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Brian Robern began his career as a local TV weatherman in western Kentucky, referring to the Storm System on the green screen. More than 20 years later, he stared at the Natural Gas price charts, turned his forecast into profits, generating more than 100% of his annual revenue.
Robern, 49, made an extraordinary jump from broadcast weather to Wall Street, working on weather desks for hedge funds and investment banks. But trading wasn’t part of the job.
“In most cases, that wouldn’t happen,” he said in an interview. “They are frowning at the weather guys who trade.”
So in 2016 he began trading his own money. For four years, Lovern implemented a strategy that combined weather model expertise with basics such as daily gas production and export flows. He won the best year in 2018 with a profit of 140%.
“It’s one thing to have the data and say, ‘This is what we show’. But you can interpret it and make sure you can fully determine how the data will change. It’s really where the money is,” he said.
His success was not noticed. Lovern is identified as one of the top traders by Fundseeder, a platform founded by Jack Schwager and Emanuel Balarie, authors of Market Wizards, to search for under-radar trading talent around the world and provide expanding capital.
Find the “wizard”
A longtime trader of his own rights and market historian, Schwager has featured some of the most successful traders of the past half-century, including Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller.
His books need to be read by many aspiring traders, and his support has become a rare sign of legitimacy for investors outside of Wall Street’s traditional pipeline.
“There are a lot of great traders out there who are not completely known around the world,” Schwager said in an interview. “They don’t know anyone in the financial industry. They don’t have connections. They may be in an undeveloped or partially developed country, but they trade very well.”
Of the thousands of accounts reviewed by FundSeeder, Lovern stood out as one of the top performers. Earlier this year, the company supported him $3 million to expand his strategy. FundSeeder sowed Adam Williams, a 35-year-old UK energy derivatives trader who won $10 million in March, funding European dentists.
Global Casting Call
FundSeeder is currently expanding with the launch of Fundseeder Accelerator. This is intended to do for traders what Y Combinator did for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
“This is the global casting call for the next top fund manager,” said Balarie, senior vice president of business development at RQSI, who acquired Fundseeder last year. “We don’t think Wall Street has a monopoly on the best traders. The problem is not the lack of talent to trade, but banning these traders is really a barrier to entry.”
Financial support can be important for emerging managers looking to raise funds.
“Hedge funds have a chicken and egg issue. You need money to collect money,” Williams said. “When approaching investors, let’s say you just started with $4 million. It’s pretty difficult for people to write bigger checks because you don’t want to be a certain percentage of the fund.”
Traders selected as FundSeeder Accelerator will present their strategies at an industry conference held in Miami in early 2026.
