Here’s our monthly look at the various commodity ETFs and how they track a simple strategy of buying December futures and rolling them annually. Plus, a comparison to Ag Traders and an overall commodity index.
Category: Investing Insight
13
Oct
2014
10
Oct
2014
Stocks… We Hope they Go to Zero!
One of the best things about being in an investment which can do well when markets are down is the fun you can have at cocktail parties, in the locker room at the golf club, and dinner with friends. A -334 point down day in the Dow and around -5% move off of all time highs starts to bring out the shrugs and exasperated expressions, as those well to do’s around you murmur their version of the timeless classic:
09
Oct
2014
The Best Images from “StockToberPocalypse”
Part of the reason many believe social media will never die, is because of days like today. Stocks experienced their single worst day of the year, and social media exploded with posts, comments, and charts trying to explain just what was happening
06
Oct
2014
Asset Class Scoreboard YTD – Look Who’s Climbing
They all moved down together in July, back up together in August, then back down together in September…. Except for a little asset class named Managed Futures, which (right on cue) broke away from the others to post positive performance for the month to complete its best quarter since 2008 to move up to the third best performing asset class YTD.
16
Sep
2014
150 Asset Class Returns in One Chart
We love these new looking charts that keep popping up (the latest was over here on Ritholtz) showing how the different asset classes go from the top to the bottom, to the middle, and so forth depending on the year… implying if not outright saying that it’s a fool’s game to try to pick which […]
09
Sep
2014
A Golf Caddy, his mom, and Warren Buffet on Gold
A caddy on the golf course this past weekend asked one of Attain’s partners (Jeff Malec) what the caddy’s mom should do with her Gold bars. Mr. Malec asked the caddy if he had ever heard of Warren Buffet. But those reading the Wall Street Journal of late might think the play is to ditch the physical gold and instead invest in Gold Mining companies.
08
Sep
2014
Asset Class Scoreboard YTD
Everyone down, now everyone back up (except you commodities…). Seems like everything has been moving in tandem of late, with everything reversing their July losses for gains in August.
15
Aug
2014
Bloomberg Vomits Alternatives
We couldn’t resist this Bloomberg headline the other day: “Classic Cars, Lean Hogs and Duchamp Art Lead Alternative Investment Ranking” Cars, Hogs, and art… and an alternative investment ranking – this was going to be interesting.
Except the ranking is little more than the trailing 36 month returns – without mention of the volatility, drawdowns, or any other risk to the investments. And the so called “Alternatives” in the article seems to be an odd mish mash of returns for whole investment categories like Private Equity with its 100s of Billions of Dollars invested alongside the returns for single stamps from 1867 which go for around $400.
12
Aug
2014
A Big List of Alternative Investment Folks on Twitter
Here’s our compilation of people and firms currently out there on twitter providing the latest insight, humor, debate, and news on investments – especially the alternative kind:
07
Aug
2014
Mama Said Knock You Out
Well, we bet Emil Van Essen, the quirky (in a good way) Canadian who runs the self named Emil Van Essen managed futures shop here in Chicago, may have been humming that first line (if not the entire song) throughout the month of July. You see, Van Essen managed to post returns of 6.39% in July, his best month since May of 2011, a year the program returned 33%. Since that blowout year, it has been more of a struggle for Emil and his team, however; with losses of about -10.23% in 2012, -6.31% in 2013, and a weak first quarter of this year, down about -4.5%. {past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results}.
