Managed Futures: Let the Good Trends Roll

Updated on

Managed Futures: Let the Good Trends Roll by Attain Capital

Managed Futures managers might as well be singing Louis Jordan’s 1940’s original “Let the Good (Trends) Roll,” after the first month of 2015 came to a close. Forgive us for our artistic interpretation of the famous song, we just thought it captured the current environment.

Now, any trend follower will tell you there is no such thing as a “bad” trend, just the lack of consistent trends. That hasn’t been an issue over the past couple of months. Despite what Bloomberg might have you believe, Crude Oil and the other energies are continuing on their downward tear, foreign currencies keeping moving lower (U.S. Dollar moving higher), and managed futures managers  strategies continue to ride the trend.

But it wasn’t business as usual though in January, there was a big shock and awe when the Switzerland National Bank decided to depeg itself from the Euro with almost no warning. This move was the equivalent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average moving 4,300 points in a matter of an hour. As you might imagine, there were some that were on the wrong side of this trade, including some trend followers. But because of strict risk management and trading strategies it was more of a “this sucks” situation for trend followers, rather than a catastrophic event for others.

Meanwhile, not all trends stayed the same in the January, as metals began an uptrend, while in the soft markets, some programs we track were able to capitalize off of downtrends in Cocoa and Sugar.

Put that all together, and the 4 Managed Futures Indices we track posted an average performance of 3.55% {Disclaimer: Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results}. For our full analysis on what’s to come for Managed Futures, check out our Managed Futures 2014 Review & 2015 Outlook report.

(Disclaimer: Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results)
(BarclayHedge reporting 57.83% of funds, numbers subject to change)

P.S. –Some of Attain’s Family of Alternative Funds outperformed the indices themselves. To get monthly performance and research updates on the family of funds, sign up here.

Leave a Comment