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In association with Hedge Fund Intelligence |
Amid all the gloom in recent weeks about the apparent inability of hedge funds to cope with a collapsing world economy, there has been one subset of the industry that has stood out as a beacon – an exception, where returns have continued to be very positive, and of course non-correlated with plunging equity markets. The exception has been those that ply strategies trading in futures markets – collectively known as managed futures traders or as commodity trading advisers (CTAs).
The HedgeFund Intelligence Global Composite index was battered as never before in September (down 3.71%) and October (down another 2.35%) to take its year-to-date loss for 2008 to more than 7%. But, at the same time, the HFI Global Managed Futures index posted gains for both September and October (up about 5%), taking its year-to-date total gain up to an impressive 12.3%. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that without the contribution of these futures players – which made up about 13% of total European hedge fund assets at the mid-year point of 2008 – the overall performance of the industry would look much sicker this year than it does already.