With July now in the books, we see that so-called managed futures mutual funds are now underperforming the average managed futures index for the year by an average of -7.99% after the effect of load fees (and -3.64% before the load fees).
We don’t think mutual funds are the best vehicle to access the managed futures asset class if you have the capital to stand on your own and invest in individually managed accounts (see after the chart for why); and the numbers continue to back us up. Read ‘em and weep below (Disclaimer: past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results).
Note: Dow Jones Credit Suisse Managed Futures Index data through July 25th. Sorted by YTD Return After Load
Earlier this year we expanded our look at managed futures mutual funds to consider the new entrants into the space. We have been critical of these products for a few reasons. For one, they are being marketed as managed futures products, but many do not contain any actual managed futures exposure; rather they merely utilize a trend following model to approximate such exposure. Then there are some that actually do invest in underlying managed futures managers (kudos to you), but do so at a very high cost with extra layers of fees and, more often than not, a high front end sales (load) fee. And then there are those which are not providing managed futures exposure and charging load fees: the worst of the worst.