We recently expanded our look at managed futures mutual funds to consider all of the new entrants into the space. As we have discussed before, our main problem with these products is that they are being marketed as managed futures products, but many do not contain any actual managed futures 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 (shame on you). And then there are those which are not providing managed futures exposure and charging load fees: the worst of the worst.
Given all of this, we don’t think mutual funds are a good vehicle to access the asset class if you have the capital to stand on your own and invest in individually managed accounts. What is the end result of these products not giving actual exposure to the asset class and charging high fees? Significant underperformance compared to the benchmarks. Read ‘em and weep below (Disclaimer: past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results).
Sorted by YTD Return After Load.