We were skeptically optimistic today when we looked at the asset flow report from Barclayhedge, which showed the best inflows for managed futures in over 8 months, gaining $1.2 billion to rank 6th of 16 hedge funds categories behind Multi-Strategy, Fixed Income, Event Driven, Distressed Securities (where are those recently?), and Emerging Markets. The ‘alleged’ inflow comes after $600 Million in March, and $8.6 Billion (2.5% of assets) over the past 12 months, according the Barclayhedge.
Category: Managed Futures
12
Jun
2014
Get Ready to Be Long Crude Oil
While not exactly earth shattering news today, more than a few people are commenting on the $1.50 to $2.00 move in Crude Oil today. Perhaps it is due to the rather boring movement across markets of all shapes and sizes… and any sort of spike, no matter how small is news worthy. Or perhaps it is the corresponding news that Islamic militants have taken a 2nd Iraqi city in as many days.
11
Jun
2014
Natural Gas ETFs – Heads You Lose, Tails You Lose More:
We did our monthly look at how various commodity ETFs track the futures markets they’re designed to follow recently, and found a rather interesting data point in Natural Gas. So why is UNG suddenly outperforming the December futures strategy? You guessed it… Natural Gas has moved ever so slightly into Backwardation
09
Jun
2014
The Commodity Performance Scoreboard
Here’s our monthly look at the various commodity ETFs and how they track a simple strategy of buying December futures and rolling them annually. Plus, a comparison to Ag Traders and an overall commodity index. C’mon futures…
06
Jun
2014
Managed Futures May Performance
Even though we’ve proven the “Sell in May” theory doesn’t necessarily apply to the Managed Futures, it looks as if this time around sell in may would have been bad advice, with 3 of the 4 indices we track showing two consecutive months of positive performance, something the industry hasn’t seen since the last two months of 2013. However, the average YTD performance still remains in the red.
04
Jun
2014
Humpday Links: Alternative Domination
Here’s what people are saying about Managed Futures this week.
30
May
2014
Complacency Everywhere
But here’s the thing that’s driving those who do more than just stocks (read: global macro, fixed income traders, currency traders, managed futures, etc.) — CRAZY. You see, it isn’t just the stock market that’s seeing record low volatility. Complacency is everywhere
28
May
2014
An Alternative State of Mind
Here’s what caught our eye in the world of alternatives this week.
27
May
2014
Low Volatility is Not so Smart?
Risk is bad, right? Volatility is the enemy of the efficient portfolio? All else being equal, the intelligent investor would prefer less ups and downs in their investments… right? Our friends over at Covenant Capital are out with a deceivingly short piece bringing these long-held beliefs into question. We say deceivingly short, because this one pager touches on all sorts of interesting ideas and questions in the asset management space, while at the same time keeping those questions just below the surface. Read on:
22
May
2014
Top 10 Managed Futures Performers of April
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:
