This post is part of an ongoing series on the Attain Capital blog that seeks to help investors understand the various metrics we use to evaluate managers. Stay tuned for future pieces! * * * * * * * * If you have been poking around the performance tables on Attain Capital’s website or elsewhere […]
Category: Managed Futures
22
Aug
2011
18
Aug
2011
Asset Class Scoreboard through July 2011
File the following into the mostly useless category. We’ve got our monthly asset class scoreboard update below, but after the fireworks so far in August, the YTD numbers are already much different, with stocks and real estate now negative for the year. So, here’s where we were as of the end of July… Key: as […]
17
Aug
2011
The Devil’s in the Details
Last week, we did a piece that took a look at the trade in the Swiss Franc that killed (or at the least severely crippled) Dighton Capital, and here, one week later, we don’t recommend anyone at Dighton peek at what the Swiss has done since. Turns out, Dighton was right in their view that […]
16
Aug
2011
U.S. Markets Mirroring Japanese Bear?
With US stocks closing higher for the third straight day on Monday (just one week after the huge debt downgrade sell off), they were up 10% off their overnight lows on August 9th. While this may cause some to get excited that stocks are coming back – we’re not so sure after looking at a […]
16
Aug
2011
No more Euro Stoxx shorting via futures?
As the Euro Debt Crisis deepens, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain have all taken the seemingly last ditch effort of banning short sales of their stocks and other stock related items…. That last part is the kicker for those of us in the managed futures world. Would these bans impact futures contracts for the indices […]
16
Aug
2011
Where do managed futures go from here?
Our newsletter is up for the week, and this time around, we’re discussing the VIX. We ended one of our blog posts last week asking where does volatility go from here? That is the million dollar question. Are we at mid 07, about to see 18 more months of high volatility; or are we at […]
15
Aug
2011
Managed Futures Performance- July 2011
The Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index has released their final estimates for July, and Barclay Hedge has over 77% of funds reporting, making their numbers more or less final for July – leading us to be able to post final July numbers for the leading CTA indices. [Disclaimer: Past performance is not necessarily […]
15
Aug
2011
Bus Theory: Risk Management in a One Man Shop
The American way has long been to go out, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and make something of yourself. This rugged individualism has fueled innovation and growth for years upon years, but there’s one world where being the lone wolf can actually hurt you. Managed futures. A managed futures program, speaking abstractly, relies on […]
15
Aug
2011
Anatomy of a Trend Following Trade – the Short Side
We’ve talked a few times this week about how managed futures are long volatility investment which tends to do well in a crisis because they have a fixed risk, yet can make as much as the market offers up when volatility expands; but we haven’t touched on the seemingly simpler reason managed futures can do […]
12
Aug
2011
Hedge Funds are NOT Alternative Investments
With a crazy week coming to a close with stocks now down only -1.6% or so after staring losses of -8.5% in the face early Tuesday morning – we carved out a few minutes to check in on how managed futures better known cousins, hedge funds, are doing in this mini crisis (still, no clever […]
