Three Rock Capital Management is a discretionary global macro manager based in Dublin, Ireland. The firm is authorised to operate as an investment manager by the Central Bank of Ireland, and registered as a CTA with the CFTC and is a member firm of the National Futures Association in the U.S.
Founded by veteran trader Conor O’Mara, Three Rock’s team worked together at Bank of Ireland and have known each other for 20 years. The firm trades managed accounts through its Global Macro Program. The program has a track record dating back to January 2009 with a strong FX focus – 50% of historical exposure in foreign exchange – and achieved top quartile performance versus its peer group for every period from 5 years through 1 year, annualising over 9% net p.a. The program has remarkably low correlations, with just 0.08 to S&P500, 0.30 to Newedge Trend Index and 0.24 to HFR Global Hedge Fund Index.
Conor O’Mara has developed and traded the strategy successfully over a 20 year period. As a discretionary manager his edge is to anticipate trend development and focus on the pro-active management of trades within the trends. The strategy aims to capture three or four substantial momentum-based short to medium term trends in a calendar year. Risk is concentrated in a small number of trades, rarely more than four, to which a strict money management discipline is applied.
Conor O’Mara: Quit Your Job And Live Off What You Can Take Out Of The Markets
After having worked as a proprietary foreign exchange trader at National Irish Bank (1993 – 1995) and Bank of Ireland (1995 – 2000), Conor O’Mara resigned from the bank to trade his own money from 2000 until 2008. Having to live off what he could take out of the markets sharpened his investment expertise and allowed him to acquire “resilience and maturity”. He easily admits he has a “low pain threshold” and gets out early if a trade isn’t working for him, while letting the winners run. The essence of his outperformance is risk concentration in the right sectors, and allowing himself to be “led” by markets rather than imposing views on what markets “should do”.
Conor O’Mara believes that the next three to five years will be a very productive environment for FX specialists for the next 3-5 years. With a 0% management fee and 20% performance fee, Three Rock Capital also offers a very attractive fee model available for new accounts in 2015.
Conor O’Mara is Investment Director and responsible for portfolio management at Three Rock Capital Management. Conor established Anark Capital Limited (now Three Rock Capital Management Ltd ) in November 2008 with a view to developing it into a discretionary global macro manager. As part of this process he built up an audited track record trading his own funds and those of friends/family through a managed account structure from January 2009. From 2000 – 2008 Conor successfully traded his own funds. Prior to this he worked as a proprietary foreign exchange trader in Bank of Ireland (1995 – 2000) and National Irish Bank (1993 – 1995). He holds a B.Comm and MSc. in Finance from University College Dublin.
