Another month in 2012 is on the books, and despite stocks soaring to new highs and general uptrends in a variety of other markets, late-month stalls have the Newedge CTA Index* reporting managed futures down -1.83% on the month, bringing year to date performance to -.41%. (DISCLAIMER: PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS.)

What’s ailing the asset class? As we noted in last week’s newsletter, the bulk of the industry (and the bulk of the Newedge CTA Index, for that matter) is trend following, and trend followers, despite better correlation levels, have not exactly been lucky this year. Performance continues to struggle in an environment with a fair amount of choppy moves and shorter-lived trends. Sunrise Capital weighed in on some of the struggles facing trend followers in this trading environment, pointing out that, with the exception of stocks and some agricultural markets such as coffee, many markets aren’t providing the robust trends that most managers would like to see. Additionally, trends in fixed income markets and, more recently, energies, have stalled out. We’ll have to wait and see if April’s market behavior will be kinder to the strategy group.

And what of other managed futures strategies? Unfortunately, the bad luck seemed to be asset class wide. As we noted in last week’s newsletter, agricultural programs were doing pretty well, but when the crop reports came out last week, a good amount of managers lost a portion of their month’s performance. Discretionary traders have continued to struggle, with options traders posting mixed results. Here’s hoping April brings better results across the board.