In the managed futures space, you can’t get more than a handshake into a conversation with a manager without taking a look at their disclosure documents (if that far). These carefully crafted documents are written in eloquent legalese that can be a mess to wade through without the proper background or hand-holding, but in our […]
Category: Managed Futures
14
Sep
2011
13
Sep
2011
CTA Expo Update: Harr Capital, Emil Van Essen, and the NFA
It was a busy day for Attain at the CTA Expo today, as we sat in on multiple presentations from CTAs and industry influencers alike. One of the more interesting presentation we saw came from Harr Capital- a discretionary trader. They are all managed accounts, and 100% discretionary, relying on fundamentals to guide their trading- […]
08
Sep
2011
Six Reasons Newsletters are NOT Investments
If you’ve looked into futures trading at all, you have, without a doubt, stumbled across an advertisement begging you to “invest” in a newsletter. They’ll make claims like: My clients made 4,236% last year following my suggestions! All of my suggested trades last year were winners! You’re guaranteed to make money! Don’t ask us how […]
08
Sep
2011
Golf Balls, Financial Advisors, and Your Portfolio
Financial advisors are not at the top of our list of favorite people in the world. Why? Frankly, most are married to an antiquated asset allocation approach and dedicated to the quickly eroding buy and hold model. The normal conversation with a financial advisor when we approach them to talk about how their clients can […]
07
Sep
2011
Value shopping? Try Dominion Capital on for size
We have another “buy the drawdown” signal for all you managed futures investors out there who love getting involved in a managed futures program at a discount. This time around, the popular Dominion Sapphire short term multi-market program is experiencing some tough times, and much like those newscasters who make a career out of reporting […]
06
Sep
2011
August 2011 Managed Futures Breakdown
While the first three days of September have made August seem like years ago already – we are just three trading days removed from the end of August (thanks to the holiday) and ready to report on the CTAs we track through the end of August. In review- August 2011 will go down as one […]
06
Sep
2011
A Return to Risk On/Risk Off?
We recently did a post applauding the departure of commodities from the risk on/risk off trade that seems to have been dogging us since 2009. Looking at where we’re at today, we may have spoken too soon, with the blood red stocks trends spilling over into the world of commodities as well. At first glance, […]
02
Sep
2011
High-Frequency Drama
Man, high-frequency trading just can’t catch a break. Right on the back of Europe saying they wanted to “protect the markets” from high-frequency trading, or HFT, U.S. regulators want access to the secret sauce behind HFT strategies. As far as we know, the majority of this action has pertained to stock traders, but who knows […]
02
Sep
2011
Brazil’s Rate Cut and Your Sweet Tooth
Much of the financial world yesterday was abuzz over Brazil’s surprise rate cut. While those trading Brazil Real futures contracts (with a whopping volume of… wait for it… 19 as of 11 AM CST today) might care about how the about-face impacts the value of the currency, the bigger question rattling around the futures world […]
01
Sep
2011
Rydex and Wisdom Tree Managed Futures Products- August 2011
With August’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.
