Mumbai, 14 February, 2017 (GPN) : For the 1987 born Chintan Bhagat, “born into the lap of the financial markets” wouldn’t be an out-of-place phrase. His great-grandfather started one of India’s oldest broking firms, Mangal Keshav in Mumbai in 1939. His family had nearly fifty years of financial market experience and knowledge when he was born.
Chintan literally ate, slept and breathed financial markets. The discussions in the family, be it casual banter or dinner table conversations veered around the financial markets. While Chintan was growing up with a healthy dose of financial markets, the world of technology was also taking rapid strides. Whether it is computing power or speed of networks or enhancement in connectivity and access, technology was touching all aspects of our lives. Financial markets, was no exception.
Like a lot of millennials, Chintan had witnessed the liberalization of the Indian markets in 1991, the increasing influence of the internet and the advent of social media in our lives. He was also privy to the evolution of the markets, the trading mechanisms and rise of algorithmic and high frequency trading. During these years, Chintan had been playing a key role in the family business. He learned the ropes of the business very early and was instrumental in managing the acquisition of shares of Mangal Keshav by Bank Muscat.
Amalgamating Finance and Technology
The two words synonymous with “passion” for Chintan are “finance” and “technology”. Fintech seemed like a breath of fresh air for him. He started sharpening his focus on technology and building automated trading systems. He attended several conferences to garner information from global leaders on high frequency trading, algorithmic trading etc. By honing his skills in statistics, economics, emerging technologies and financial markets, he prepared himself for an exciting journey in the realm of financial markets. While the world was working towards creating automated trading algorithms, he worked on creating an algorithm that would allow the trader to take an informed trading decision and maximize his returns.
Chintan, an American citizen, subsequently founded SkyFire Capital, LLC, a Delaware based Global Macro Hedge Fund which trades on the Chicago Board of Trade, Comex and CME trading futures of Gold, Crude Oil, S&P 500, Currency Futures and the U.S. 10-year Treasury Note. He is also its Chief Investment Officer and operates the fund out of his midtown office in New York City.
The Eureka Moment
The road to glory for creating the desired algorithm was not an easy one. Chintan worked on the algorithm like a passionate scientist. He would sometimes lock himself up in his room for over three days in a row in search of the elusive elixir, that could create a fortune for the clients he managed.
He tried, he failed, he learned, he tried again. The reiterative process went on for 159 times. There were times when he felt very close to what he wanted to achieve but then he had to start all over again. Then, he struck gold. The Eureka moment, the 160th attempt, helped him to create a quant-based trading algorithmwhich works on all asset classes including equities, commodities, currencies and bonds.

The Difference – At the intersection of speed, risk and caution
While the algorithm developed by Chintan is automatic, it still requires manual intervention to take the final call. The algorithm provides insights and knowledge at his fingertips, while giving him the full control in terms of making his decision, ideally with a judicious mix of speed, risk and caution. It is no surprise then that the asset under management (AUM) of his firm has more than trebled in the last three years