We fancy ourselves as steak experts here in Chicago, but with both Feeder and Live Cattle futures at all time highs this week should we be concerned that the price of their favorite meat is about to go through the roof? No anytime soon… but an international agreement, an early winter storm, and the recent drought might have something to do with this recent spike.
Category: Markets
22
Jan
2014
Top 10 Managed Futures Programs of 2013
We’re giving in… Despite our constant advice that provides little insight to identify who the best managers were, people still want to know who the best performers were for the year and monthly periods. Note that we calculate the ‘best’ a little differently, but here they are.
16
Jan
2014
Is The World Ready To Trade Futures On Their Mobile Phones?
Ready or not – mobile futures trading (and stock, and options, and baseball cards) has been going on for years now, with a new futures trading app called iBroker. It’s ready for the big time in the US. As of today – the iBroker app is now connected to the popular desktop platform CQG. Meaning… any CQG user at any participating FCM can now access their balances, positions, orders, and place trades via their existing CQG login. Cool!
15
Jan
2014
It’s Final: 2013 Asset Class Scoreboard
Not that anyone didn’t already know – but US Stocks did really, really well last year, leading the race for top asset class basically wire to wire on the way to +30% returns for the S&P 500 to lead our 2013 Asset Class Scoreboard… read ‘em and weep below:
13
Jan
2014
Ag Traders best Managed Futures Sub Index in 2013
Pop quiz: How many sub strategies are there within the managed futures space? there’s at least 6 different types of managed futures strategies out there; all performing a bit differently as BarclayHedge reports in their annual look at the managed futures sub index performance (which we took the liberty of adding 2012 as a reference). Ag Traders beat out the rest of the Barclayhedge CTA sub Indices for the 2nd year in a row, but is there a reason behind it all?
09
Jan
2014
Chart of the Week: Stop being Average
We couldn’t help but notice something significant missing from Bob Doll’s chart which is making the rounds. it looks at the 20 Year annualized returns by asset classes dating from 1992-2011 as well as what the “average investor” has made. Ignore for a second that this data is 2 years stale… it has a bigger problem in our view – managed futures wasn’t included.
08
Jan
2014
Managed Futures Linkfest
We’ve gathered up all that’s been written in Managed Futures this past week, and put in one place.
07
Jan
2014
How Efficient was your 2013 Commodity Exposure?
Every month, we see if buying and holding a couple of commodity markets over the course of a year are doing better than investing in the ETF’s that supposedly track them. For many investors, however; the comparison of how to buy commodity exposure is becoming a moot after article upon article on the end of the super cycle. Which leads us to the widely known secret that many are still unaware of… there’s another way to invest in the commodity market. It’s a “Long/Short Strategy.”
06
Jan
2014
Managed Futures end 2013 Up (and down)
It was a valiant effort for Managed Futures, and even now it’s still too close to call if returns ended up in the positive or negative. Regardless, finding that answer doesn’t do much for investors… but the asset class is controlling risk rather well, for being in a generational low.
02
Jan
2014
In Case You Missed it (you did), 2013 Edition
We shared some of the most read posts of 2013 earlier this week, and today give you the 10 posts which we thought were pretty darn good, but which you just didn’t seem to have time to read (according to the stats). Maybe you’re new to the blog, maybe you were at your kid’s school play, maybe you just plain didn’t like what we had to say… Whatever the reason, here’s 10 posts that weren’t widely read (but in our humble opinion – should have been…)
