipline but also a clear explanation of the strategy and an understanding of what investors expect from it. “You’re not only managing money, but you’re also managing investors’ expectations,” she says. “You need to build a strategy that is relevant, and you need to be able to explain it in a way that investors can understand.”
“You’re not only managing money, but you’re also managing investors’ expectations. You need to build a strategy that is relevant, and you need to be able to explain it in a way that investors can understand.”
Anna Svahn
Managing personal capital offers greater freedom to change an investment process or pursue an idea. Professional fund management, by contrast, involves operating within defined rules and maintaining consistency in how a strategy is implemented and communicated. For Svahn, this makes the ability to explain an investment approach at least as important as presenting its historical results. “Being able to explain what you do, and when and why you do it, matters more than selling a track record,” she says.
Passion, Losses and the Ability to Adapt
Asked what distinguishes a good portfolio manager from a great one, Svahn emphasizes the importance of genuine interest in the markets. “I don’t think you can be great at anything without true passion for what you do,” she says. “There will always be someone who is talented, but the person who truly loves the game will outlast them.” That passion also helps portfolio managers confront one of the less comfortable aspects of investing: accepting losses when an idea fails.
“There will always be someone who is talented, but the person who truly loves the game will outlast them.”
Anna Svahn
At Antiloop, Svahn and her team follow a simple mantra: “You have to learn to love losing money.” The principle is not about welcoming losses, but about recognizing them as an unavoidable part of investing and responding without becoming emotionally attached to individual positions. “When the market moves against your ideas, you have to kill your darlings,” she says. “It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to be right about individual positions and forget that the job isn’t to be right every time, but to manage your losses when you’re wrong.”
