It’s pure folly to pretend we can say with any accuracy where managed futures will end up over the next 12 months, and to be frank we’re not really interested in playing that game.  But that doesn’t mean it can’t help analyzing the conditions which caused managed futures as an asset class to perform the way it did in 2013, and discussing whether those conditions will persist in the new year, reverse course, or yield to different conditions.

And that was the task at hand in our latest newsletter, Managed Futures 2014 Outlook, looking at the year gone by and what could be coming in the year ahead. The first problem in looking ahead is figuring out what happened in the year gone past. We were all ready to report on how managed futures eked out an annual gain or fell just the wrong side of the profit line – but the various managed futures indices went and screwed everything up, posting returns between +0.73% and -2.56% for 2013 depending on the index {Disclaimer: past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results}.

Do we say managed futures broke the two year losing streak (Newedge) and break out the confetti? Or should we start handing out black balloons and ‘life is over’ 40^th birthday gag gifts, after managed futures had its third losing year and fourth out of the past five (BarclayHedge)?  The truth is – whether we ended the year slightly up or down, one thing is for sure: 2013 wasn’t the definitive “managed futures are back!” year those of us in the business were looking for. We want double-digit gains, not haggling over which side of even the asset class landed on.

So where do we go from here? What does 2014 hold? The only place to start when discussing managed futures conditions is a look at volatility in the global markets the asset class tracks. Continue reading and see our full analysis of where managed futures stands.

(Disclaimer: past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results)