The weather outside was frightful for some of the US markets in December. As risks of recession loomed, equities and bond prices fell in tandem (again). Volatility increased modestly providing a meager meal long volatility strategies. A milder European winter (so far) helped energy prices mostly decline through the month, especially natural gas. The USD […]
Category: Market Commentary
05
Jan
2023
04
Jan
2023
Asset Class Scoreboard: December 2022
Commodities for the Win! There it was. The final buzzer of the game as 2022 comes to an end. But it was a bit of a bore of a game overall, with the scoreboard at the end of the year looking a lot like it did throughout the year, with Commodities and Managed Futures leading […]
02
Dec
2022
Asset Class Scoreboard: November 2022
Whoa. The international equity markets have finally shown up to the party, taking a giant leap in November for its biggest gain in quite some time. The rest of the scoreboard looked pretty similar, with stock, bonds, real estate, and hedge funds all positive (while all remaining down handily for the year..). Which brings us […]
07
Nov
2022
Asset Class Scoreboard: October 2022
U.S. Stocks gave a comeback last month after being down its’ previous two months rising to the top of the list. While in September we saw nearly all assets in the red, October bounced back for most assets while equities continue to fall. Although we didn’t see a dramatic climb for Managed futures, it’s still […]
12
Apr
2022
Managed Futures is Rocking… What Happens Next?
There are some eye-popping March returns for managed futures programs hitting our inboxes this month, whether Auspice’s +8%, EMC’s +9%, or Quest’s +13% (you can learn more about each of those managers in our recently published trend following whitepaper here.) This broad success across many managed futures and trend following programs has pushed SocGen’s CTA Index […]
06
Apr
2022
MF Mutual Fund Performance – March
Beware the ides of March. This past month showed madness in more than one way. Markets began to internalize the ramifications of the ongoing tragedy in Ukraine amidst the backdrop of inflation in the west. Despite much uncertainty, market volatility generally declined for the later 2/3rd of the month. Equity prices rallied hard. Commodities, which […]
15
Feb
2022
Mutual Fund Performance: January
The start of the New Year provided a rude awakening to the few remaining people lulled to sleep by the die-hard equities bull market. While the world faced the worst COVID case spike of the pandemic, it also had to come to terms with a more hawkish posture from the Fed. Markets trended hard for […]
14
Jan
2022
Mutual Fund Performance – December 2021
December markets brought some volatility as the world attempted to figure out the relative impact of omicron and the Fed likelihood of raising rates sooner than expected amidst some potentially improving job numbers and high inflation metrics. Trend following programs generally fared poorly (unless you stayed long oil), but not bad enough to erase a […]
03
Dec
2021
Asset Class Scoreboard: November 2021
Well, things certainly took an interesting turn in November, with most asset classes squarely in the red after a post-Thanksgiving Black Friday sell-off and failed bounce on the last two days. Commodities got smoked, led by the energy complex, dropping -10.59% – taking down any risk on class: U.S. Stocks, World Stocks, Hedge funds, U.S. […]
29
Nov
2021
Was Friday the end for the trend following rally?
Well…that was fast! No sooner had the digital ink dried on our Trendsgiving post last week talking about the rally in trend-following managed futures programs – then the market gods smacked that asset class right back into place: Us last Wednesday= While economists argue over whether it is “transitory” inflation, many commodity markets are […]
