This year was anything but boring in the futures markets. There were plenty of major moves in multiple markets, and it seems just about every market not at 5 year highs (stocks, the US Dollar, and cattle) was at 5 year lows (Crude, Copper, Yen). That’s in stark contrast to the past few years, where there’s been more markets up than down. But it was two black liquids stealing the headlines – with Coffee leading the way on the upside, and Crude Oil the big loser on the downside. All those who had the Long Coffee/Short Oil trade on, take a bow – that’s a winner! (What could we call that – the Texas Latte, the Beans over Barrel spread?)
Category: Managed Futures
26
Dec
2014
The 10 Most Intriguing Attain Alternatives Posts of 2014
We wanted to go back through and reflect on our posts that you found the most interesting this year. Without Further Ado, The Top 10 Posts in 2014 based off of how many of you read it.
24
Dec
2014
The Difference Between Then and Now
In case you missed it, we were featured in Investments News a couple months back explaining “Why Managed Futures Aren’t Getting the Job done.” It’s not just about the industry’s recent drawdown. It’s also about what kind of exposure you have, why some exposures might not be working, and what you can do to get the exposure you’re looking for.
Check it out if you have some downtime while you’re home for the holidays.
22
Dec
2014
The 10 Best Performing Managed Futures Strategies of November
While one month’s performance is no way to judge an investment that has 3 to 5 year cycles, a glance at who’s doing well in the different environments month to month can be a useful data point at times. Here’s the top managed futures performers (by return only) for the month gone by:
18
Dec
2014
Managed Futures Exit 3yr Drawdown, Hit New All Time Highs
Move over stocks, and let managed futures share that new all time high spotlight some…
16
Dec
2014
Checking in on Liquid Alternatives
A popular product bring in tons of assets… what could go wrong? Well, if you’re a frequent reader of our blog, you’ll know we’re not the biggest fans of Liquid Alternatives. This isn’t the most popular opinion to have, which is why it’s always nice to see someone else in the business share some of the same thoughts. We’re talking about Concept Capital’s Jack Seibald’s interview on Hedgeweek.
15
Dec
2014
Futures vs ETFs (Roll Time)
Here’s our monthly look at the various commodity ETFs and how they track a simple strategy of buying end of year futures and rolling them annually. As we’re here in December, it’s worth mentioning that we’ve already rolled the contracts in our simple strategy, using the last date of October as our roll date. Using Crude as an example, on 10/31, we would sell the Dec. 2014 Crude contract and simultaneously buy the Dec. 2015 contract, then hold the Dec. 2015 contract through next October.
12
Dec
2014
Make a Kid Happy, Instead of Making us Fat
If you are one of those kind souls looking to send a holiday gift to Attain, here’s our official plea to do something more constructive than the $300 Harry and David basket containing 80% packaging and 20% food (90% of that chocolate covered).
11
Dec
2014
6 Takeaways from the Performance of 8 Asset Classes YTD
While us Managed Futures folk are a little giddy over recent performance (the best performing asset class the past three months), even we need a reminder that Managed Futures strategies (and true alternative investments) aren’t trying to outperform stocks or real estate
10
Dec
2014
The Best Tweets on Crude Oil’s Crash
January 2015 WTI Crude just hit 60, and minute by minute, day by day, those people calling for crude to Zero aren’t looking silly after all. Social Media is one of the best ways to get rapid reaction from multiple sources, and see what people are talking about and why. Here’s our crude rapid reaction edition of what we found interesting, important, and entertaining on Twitter ($TWTR). Enjoy.
