Macro trader's post-Australian hedge fund odyssey continues in London

Brent Cook, a veteran macro trader with 20+ years of experience spanning Citadel, major global banks, and regional financial institutions, has joined London-based hedge fund Fulcrum Asset Management as a macro portfolio manager. Cook's appointment represents continued activity at Fulcrum as the firm seeks to expand its asset base and management depth in the current macroeconomic environment.

Cook's professional history underscores the peripatetic nature of senior trading talent. He began his career at Citadel in 2005 as the London-based head of macro trading during the financial crisis, subsequently transitioning to banking roles at Deutsche Bank, ANZ, and Macquarie, where he spent five years based in Australia. He returned to London in 2021 to join Nomura, moved to Eisler Capital in 2022, and transitioned to Schonfeld in 2023 before his current move to Fulcrum.

Fulcrum, established in 2004 by Gavyn Davies (former chief economist of Goldman Sachs), operates a dual-strategy model combining discretionary and quantitative approaches with alternative solutions. The fund is actively expanding its capital base through separately managed accounts. Bloomberg reported in December 2025 that Millennium Management had committed $2.3 billion to a separately managed account managed by Fulcrum partner Fawaz Chaudhry focused on long-short equity strategies, demonstrating institutional confidence in the platform's ability to deploy large capital bases.

The hiring of experienced macro traders like Cook reflects renewed market appetite for macro expertise as investors recalibrate inflation expectations amid geopolitical uncertainty. Macro strategies, while volatile, may present advantages within smaller, more nimble platforms like Fulcrum compared to large multistrategy funds that typically impose stricter drawdown constraints, making them potentially more suitable vehicles for discretionary macro risk-taking.