Futures has been profiling the top performing commodity trading advisors (CTAs) for nearly two decades, and while there has been this rumor going around of a Futures magazine curse, similar to the Sports Illustrated curse, related to follow-up performance of managers we feature either on the back page or as a Top Trader of the year, nothing could be further from the truth.
As we crunched the numbers for this year’s feature, we saw a lot of familiar faces and wanted to point out those managers with an honorable mention:
Bob Pardo, principal of Pardo Capital Limited, was originally profiled in October 2002. His XT 99 diversified program returned 63.73% in 2007.
Roger Pegorsch was originally profiled in January of 2003. His IPATS program returned 61.82% in 2007.
Jes Santaularia, principal of Parrot Trading Partners, was profiled this past November. Parrot earned 62.42% in 2007.
Bob Moss, principal of Ram Management Group, was profiled back in the 1980s. Ram’s MRTP Aggressive program earned 58% in 2007.
Dario Michalek, principal of Vision Capital Management, was featured as one of our Hot New CTAs in October. Vision earned 57.65% in 2007.
The list is not exhaustive. Many other mangers featured over the years had outstanding performances in 2007, but all these mangers earned more than 50% in 2007 and have performed well in different trading environments.
Can I show you something in a hedge fund?
On Feb. 6, public commodity pool Superfund Asset Management opened the doors to its retail storefront in downtown Chicago. Superfund opened a storefront operation in New York a year ago and may open more. Superfund founding principal Christian Baha took the concept from Charlie Merrill, who opened a storefront in New York to sell retail investors on the idea of investing in stocks at a time stocks were not thought of as retail investments. Just as Merrill brought stock investment to the masses, Baha wants to bring managed futures to a larger audience.
Branch Manager Kendall Brubaker says they already have gotten interest from people stopping in off the street.
Hard time
Daniel Marino, former chief financial officer of defunct hedge fund Bayou Group, in January was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a New York District court judge. A week earlier James Marquez, one of founders of the hedge fund, was sentenced to just over four years. Bayou founder Sam Israel is still awaiting sentencing.
Marino helped create a fictitious auditing firm that helped to keep the fraud going by issuing false statements to investors.
