Via Attain Capital
Now that the dust has settled somewhat after the mini crash of last Friday and Monday – we’re getting calls fast and furious asking how managed futures fared during the Dow losing a few thousand points.
Here’s how the Managed Futures indices did on Monday, and how they stand so far for August and YTD versus the s&p 500.
Source: Newedge
But people don’t invest in indices, they invest in actual programs – which usually wait until the end of the month to report performance. Thinking that may be a little too long for many to wait in order to see how specific programs handled this volatility – we compiled some estimates of different programs we work with each day:
(Note: All performance for August 24th and MTD are estimates.)Here are how the Attain Funds are doing:
Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results, but this is a real time, real life example of why investors put programs like these in their portfolios, zigging while the market works out one heck of a zag…
P.S. – Systematic trending following strategies typically rely on trends that last multiple weeks or months to capture returns, especially the ones referred to when talking about crisis period performance. If this volatility is just the beginning of a substantial move lower, we could see some big numbers as we enter fall. But If Monday was the peak for this bout of volatility, this could be quickly forgotten by trend followers.
P.P.S. – It’s worth noting that that the managed futures space has not only different categories but also different strategies within those categories. The strategies that have been experiencing good returns (like options traders) over the past couple of years have been giving back those returns rather drastically since the recent uptick in volatility.
