Being in the managed futures biz, you might expect us to be leading a parade complete with marching band and tumbling coppers a’ la the opening scene of Austin Powers following a month like September, where two of the family of Attain Funds posted double digit returns, and the managed futures index was up 1.94% to finish the 3rd quarter up +4.93% (past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results)
It’s so cliché that the underappreciated asset class people are pouring out of miraculously turns around… but cliché or not – that’s just what happened. The naysayers said Trend Following is dead, that it’s so bad John Henry quit and Paul Tudor Jones threw in the towel, and so on and so forth… but here we are nonetheless, up 4.65% over the past 2 months in the indices, and several programs we track doing quite a bit better than that (past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results).
But we’re not going to cue the parade, just yet. For one, this is just one quarter. Sure, it’s the best quarter we’ve seen out of managed futures since 2008, but it’s just one quarter nonetheless. Secondly, we find ourselves instead wanting to keep the good great September a little under wraps, in a sort of “don’t look at us, nothing to see here” sort of way (like we’re trying to get away with something). Telling anybody who would listen that the managed futures drawdown was a great time to invest didn’t seem to work, with managed futures assets at multi-year lows; so maybe we’ll try keeping it secret for a while. Our little secret with those smart investors who stuck with managed futures during the down times.
Here’s the managed futures performance table for the year…
(Disclaimer: Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results)
P.S. – Don’t be surprised if we do cue up the Austin Powers scene if managed futures manages to string a few of these together. Here’s to continued trendiness in the US Dollar and weakness in metals and grains.
P.P.S.- Be on the lookout for an upcoming post on Attain’s Family of Alternative Funds performance in September. To get monthly performance and research updates on the family of funds, sign up here.