Discerning the Signals From the Noise

Under the soaring, skeletal white wings of the now-iconic transit hub and shopping center in Lower Manhattan, a river of seemingly random points of white light sweeps across a ground of black, circling a vast ring of loosely woven metal mesh that’s 10 feet tall and 37 feet in diameter. Despite its size, the structure appears almost to hover just above the ground, the architecture of the space slightly visible through the screen. The images seem to crackle as they pass. Gradually these specks and streaks of visual noise coalesce into shimmering ribbons of colored light bathed in iridescence, an oasis of tranquility amid the New York City throng. Then it starts all over again, a new cycle of increasingly harmonious imagery.

This is Signals From the Noise, artist and engineer Karyn Nakamura’s multimedia artwork that transforms a vast amount of financial market data into a stunning display. Commissioned by T. Rowe Price, it is also a metaphor: Just as Nakamura synthesizes beauty from the raw material of market data, T. Rowe Price’s portfolio managers apply creativity and insight to craft their actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs), helping to turn market noise into investment opportunities.

“When someone stands in front of the installation, I’d like them to experience the richness and complexity of data and the multifaceted nature of it,” Nakamura says. “There’s also a lot of creativity that goes into these processes that people have developed to filter, process, and analyze data.”

Jodi Love, a lead portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, oversees Growth (ticker symbol TGRT), International Equity (TOUS), Small-Mid Cap (TMSL), and Value (TVAL) ETFs, and observes parallels to her own work: “That’s been my entire career, sitting at a desk in front of a flood of information,” she says. “Most of it is just noise. The signal is finding what matters and what’s relevant after cutting away all the extraneous information.”

As Dominic Rizzo, portfolio manager of T. Rowe Price’s Technology (TTEQ) ETF, puts it, “That is what we do for a living—look at all the data from our own points of view, especially when they’re completely different from what the market thinks. In the end, that’s the point of an active ETF: curating a differentiated portfolio that’s built on insights from our own frameworks and creating something that’s unique in the marketplace.”

These two portfolio managers sat down with Nakamura recently to talk about their respective processes and approaches—and what they have in common. Check out the video that follows their conversation.

The Art of Investing

Originally from Tokyo and now based in New York, Nakamura studied physics at MIT, and her work explores the technical infrastructures underlying systems of perception and communication. She has conducted research in AI and computer vision with the Human AI Collaboration Lab, SITU Research, and Civic Data Design Lab, and she realizes ambitious technical productions for such clients as Google and Audio-Technica. At the same time, this prize-winning artist has exhibited around the world. “I grew up in a very technical environment and that was my starting point,” she says. “I’m always trying to find ways to bridge both of these sides, to show the creativity and craft inside technology.”

With Signals From the Noise, Nakamura was inspired not just by the market data that comprises the essential building blocks of the piece, but by nature—particularly the structural color found in many insects and plants. In this work, color emerged as an additional signal, enhancing the patterns and structures that she drew from investment data.

This blending of art and science reflects the complex relationship among research, insight, and creative thinking that goes into actively managed ETFs. Unlike passive index funds, which are designed simply to mirror the market or a segment of it, this style of investing gives portfolio managers the freedom to apply their experience, curiosity, and skill to crafting and refining their portfolios with the goal of outperforming their benchmarks. Portfolio managers ask the kinds of insightful questions about companies, consumer behavior, business sectors, and myriad other factors that can drive better investment decisions.

Jodi Love, Karyn Nakamura, and Dom Rizzo discuss the parallels between crafting an actively managed portfolio and creating a meaningful work of art.

“In many ways, crafting a portfolio is like crafting an art piece,” Rizzo says. “It has to be unique to the individual who’s trying to design it or, frankly, it’s going to result in underperformance. You have to have a framework that matches your personality. You have to have a style that you’re willing to bet on even when things are going against you. You have to be willing to take risk. And it creates an art-like outcome if you do it right.”

In shaping its active ETFs, T. Rowe Price draws on a strong global team of analysts whose research feeds into the portfolio managers’ decisions. They’re in constant, multidirectional communication. But when and how much to invest in any given security—and when to sell it—depends on the individual portfolio manager. “Judgment is crucial. Vantage point is crucial. But in the end, I have to make a call,” Love says. “My judgment is based on the deep work I’ve done, the framework I use, and the process I’ve stayed disciplined about. That’s what has allowed me to be successful over several decades, even through some of the most challenging markets I’ve ever had to invest in.”

And like a brilliant artist, an experienced portfolio manager sometimes draws conclusions that few others see. “Some of the best decisions I’ve made are the ones where I feel the most uncomfortable—when I have the most butterflies in my stomach, when it seems like everybody else in the market is interpreting the data one way and I’m taking the other side,” Love says. “Ultimately, those have been some of my biggest successes over time.”

The Medium Is the Message

Standing in front of Signals From the Noise, watching tiny individual LEDs work in harmony to form increasingly hypnotizing waves of color that surge around the mesh circle, it’s hard not to marvel at the underlying information systems that Nakamura experimented with in creating this work. Passersby stop to gaze in wonder; phones come out to capture the encounter and share it with others. Even commuters who had glimpsed excerpts of the video on huge screens lining the subway corridors along the way seem enraptured by the lightness and translucence of the full display.

How people would interact with her artwork was critical to Nakamura’s conception of the piece. “I wanted people to have the experience of being able to walk around it and also experience its circular nature. There’s no beginning or end—it just continues to move,” she says. At the same time, the mesh LED structure “lets the space breathe through the installation, so it becomes a part of the architecture of the space.” What emerges is a living sculpture built from systems of motion.

And that resonates with Rizzo. “The stock market is the ultimate system of motion, right? And finding structure within it, crafting a portfolio from this system of motion, is a seemingly impossible task,” he says.

As a portfolio manager, Love connects deeply with the swirling circle. “You never ‘solve’ the market—there’s no final answer,” she says. “Dom and I are constantly reevaluating and rewriting the stream of information coming at us every single day. Our portfolios stay fluid, with continuous movement behind them.

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