As you can see in the table below, September was unkind to grains, as most saw declines of around -20% as they face the prospect of cooling demand. Yesterday was the exact opposite, however, with grains rising 5% to 8% on average. Of course, as it always happens, the minute we started taking a look […]
Category: Macro Commentary
12
Oct
2011
11
Oct
2011
A Whole lot of Nothing…
Take a look at the chart of the S&P over the last 2+ months, and despite the volatility, we’re essentially back at the same spot we were at the beginning of August when it appeared the world was ending (for the first time). There appears a clear pattern of a few days of upside movement, […]
07
Oct
2011
Ghosts of Markets Past Have a Word of Caution
2011 lows in the S&P 500 were hit only 5 days ago, but with the market (despite being down today) up 5% from that point, the collective sigh of relief out of investors is nearly audible. However, with Europe’s Great White Hope (also known as Angela Merkel) creating uncertainty over the extent of losses to […]
05
Oct
2011
Here’s Your Data, Mr. Ritholtz
We came across the following line from one of our favorite bloggers, Barry Ritholtz, last week: “Lately, it looks like the Equity Futures predict little more than the Open,” he mused. “Are they that easily pushed around? Do they contain less and less information? I would love to see a correlation study looking at their […]
18
Aug
2011
So much for the European Short Sale Ban…
The other day, upon receiving notice of limitations being imposed by clearing firms on the short sale of European stock indices futures in the wake of the short sale ban imposed by Italy, Spain, France and Belgium, we began to investigate the potential consequences for futures traders. Well, just a few days later, we have […]
05
Apr
2011
Fun with Gold and Silver…
With Gold and Silver making new highs today (again), we dug up some data on the two precious metals going back about 30 years to see just how far these two have come. First up, the impressive outperformance of Silver over Gold in the past few years. Most people know that Silver has outperformed Gold, […]
30
Mar
2011
Follow Silver up, or Cocoa Down? Why not both…
We mentioned in our blog post here how Silver breaking out to new 2011 highs on may be the precursor to more markets following higher, and indeed we’ve seen Gold, Live Cattle, Feeder Cattle, & the Aussie Dollar (and now the Russell 2000 today) break above their pre-Japan crisis highs. The interesting thing in terms […]
15
Nov
2010
Managed Futures amongst top asset classes YTD 2010
With the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Index October numbers being officially posted today, we’re able to update our YTD asst class scoreboard through the end of October…. and see the recent uptick in Managed Futures has pushed them towards the top of the board. Past Performance is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results Asset […]
15
Oct
2010
Hedge Funds finally catching up to Managed Futures regarding individually managed accounts?
Interconti’s Tim Merryman (aka Yoda) passed along the following BNY/Pershing study on individually managed accounts (they call them separately managed accounts [SMAs]) yesterday…. The study (excerpt below) finds that SMAs are gaining traction in the hedge fund industry, with hedge funds hesitant to provide them but investors demanding them because of the transparency and liquidity […]
28
Sep
2010
Newsletter: Invest like Harvard
Our Monday newsletter is up at https://bit.ly/d5xdBH, and while it covers how to get exposure to alternative investments in one’s retirement account, the content people will likely find most interesting are the stats surrounding the world’s largest endowment – Harvard University’s nearly $30 Billion endowment which is run like a fund of funds. They have […]
