Managed Futures – Choosing a Commodity Trading Advisor
Managed Futures
Over the last seven years, investment in professionally managed futures accounts has more than quintupled. According to hedge fund tracking firm Barclays, assets under management rose from approximately 41 billion dollars in 2001, to more than 219 billion dollars today! This is a trend that we expect to see continue, not only as the demand for commodities continues to rise on an international level, but also as more investors, individual and institutional, start to see commodities as a sensible investment vehicle.
This steady growth has also raised the need for greater discretion in selecting a Commodity Trading Advisor. In this article, we will outline what we believe are some of the best tools and methods available to the individual investor when choosing a managed futures product.
Managed Futures Defined
Let’s first define what managed futures are and what they are not. Managed futures are not merely stocks or ETFs that invest in commodities. Managed futures accounts are investments in which the funds invest mainly in leveraged, future dated contracts for either commodities or financial instruments. Commodities may include sectors such as food, energy, and raw materials, and financial instruments may include interest rates and stock indexes. The leverage of these investments means that risks and rewards can be, but are not always, substantially higher when investing in futures markets than when investing in the stock market.
The National Futures Association and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission handles regulation of managed futures investments in the United States, unless, the firm or fund has exempt status. Regulated firms hold either a Commodity Trading Advisors license (CTA license) or a Commodity Pool Operators license (CPO license). Keep in mind, however, that just that a firm carries a license is in no way an endorsement of that firm’s future performance. Because futures’ trading has the potential to come with large risks, it is not cut out for just any investor. Investors should be familiar with all the risks involved before investing.
Finding lists of potential managers to sort through can be a fairly easy task for an investor if he knows where to look. Firms such as Barclays Trading Group, Stark Research, Autumn Gold, and Altegris Investments have large databases of manager information available. One resource we personally like can be found at www.autumngold.com. Autumn Gold offers a free summarized online database of over 450 programs. Although their site requires registration, the programs are of excellent quality and may be sorted by a wide range of parameters including minimum account size, funds under management, and various other measurements of performance.
The only problem we see with online databases is that it can become somewhat overwhelming to try to narrow down so many choices. To help simplify the process, in part two of this series we will share what we think are some of the all around best performance metrics.
Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.