Commodity Futures Trading Blog

The futures industry’s rules for segregated funds help protect customer capital in the event of a brokerage bankruptcy.

In recent years, many investors found out the hard way they have very little recourse to recover funds in the event of a financial firm’s bankruptcy. Although the Bernie Madoff “hedge fund” was by far the highest profile case, there were numerous less publicized bankruptcies and defaults at other firms and investments (including legitimate ones), in which investors found recouping remaining funds difficult or impossible. Sometimes it’s a case of being the last in line of a long list of creditors, a problem that’s compounded when customer funds aren’t separated from a firm’s funds. Such “commingled” funds might have been used to fund the firm’s operating expenses or in its own trading. If a firm enters bankruptcy, it can be very difficult or impossible to recover customer funds that were commingled in such a fashion.

However, all futures trading accounts, including managed futures, have the advantage of specific industry rules that require the segregation of customer funds from the firm’s own funds. The practice of segregating customer funds protects investors in the event of default at the Futures Clearing Merchant (FCM, the industry term for futures brokerage firms licensed to trade on futures exchanges in the U.S.) holding their account. While FCM bankruptcies are rare, they do occur. In 2005, Refco Inc. and 23 of its unregulated subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. However, Refco’s regulated subsidiaries (where customers’ futures trading and managed futures accounts resided) were unaffected and customers were able to continue trading and managing their accounts. Investment Risk and Firm Risk

Although first-time managed futures investors might assume they’re depositing money directly with the commodity trading advisor (CTA) running the fund, in fact, customers open an account in their own name at an FCM. The CTA is then given the authority to trade per the fund’s investment strategy. Segregated funds possess a separate identity from FCM funds in the firm’s bank account. Once funds are deposited, the bank signs a written acknowledgement stating it will not use the funds for anyone other than the customer. Also, the FCM is required to use these funds only in certain pre-defined instruments. The end result is that, in the event of a crash or FCM bankruptcy, customer funds can be more easily recovered.

FCM Reporting Requirements

Segregated funds are subject to stringent daily, monthly, and annual monitoring by industry regulatory agencies. Every day, FCMs must submit a report to the National Futures Association (NFA) detailing the breakdown of their customer funds. This “Segregated Investment Detail Report” (SIDR) lists the actual and expected segregated funds in the FCM’s accounts. In addition, every FCM must file monthly financial reports with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight (DCIO) within 17 business days after the end of the month. Finally, the FCM is subject to a yearly audit by the Joint Audit Committee, a consortium of U.S. futures exchanges and regulatory organizations.

CFTC oversight

The provision for segregated funds is stipulated in the Commodities Exchange Act. As a result, the CFTC, which is the futures industry equivalent of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), regulates all practices for segregated funds. Any case of malpractice results in an administrative proceeding before a CFTC law judge. If an FCM is found guilty of the charges, the CFTC can suspend or revoke trading privileges, assess penalties, or issue cease and desist orders. There have actually been very few malpractice cases; most are the result of technical or processing difficulties within an FCM, or a delay in reporting. For example, the CFTC imposed a civil penalty of $300,000 in 2009 on a large FCM for violating rules related to segregation. Besides reporting process violations, the CFTC charged the company with not holding enough funds in its customer funds account. (The shortfall occurred because the FCM had purchased Treasury notes between 2007 and 2009 using a mix of its own and customer funds.) In response to the charge, the firm established a “segregation forecasting mechanism” to ensure that proper segregation was maintained between customer and company accounts. Before making any investment in futures or managed futures, investors should research the company where they plan to open an account. The NFA makes this research easy at the BASIC (Background Affiliation Status Information Center) section of its website.

Dean Hoffman

*Source – CME Group

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.

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.

Dean Hoffman

Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

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.

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.

Dean Hoffman

Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

A Managed Futures Account is a sort of alternative investment. Unlike a fund, managed futures techniques can take both long and short positions in futures contracts and options on futures contracts in the worldwide commodity, Interest rate, equity, and Forex markets. Managed futures are controlled by a licensed Commodity Trading Advisor, or CTA, who are controlled in the U. S. by the commodities trading Commission and the National Futures Association, or NFA. Some are compensated on a performance charge basis, usually 15% to 30 percent of profits. Other CTAs are compensated by charging a per trade cost whenever the account or fund trades. Most CTAs also charge a management charge each year, customarily between 1% to 2% of the account size. Managed futures accounts include, but aren’t restricted to, commodity pools and commodity funds. MFAs could be traded using any number of techniques, the commonest being trend following. Trend following involves purchasing markets that are making new highs and shorting markets that are making new lows.

Differentiations in trend following managers include duration of trend caught ( short term, medium term, long-term ) as well as definition of trend ( i.e. What is regarded as a new high or new low ) and the cash management / risk handling methodologies.

