One of the best follows on non-financial Twitter is Salesforce.com’s Chief Digital Evangelist: Vala Ashsfar. He comes up with inspiring lists highlighting what it means to be a good mentor, what money can’t buy (happy home, manners, etc.), and companies founded by immigrants (Apple, Google, Amazon to name a few). Not to mention his mesmerizing […]
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What’s wrong with AQR (part III)
We’ve covered AQR’s eponymous managed futures product before, asking in April of 2017: What’s Wrong with AQR and again in March of 2019: What’s Wrong with AQR (Part II), because when you’re the elephant in the room, well – people want to know what if you’re playing nicely or shattering the dinnerware. And, well, when […]

3.5 million derivatives trades per hour
We like to highlight the Futures Industry Association (FIA) annual volume study every year, and were excited to see that global derivatives trading volume hit an all-time record in 2018. There were 30.3 Billion (with a B) global futures and options traded in 2018. That’s about 83 million trades per day, 3.5 million per hour, […]

Thank You: RCM Wins Best IB Award for 6th Consecutive Year
We work hard around here…. real hard. Now, it’s not without a little fun now and again, but day in and day out we’re getting to work doing research, building technology, and forging relationships with our clients and the alternative investment managers they invest in. We don’t do it for awards or recognition… who even knew […]

Alternative Links: Crude oil hits three-week high
Back in November we talked about crude being in a down trend, but it looks like that could be in jeapordy on shorter time frames. This week crude hit a three-week high. Oil Hits Fresh 3-Week Highs on US-China Trade talks, Dovish Central Bank Signals (The Street) A “flash crash,” conventionally, means that some […]

The top 10 posts in 2018
This might be a humble brag, but 2018 was a great year for our Attain Alternatives blog. Content was pushed out covering non-correlation, backwardation, the world cup and the crazy year for managed futures. We put together the top 10 blogs of 2018 — based on the number of reads. If you haven’t already, take […]

What happens when 5 financial gurus walk into the CME?
Have you heard the one about the quant, Ag trader, crypto champion, portfolio manager, and day trader walking into the CME? Neither had we. So we sent RCM’s Jeff Malec over to participate in the Opalesque 2018 Chicago Roundtable to cover topics ranging from payment for order flow, pseudo-liquidity, the risk in equity portfolios, whether […]

Alternative Links: Volatility – Normal or not so much?
Catch up on what we’re checking out this week. Despite announcing that Ivy League universities beat returns of the typical 60-40 portfolio over the last decade. Taking a closer look, even the top performing universities still reported lower returns. Ivy League Endowments Lag 60-40 Portfolio (Chief Investment Officer) But we don’t need hedge funds […]

Attack of the chocolate covered corporate gift.
The saying typically goes “A little bit of sweetness can drown out a whole lot of bitterness.” But here at RCM, the saying “A lot of holiday sweetness is causing us all to enter a chocolate coma that we can’t escape” may more accurately describe our situation. Holidays tend to be centered around all things […]

Asset Class Scoreboard: August
It’s good to be the US Stock market. You know, with those two trillion dollar companies and all, its as if it can do no wrong, slowly pacing ahead month after month (its 5th straight month of gains and new all time highs in August). We talked a bit about how hedge funds don’t really […]