At the turn of the year the “consensus” was that corn was going lower, Bond prices were going lower (yields Higher) and the meats were going irregularly higher. Five + months into 2014, the bonds have rallied over 10 points and the funds have gone from being short 230,000 contracts of corn to being long 340,000+ contracts as of the beginning of May It took them over a dollar in price rally to get there but here we are! Now they are long, I think at an interim or possible top of the price action? Subsequent action since the May 9th report only reinforces my perception of that. What lies ahead is a chasm of time and future price discovery.
David Stephen Martin deals in commodities that people have a hard time doing without. Take that cup of fine Colombian coffee you just drank. Or that chocolate bar. Or that soothing glass of orange juice. Martin trades the soft commodities — coffee, cocoa, sugar, orange juice and cotton. And he has fun doing it, even though these commodities are some of the most volatile products: vulnerable to frost, drought, disease, insects, animals, guerrilla wars and occasionally unstable governments. They are grown and traded all over the world.
We know it is early as CTAs are still computing their monthly returns for May. With some early reports and our own proprietary tool Insight, we are seeing gains of >1% for the month of May. With continued downtrend in VIX (at or below 14) many managers trading indexes have been steady but under performing the overall broader S&P 500 index. Whereas managers trading commodities, such as coffee, cocoa, corn, soybeans, wheat, crude…just to name a few have seen a completely different story. Our interpretation is we will see a continued trend in volatility with respect to commodities and continued uptrend in equity indexes (past performance not indicative of future results). That being said, this upward trend in the indexes is going to pull back one of these days. The duration and extent are anyone’s guess. Now is the time to be more aware of “too much of a good thing”. The strength of this bull market for indexes has lasted quite some time.
Earlier this week we discussed the Red Rock Capital research paper discussing different metrics used to evaluate CTA risk adjusted performance. Sharpe has long been considered the go to statistic commonly referred to by brokers and CTAs in Managed Futures. Today we intend to cover the differences and make some conclusions on the Sortino vs. Sharpe ratio debate and give a different perspective on analyzing a CTA.
Slightly negative results for the month extend a run of near-flat returns as most of the main economic themes identified by the managers showed little reaction. The position in which we had substantially expanded our risk and volume was held as long as possible, until late on “last position day” prior to physical delivery, and still did not bear fruit. Our policy is to not hold overnight positions during the delivery period so as not to expose investors to large, albeit temporary, margin calls.Our “bullspread” strategy in corn – i.e., long nearby and short deferred – was based on projection that U.S. producers would tend to market supply slowly since they had already taken much income from selling soybeans and would wait rather than liquidate all 2013-14 production within a narrow timeframe. Our forecast of demand for U.S. corn was aggressive, as Argentine farmers held back supply for financial reasons and Brazil deemphasized exports to make sure it met soybean commitments.
The two years of persistent market gains in a low volatility environment may have fueled speculative excesses “the likes of which have not been seen since the last bull market”. In the first day of trading in 2013 the NASDAQ Composite moved above its 100 day moving average and steadfastly remained above this average until April 4th the following year. The time span above this moving average was more than 15 months, a feat for the record books, going all the way back to the inception of the NASDAQ Composite in 1971. This is 4 months longer than the previous record. The second longest streak lasted 11 months, ending July 1983 nearly one year after the bull market began in August 1982. Measures of speculation were rampant in both these tops. For instance in the most recent period, discount brokerage firms’ transactions in February was the highest in over 10 years and 400% higher than in February 2009, which was near the bear market lows. The NASDAQ Composite in the month lost 2% and is 5.5% off the early March closing highs.
We are a little over half way through May and have approximately two-thirds of our CTAs updated through the month of April. Overall the index is flat and carried by agriculture and equity index manager trading for the month. Trend Following is so far posting a negative month with 73% of managers reporting. So overall on the year we are off to a moderate start as we get deeper into the second quarter. Without any significant trends we expect to see much of the same as the equity markets continue on the bull run. Agriculture should be particularly interesting as we head into planting season and this pig virus continues to play itself out.
“Flyberry Capital was founded in 2011 to deliver attractive risk-adjust returns, uncorrelated to most traditional and alternative investments, and unconditional to any single market or economic environment. The company relies heavily on research, using mathematics, “big data” and sentiment analysis techniques to develop proprietary trading models and strategies. Flyberry employs a quantitative trading program that opportunistically […]
Demeter Capital Management is a registered CTA with a Livestock and Grain Trading Futures and Options Program. The Livestock and Grain Trading Program attempts to generate profits through the Advisor’s discretionary selection of futures and options trades in agricultural markets. Trades are selected on the basis of fundamental analysis, which is concerned with any factor that would affect the supply and demand, and therefore the price, of a given instrument. The Advisor’s market analysis tends to focus on seasonal trends and year-to-year comparisons. The Advisor absorbs and interprets a wide range of research on a daily basis, employing its principals’s combined 40+ years of experience in agricultural futures markets.
Futures trading is a fast-paced, exciting business that attracts confident and assertive men and women who are convinced they can make a fortune, or at least a good side income, in one of the many futures contracts on the market. Some make it; many don’t. The percentage of self-directed traders who fail is exceptionally high. […]
Martin Fund Management (“the Fund Advisor”) is a Registered Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) with a core focus on exchange-listed derivatives of global soft commodities (i.e. futures and futures options on coffee, cocoa, sugar, and cotton), using a Separately Managed Account (SMA) structure. The Fund Advisor seeks to generate outsized annual returns of 15%-20%, in excess of the S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (S&P GSCI), employing short- to medium-term trading programs with low macro correlation and disciplined risk management. The Fund Advisor was founded by David Stephen Martin, who has over 22 years of commodity derivatives investment experience.
Commodity Trading Advisors, or CTAs, as they are commonly referred to have long been pigeon holed in the Managed Futures industry as professional money managers that trade commodities. Most people liken them to what they see in the movies. The reputation is that these are free wielding traders that have unlimited risk appetite in search of making a fortune. It may be true that speculative commodity traders that are depicted in the movies seek out returns that perhaps a novice or capital preserving investor would never be able to stomach, but most professional money managers trading in Managed Futures are seeking a risk/reward profile that appeal to a broader investing community.
Many people want to get into commodity trading but look askance at the vagaries of the markets and worry that they will lose a lot of money. Some individuals with limited trading experience can jump into the fray without losing their pocketbook; others aren’t so fortunate. Even some investors without experience investing in commodities may be shy at moving into the sector. Fortunately, there is a way for those with means to invest in the commodities market and perhaps come out better than they started most of the time. But they have to know the right tracks to follow.