So, we’re at the iGlobal Alternative Investment Summit watching this panel on commodity exposure… and we’re cringing. You’ve got Martin Kremenstein of Deutsche Bank up there pushing his passive commodity indices. His argument was that active managers in commodities aren’t a great choice, largely because they have lock-up periods and limited transparency.

What?

As a heads up, Mr. Martin, if you access commodities through a traditional trend following program via a managed account, you have daily transparency and liquidity. Try again.

We’d have asked what the point of a long-only fund is when they underperform their underlying commodities pretty badly (and can’t go short when needed), but by the time the panel was winding down, our annoyance was full-blown anger at the poor quality of information. From a proclamation that trend following was dead (what?!) to one panelist guaranteeing only alpha via their product (seriously) to the false assertion that managed futures profits are solely derived from the bond trade (we’ve been over this) to a botched handling of the speculation debate (words fail)… well, it was a hot mess. And we were hot under the collar by the end.

Definitely disappointing. Here’s hoping they get a better panel on this subject in the future.