CME’s Micro E-mini S&P 500 futures contract (ticker: MES) is set to hit the market in exactly 3 days providing traders with the same benefits of an E-mini futures contract, just…smaller – 1/10th the size of an E-mini contract to be exact. We’ve broken down the micro E-mini vs the E-mini vs the full-size S&P […]
Category: Managed Futures
01
May
2019
Opening the door to China Trading
If you’re anything like us, posts like this explaining just how different China is than things here in the U.S. never cease to amaze: This is the Shanghai-Beijing train going at 350 km/h As @yfreemark said: “The distance between NYC and Chicago is almost exactly that between Beijing and Shanghai. NYC-CHI is served by 1 […]
01
May
2019
Asset Class Scoreboard: April 2019
What do you get for 4 straight months of positive performance and an annualized rate of return of nearly 15%. Nearly run out of town, it turns out, with the hedge funds are under performing drums getting louder and louder of late as traditional stock and real estate investments soar (50% annualized returns). Case in […]
18
Apr
2019
Don’t throw out Managed Futures with the Risk Premia bathwater
We half-jokingly asked in our Managed Futures/Global Macro 2019 Outlook, “Is this asset class working for you?” following a year in which managed futures didn’t deliver the crisis period performance they’ve become known for. But a recent piece in the hedge fund journal shows it wasn’t just trend following type CTAs that under performed in […]
16
Apr
2019
The return of the AG
We’ve talked recently about African Swine Flu sending the Hog market for a ride, and that’s just the sort of thing we imagined in our 2019 Outlook whitepaper when we talked about the “return of Ag.” There’s been four straight years of volatility contraction for the Ag markets, and there’s a real threat that the […]
11
Apr
2019
Winter (aka Vanguard) is Coming for Managed Futures?
No, we didn’t miss this headline. And we haven’t just been hiding our heads under a rock pretending to not have seen it. We definitely saw the news of Vanguard launching a commodities product. But unlike Josh Brown, this doesn’t seem like “lights out” for the managed futures space. Vanguard is coming for the managed […]
09
Apr
2019
3.5 million derivatives trades per hour
We like to highlight the Futures Industry Association (FIA) annual volume study every year, and were excited to see that global derivatives trading volume hit an all-time record in 2018. There were 30.3 Billion (with a B) global futures and options traded in 2018. That’s about 83 million trades per day, 3.5 million per hour, […]
01
Apr
2019
Q1 Asset Class Scoreboard
Bounce. Bounce. 2019 continued to be the year of the bounce – with everyone now in on the act once managed futures finally decided to get in the game with its largest gains since January of 2018. Add it all up and you have everyone solidly in the black in what has become quite the […]
28
Mar
2019
Hailing a ride on the Uber IPO? View this first.
We first updated our infographic when LYFT went public on March 29th. It’s down 40%+ since then. But what do you get when you add 1 part $Lyft, 3 parts $Uber, a dash of Pinterest, and pinch of Slack? The return of a potential IPO frenzy, where everyday investors can get involved with some of […]
27
Mar
2019
Semi-Annual Managed Futures Rankings (Updated March 2019)
Now that the 1st two rounds of March Madness are out of the way, we’re ready to share our Semi-Annual Managed Futures Rankings. We’ve been analyzing and testing a rankings system that would best reflect what we believe to be the important metrics for measuring skill in this investment space for the better part of […]
