Jeff Eizenberg and John Cummings are having a great time in New York at the CTA Expo. Yesterday they saw presentations from Liberty Funds, III Associates, Cervino Capital, Dominion Capital, MSR Investments, James River, Clarke Capital, Kawaller Fund, and Saxon Investment. All of these (save Kawaller) are CTAs we track, and it was good to […]
Category: Managed Futures
22
Apr
2011
21
Apr
2011
Asset Class Scorecard Through March 2011
With Dow Jones Credit Suisse posting their hedge fund and managed futures indices this week, we’re able to update our asset class scorecard through the end of March. Compared to the numbers we reported for February, it’s clear that Middle East instability and the disaster in Japan derailed nearly all asset classes, with the exception […]
21
Apr
2011
Attain hits up the Big Apple for the CTA Expo
In case you hadn’t heard, the annual CTA Expo is taking place in New York City this week, where CTAs get an opportunity to explain their strategies, demonstrate their performance and gain exposure. Attain guys John Cummings and Jeff Eizenberg are in attendance, and excited to hear about what these programs have to offer. Today […]
21
Apr
2011
Dow Jones Credit Suisse March Managed Futures Numbers In
Yesterday we covered the March results for managed futures from BarclayHedge’s index, and today, we have the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Managed Futures Index, which shows managed futures posting a loss of -2.76%. Why the rather large difference from the loss of -0.91% BarclayHedge reported, you ask? In general, the Dow Jones Credit Suisse index […]
20
Apr
2011
BarclayHedge Posts Final March CTA Index Numbers
BarclayHedge’s CTA Index numbers are in for March, showing a return of -0.91% for managed futures as an asset class. Overall, managed futures were down -.91 %, which is slightly better than what we had predicted at the end of March. The losses were seen in Diversified and Systematic Traders the most, while agricultural, currency, […]
18
Apr
2011
Dominion Capital- Bouncing Back
We had the pleasure of sitting down with the fine folks from Dominion Capital in our offices on Friday. Dominion, an Attain recommended short-term multi-market program, has begun to bounce off the lows of their current drawdown over the past two months – which was, coincidentally, predicted by both Dominion and Attain (from our year […]
11
Apr
2011
Is Managed Futures an Asset Class?
Good piece by Mack Frankfurter of Cervino Capital over the weekend, an Attain recommended CTA, covering whether Managed Futures is an asset class or not… with an especially good paragraph from a 1993 paper by Lawrence Harris which described the different players in the trading world: “…value-motivated traders, inside informed traders, headline traders, event study […]
08
Apr
2011
Can trading gains offset pain at the pump?
With Crude Oil up $2 more dollars today, it seems like just a matter of time until we see $5 per gallon gas in the US. (here in Chicago we’re already seeing $4.50 at some stations). Those of us in the managed futures industry usually have an odd take on price increases such as this, […]
07
Apr
2011
Rydex and Wisdom Tree Managed Futures Products- March 2011
Here’s our monthly update on how the Rydex Managed Futures Fund (RYMFX) and Wisdom Tree Managed Futures ETF (WDTI) are comparing with managed futures as an asset class (as measured by the Newedge CTA index): [Past Performance is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results] [YTD Data starts as of 1/05/2011, first day of trading for […]
05
Apr
2011
When should you Fire a Manager?
One of our favorite bloggers, Barry Ritholtz over at The Big Picture, published a post today talking about five reasons to fire a mutual fund manager, but he may as well have titled it five reasons to fire your CTA. All but one of his reasons fit nearly as well for any type of manager, […]
