“Once considered an investment vehicle only for sophisticated, high-net-worth individual investors, alternatives — real estate, private equity funds, hedge funds, managed futures, commodities, and venture capital — have become a standard component of almost every professionally-managed investment portfolio, growing twice as fast as non-alternatives since 2005.”
Should You Invest in Alternative Alternatives? – (The Street)
Faber believes that trend-following strategies have the potential of avoiding long bear markets; while they are not perfect, they can help reduce volatility and drawdowns.
Discussing Managed Futures with Trader Vic and Meb Faber – (ValueWalk)
“A lot of money went into big multistrategy hedge funds and global macro/managed futures funds throughout the first half of 2015.”
The Largest managers ranked by AUM – (Pensions & Investments)
“There are now so many derivative products based off of these futures, and derivatives OF THOSE derivatives that it is impossible to keep track of all of the cross-currents. Thus, it is impossible to know for sure if the smart money really is long or short – and therefore, if they really are the smart money.”
“(Not Always) Smart Money” Hedgers Are Record Long S&P 500 Futures – (Dana Lyons)
“Instead of worrying about passive versus active, think in terms of disciplined strategies versus undisciplined strategies”
Index Funds Are Nothing Special – (A Wealth of Common Sense)
Oil has now spent 280 consecutive days below its 200-day moving average… that’s a record (and a defense of trend following).”
Oil Price Charts Look Historically Ugly – (Barrons)
“{Bonds} are the equivalent to 1½ U.S. stock markets and nearly twice the aggregate size of the five largest foreign stock exchanges (in Japan, China and Europe),”
The New Bond Market: Bigger, Riskier and More Fragile Than Ever – (Wall Street Journal)
“The number of U.S. households that spend at least half their income on rent—the “severely cost-burdened,” in the lingo of housing experts—could increase 25 percent to 14.8 million over the next decade.”
The Rent Crisis Is About to Get a Lot Worse – (Bloomberg)
“What is one of the absolute hallmarks of good investment management regardless of whether you are an active or passive manager? Diversification. How important is diversification to investment management?”
Alpha Wounds: A Lack of Diversity in the Human Resources Portfolio – (CFA Institute)
“The Commodity Futures Trading Commission wants to allow financial firms to count their market positions separately from subsidiaries if the parent company says it does not control trading at the affiliate.”
U.S. regulators revise proposal on commodity position limits – (Reuters)
“Harvard is looking for investment managers with expertise as short-sellers, as the world’s biggest university endowment becomes more cautious about the outlook for financial markets.”
Harvard endowment warns of market ‘froth’ – (CNBC)
“One of the challenges is convincing clients that just at the moment when it looks like this asset class has lost ethicacy, is exactly the time you need it. So we’re emphasizing using various alternative strategies to help us manage risk,” Shalett said, noting those strategies include hedging, equity-long short, global macro and event-driven strategies.”
Morgan Stanley Likes Global Markets, Alternatives – (Wealth Management)
“Managed futures will perform better when there is more spread or dispersion in prices over time but that is not the same thing as doing well when volatility is higher. You can have more spread in prices with less volatility if there is a strong trend in one direction. Volatility can have dispersion but choppiness will also be present. Reversals in a range in dangerous for most trend-following CTA’s.”
Managed futures and volatility – a little harder to link than some would think – (Lakewood Views)