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It is often said that trend followers provide “crisis alpha.” This means that market stress often benefits their strategies. This follows logically as moves get larger, coordinate together, and run consistently, trading becomes easier. These managers quickly caution that they do not always provide this negative correlation. Price action can swing unpredictably against long-standing trends […]

A common complaint about politicians is that they avoid critical decisions because they only care about keeping their job. Much like a middle manager at a bank, taking a daring chance and failing gets you fired, but doing the bare minimum keeps you employed. Donald Trump is not a normal politician. In a continuing trend, […]

Success in business and elsewhere is often gained with years of experience through trial and error. Battlefield conditions necessitate a different approach that prioritizes good decision-making under the most stressful and high-stakes situations imaginable. In a different way, trading is similar. Moving millions of dollars in and out of positions while competing against the best […]

Investor psychology is an important aspect of trading. Understanding human emotions and their corresponding actions can give us a leg up in improving our trading and capitalizing on the mistakes and foibles of others. Volatile markets show this play out in real-time as panic ensues and massive moves are forgotten weeks later. The beginning of […]

I often tell aspiring traders looking to launch their programs that trading is hard, but it is only half the battle. Running a business that manages customer accounts and expectations, complies with regulations, and grows assets is just as vital. The CFTC is set to make that job a bit more difficult starting on March […]

In World War II, Germany pioneered a revolutionary tactic to spearhead an attack at a specific point in the enemy lines to overwhelm their defenses and create chaos. Donald Trump is taking the lessons of those battles and performing his own blitzkrieg as he re-enters office for a second term. Unlike his first term, in […]

When Stanley Angrist wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal on September 5, 1989, he did not anticipate anywhere close to the response that he received. He relates, “Of the 350 or so articles I published in the Journal, none produced more mail or phone calls than the one on Rich Dennis. [There was no email.] […]

Innovation is a key differentiator between traditional markets and futures markets. Exchanges, FCM, and industry personnel try to predict not only prices going forward but how people will trade in the decades to come. The CME, CBOE, and others demonstrate their desire to develop new ideas every year. Adding new contracts to include developing commodities, […]

As one of the world’s largest databases of futures traders, we see more strategies and talk to more managers in the asset class than almost anyone. We also speak with thousands of investors each year looking to improve their portfolios. These conversations over the past two decades give us great insight into what investors say […]

Two components often drive the evaluation of an investment decision in the futures world—the viability and strength of a program and the capability of a trader to execute that strategy. Recently, a marketing email from a new manager showed incredible returns, an interesting commodity, and over a year of track record. In short, the type […]

In the 1996 book “The Millionaire Next Door,” authors Thomas Stanley and William Danko set out to find wealthy individuals and learn what a typical one looks like. They began by searching ZIP codes of the most prosperous areas only to be shocked to find that while many of these individuals displayed the trappings of […]

In a comeback for the ages, the United States elected Donald Trump as its 47th President. His path to redemption seemed unlikely when he left office just four years ago, having faced two impeachments and multiple criminal indictments for issues related to handling classified information, falsifying business records, obstructing an official proceeding, and racketeering, to […]

A common question we received in the futures industry is what happens if an event occurs when the market is closed and we get stuck in a position when it re-opens. It is a good question, particularly with our 24-hour-a-day news cycle in which economic and geo-political events happen at an ever-increasing pace. The implication […]