It was last week that we sent out our end of year recap of how managed futures had fared over the past 12 months. Bypassing the idea of doing a program by program breakdown in favor of strategy performance analysis, we found ourselves facing a common question- how, exactly, should these programs be classified? We […]
Category: Managed Futures
21
Dec
2011
Managed Futures 2011 Performance: Strategy Breakdown
As 2011 draws to a close and everyone begins to reflect over the happenings of the past year, those with money ‘at work’ usually become particularly pensive. Could I have done better? Could I have done worse? Does my portfolio need adjusting? The self-examination process this year is perhaps even more strenuous than usual. With […]
20
Dec
2011
Did ‘Risk On’ just sink Managed Futures again?
While the buy-and-hold crowd join the robots in pumping prices up- and then down, and then up and so on – are rejoicing today after stock market gains of 3% and more – managed futures managers may be saying “Not again…” While not as fully short as they were at the beginning of October, most […]
19
Dec
2011
The Risk in What’s Being Risked
One of the managers we work with, Dean Hoffman of Hoffman Asset Management, has an interesting piece up on his blog today. As he points out, there are thousands of CTAs for an investor to choose from when they start investing in managed futures, and dozens of statistics you can reference as you sort through […]
15
Dec
2011
Top 10 Lessons Learned in Managed Futures – 2011
The year is ending, which means the blogosphere is gorging itself on end of year reflections- especially top ten lists. Being managed futures folks ourselves, we’re all about riding the trend, so we figured, why not hop on this one? Instead of looking at specific moments or trades or programs though, we decided to recommit […]
14
Dec
2011
Financial Botany: Are We Missing the Forest for the Trees?
It’s really easy to look at a blood red screen with a few safety plays blazing green and think, “Oh, ok- we’re risk off today.” Sometimes, that’s a fair assessment, especially when it looks like the markets getting hit hardest are the ones surrounded by flashy headlines – such as a lack of investor confidence […]
09
Dec
2011
Dow Jones Credit Suisse April Managed Futures Numbers In
April numbers from the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index are in, and they are certainly bringing a smile to our faces. Not only to managed futures have an excellent month- they outperformed every other hedge fund strategy in the index by a sizable margin, and were able to turn around their year-to-date numbers […]
01
Dec
2011
Rydex and Wisdom Tree Managed Futures Products- November 2011
With November’s estimates in, it’s time to take a look at how managed futures stacked up against Rydex’s Managed Futures Fund and Wisdom Tree’s Managed Futures ETF. We’ve made our grievances with them clear several times over (see here and here), but prefer to let the data speak for itself.
01
Dec
2011
Managed Futures Up +0.85% in November
Did November fly by for anyone else? Hard to believe it has already been a month since the MF Global meltdown. Anyway, we’re here on the first of December and able to look back to report that, according to the Newedge CTA Index, managed futures finished November up +0.85%. While, at first glance, those returns […]
29
Nov
2011
Managed Futures Spotlight: Auctos Capital Management Global Diversified
Our newsletter is out for the week, and it’s time for another managed futures spotlight.The last three years have been challenging for multi-market managed futures programs, to say the least. The cycle started in 2008 with the financial crisis. Most multi-market programs thrived in the fast paced trading environment of ’08, as the just the […]
