Originally introduced in 1975, managed futures – hedge funds use futures, forwards, and options to get access to the commodity, currency, interest rate, and equity markets. A futures contract is a contract to buy or sell an asset at a particular price at a later time.
When creating a contract position, a trader must post a performance bond, also known as margin, to cover likely losses on the position. As costs change across the life of a futures contract, the trading accounts where performance bonds are held are debited and credited accordingly. Profits are made when the market or spot cost of a commodity surpasses the futures’ price. Extra returns can be made when traders replenish or roll contracts and the sale cost of the old contract surpasses the price of buying the new contract. Interest earned on margin posted in the trading account also makes a contribution to returns.
In 2008, when US and world instruments dropped 38% and 45 percent, respectively, managed futures were up 14%. Managed futures provided robust, uncorrelated returns to normal asset groups that suffered in this period. Establishments and high value people took note, boosting total investment in managed futures to its current level of over $200 bill in assets under management.
Managed futures trading provides a source of liquid return often not linked to other investment classes. This was obviously seen in 2008, when many stockholders thought they’d achieved satisfactory diversification with their investments in long / short equity and event-driven hedge fund secrets, or other possible choices like high-yield debt and real-estate. It seemed of these investments were highly related to Standard & Poor’s five hundred stock index, and financiers found their alternative investments falling in lockstep with their standard investments.
One of the most significant lessons learned during 2008 was that portfolio diversification does not come from the quantity of managers or positions in a portfolio. Diversification comes from building a portfolio of essentially different return streams and managed futures offer various drivers of positive and negative returns.
Managed futures are one of the few alternative investments that have nil or negative link to the equity markets. Since their establishment in the 1970s, managed futures have frequently produced non-correlated returns during periods of stock exchange dislocation. Dr. John Lintner of Harvard Varsity , one of the co-creators of the Capital Asset Pricing Model, first released his seminal work on managed futures in 1983. He concluded that portfolios composed of equity and fixed earnings investments exhibit significantly less variance at each possible level of predicted return when mixed with managed futures. As illustrated in the chart above, Linter’s work remains as current today as it was in 1983. Adding even a bit of managed futures, as represented by the BTOP fifty Index, to a normal portfolio of shares and bonds has offered better returns at lower risk over a twenty year period one which has included Black Monday ( 1987 ), the 1st Gulf War ( 1990 ), long-term Capital Management / Russian debt default ( 1998 ), terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon ( 2001 ), and the up to date liquidity crisis ( starting 2007 ).
Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.
http://www.managedfutures.ws