In July we delved deep into our roots and the world of managed futures. What we found was that an evolving world of managers who were no longer able to justify the 2 and 20 fee model were expanding into the 40-Act mutual fund world. These fund structures are closer to the commodity pools that were more prevalent in the early days of the space in the 1980s. We spoke with trend-following legend and former turtle Jerry Parker, who has moved most of his products into the 40-Act structure. Parker says that the trend will continue, and while p
utting pressure on fees, it will be a net positive and allow more investors access to the space. So far, there haven’t been a lot of new entrants as the Morningstar managed futures index
hasn’t added any new funds since the article, and more than half of the constituents have negative returns in 2016 year-to-date. However, the top five funds have added approximately 20% in assets under management during the last six months. Quantitative fund Dormouse, which was also featured in our July issue, is up 15.73% through October.