There are more strategies managed futures advisors use, including fundamental strategies, option writing, pattern recognition, arbitrage, and so on. Nevertheless trend following and adaptations of trend following are the paramount system. For the years 1980 to 2010, managed futures, as measured by the CASAM CISDM CTA Equal Weighted Index, had a compound average yearly return of 14.52%, while for U.S. Stocks ( based mostly on the SP five hundred total return index ) the return was 7.04%. Managed futures have traditionally displayed extraordinarily low correlations to conventional investments ,eg stocks and bonds. Following modern portfolio concept, this shortage of link builds the robustness of the portfolio, reducing portfolio volatility and risk, without major negative impacts on return. This dearth of relationship stems from the proven fact that markets have a tendency to “trend” the best during more erratic periods, and periods in which markets decline are the most uncertain. In reality the CISDM CTA Equal Weighted Index has been up twenty-six out of the 32 times the SP 5 hundred has been down five percent or bigger since 1980.

Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

A Managed Futures Account is a sort of alternative investment. Unlike a fund, managed futures techniques can take both long and short positions in futures contracts and options on futures contracts in the worldwide commodity, Interest rate, equity, and Forex markets. Managed futures are controlled by a licensed Commodity Trading Advisor, or CTA, who are controlled in the U. S. by the commodities trading Commission and the National Futures Association, or NFA. Some are compensated on a performance charge basis, usually 15% to 30 percent of profits. Other CTAs are compensated by charging a per trade cost whenever the account or fund trades. Most CTAs also charge a management charge each year, customarily between 1% to 2% of the account size. Managed futures accounts include, but aren’t restricted to, commodity pools and commodity funds. MFAs could be traded using any number of techniques, the commonest being trend following. Trend following involves purchasing markets that are making new highs and shorting markets that are making new lows.

Differentiations in trend following managers include duration of trend caught ( short term, medium term, long-term ) as well as definition of trend ( i.e. What is regarded as a new high or new low ) and the cash management / risk handling methodologies.

There are more strategies managed futures advisors use, including fundamental strategies, option writing, pattern recognition, arbitrage, and so on. Nevertheless trend following and adaptations of trend following are the paramount system. For the years 1980 to 2010, managed futures, as measured by the CASAM CISDM CTA Equal Weighted Index, had a compound average yearly return of 14.52%, while for U.S. Stocks ( based mostly on the SP five hundred total return index ) the return was 7.04%. Managed futures have traditionally displayed extraordinarily low correlations to conventional investments ,eg stocks and bonds. Following modern portfolio concept, this shortage of link builds the robustness of the portfolio, reducing portfolio volatility and risk, without major negative impacts on return. This dearth of relationship stems from the proven fact that markets have a tendency to “trend” the best during more erratic periods, and periods in which markets decline are the most uncertain. In reality the CISDM CTA Equal Weighted Index has been up twenty-six out of the 32 times the SP 5 hundred has been down five percent or bigger since 1980.

Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Futures trading offers speculators the opportunity to use enormous leverage. For example, a standard size soybean contract is 5000 bushels of soybeans. At $10 a bushel, this represents roughly $50,000 of soybeans, but the margin required to control that contract may only be a few thousand dollars.

So, a movement of just a few percent in price of the underlying commodity could equal hundreds of percent movement in the value of the initial margin deposit. It is this extremely high margin that has led commodity futures trading to having a reputation as being a place for gamblers.

However, despite commodities gambling reputation there’s a perfect economic justification for its existence. Futures trading allows hedgers the opportunity to offset price risk. Hedgers include people such as farmers, food manufacturers, oil refiners or anyone who commercially deals in the physical commodities market. What a hedger can do with commodity futures trading is lock in the price they are able to purchase or sell a commodity for at a future date.

For example, a farmer recognizes that, at current prices, he can make a sizeable profit from his corn crop; but he will not harvest it for another 60 days. His risk is that prices drop between now and crop time. So, he can sell his un-harvested crop today in the commodity futures market at current prices. This way should prices drop he has already locked in his profit.

The speculator, on the other hand, the person that assumed the risk is gambling that prices will go even higher, and he too can potentially make a profit by selling at even higher future prices (or lose money if prices drop). The farmer is happy as he was able to secure his profit, and the speculator is happy as he gets the opportunity to assume the farmers risk with the potential for profit.

Such futures trading leads to price stabilization in the marketplace. Without such risk transference mechanisms in place, consumers would be subjected to wild swings in commodity costs. Imagine if every time a shopper went to the supermarket their bill varied by 20-30 percent for the same groceries! This would also be the situation in countless other industries that use commodities. The bottom line is that regardless of its betting reputation, commodity futures trading serves a vital role in today’s economy.

For more information on our futures trading system Relativity, please contact us.

Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

TAGS: Futures Trading

Futures trading offers speculators the opportunity to use enormous leverage. For example, a standard size soybean contract is 5000 bushels of soybeans. At $10 a bushel, this represents roughly $50,000 of soybeans, but the margin required to control that contract may only be a few thousand dollars.

So, a movement of just a few percent in price of the underlying commodity could equal hundreds of percent movement in the value of the initial margin deposit. It is this extremely high margin that has led commodity futures trading to having a reputation as being a place for gamblers.

However, despite commodities gambling reputation there’s a perfect economic justification for its existence. Futures trading allows hedgers the opportunity to offset price risk. Hedgers include people such as farmers, food manufacturers, oil refiners or anyone who commercially deals in the physical commodities market. What a hedger can do with commodity futures trading is lock in the price they are able to purchase or sell a commodity for at a future date.

For example, a farmer recognizes that, at current prices, he can make a sizeable profit from his corn crop; but he will not harvest it for another 60 days. His risk is that prices drop between now and crop time. So, he can sell his un-harvested crop today in the commodity futures market at current prices. This way should prices drop he has already locked in his profit.

The speculator, on the other hand, the person that assumed the risk is gambling that prices will go even higher, and he too can potentially make a profit by selling at even higher future prices (or lose money if prices drop). The farmer is happy as he was able to secure his profit, and the speculator is happy as he gets the opportunity to assume the farmers risk with the potential for profit.

Such futures trading leads to price stabilization in the marketplace. Without such risk transference mechanisms in place, consumers would be subjected to wild swings in commodity costs. Imagine if every time a shopper went to the supermarket their bill varied by 20-30 percent for the same groceries! This would also be the situation in countless other industries that use commodities. The bottom line is that regardless of its betting reputation, commodity futures trading serves a vital role in today’s economy.

For more information on our futures trading system Relativity, please contact us.

Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

TAGS: Futures Trading

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.

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 Advisor 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.

Dean Hoffman

Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

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.

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 Advisor 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.

Dean Hoffman

Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Many individual and institutional investors search for alternative investment opportunities when there’s a disappointing outlook for U.S. Equity markets.

As financiers try to diversify into different asset sectors, mostly hedge funds, many are turning to managed futures as a solution. But instructional material on this alternative investment vehicle is not yet easy to find.

So here we offer a helpful ( kind of due diligence ) primer on the topic, getting investors started with asking the most relevant questions. The term “managed futures” is about a 30-year-old industry made from pro money managers called “Commodity Trading Advisor” ( CTAs ). CTAs must register with the U.S. Government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission ( CFTC ) before they can offer themselves to the general public as money managers. CTAs also need to go thru an FBI deep background check, and supply comprehensive notification documents ( and independent audits of finance statements each year ), which the National Futures Association ( NFA ), a self-regulatory watchdog organization reviews.

CTAs often manage their customer’s assets employing an exclusive trading program or a discretionary strategy, which will involve going long or short in futures contracts in areas like metals, grains, equity indexes, soft commodities and foreign currency and U.S bond futures. During the past few years, cash invested in managed futures has more than doubled and will likely keep growing in the approaching years if hedge funds returns flatten and stocks underperform.

A key debate for expanding into managed futures is their potential to lower portfolio risk.

Supporting such a discussion are many educational studies of the results of mixing standard asset groups with alternative investments like managed futures. Dr John Lintner of Harvard University is maybe the most cited for his research in this area. Taken like an alternative investment class alone, the managed futures class has produced comparable returns in the decade before 2005. As an example, between 1993 and 2002, managed futures had a compound average yearly return of 6.9%, while for U.S. Stocks ( based mostly on the SP 500 total return index ) the return was 9.3% and 9.5% for U.S. Treasury bonds ( based mainly on the Lehman Bros long term Treasury bond index ). Re risk-adjusted returns, managed futures had the smaller drawdown ( a term CTAs use to refer to the maximum peak-to-valley drop in a shares ‘ performance history ) among the 3 groups between Jan 1980 and May 2003. In this period managed futures had a -15.7% maximum drawdown while the Nasdaq had one of -75% and the SP 500 stock index had one of -44.7%.

A further advantage of managed futures includes cutting risk thru portfolio diversification by negative relationship between asset groups. As an asset sector, managed futures programs are inversely related with bond certificates and stocks. For instance, during times of inflationary pressure, making an investment in managed futures programs that track the metals markets ( like silver and gold ) or foreign currency futures can supply a valuable hedge to the damage such an environment can have on stocks and bonds. To explain, if bonds and stocks underperform because of rising inflation concerns, some managed futures programs might outperform in these same market conditions. So, mixing managed futures with these other asset groups may get the most out of your allocation of investing capital.

Commodity trading carries risks and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.