CQA - CTA Challenge Insights September 2021 U.S. equities sold off in September, recording the worst month since the height of the pandemic fears in March of 2020. Fears of inflation along with central banks indicating policy will not…
CQA - CTA Challenge Insights - August 2021 Major geopolitical events, the Delta variant, and the devastation caused by Hurricane Ida dominated headlines in August. Despite this, European and U.S. equities continued their grind higher as the two developed…
CQA - CTA Challenge Insights - July 2021 July brought a continuation of many of the market moves that we saw in June. The reflation trade again took a hit as investors moved into safe-haven assets. Global financial markets…
CTA Challenge Insights - June 2021 In June, many established trends across currencies, fixed income, and commodity markets reversed sharply, causing losses for many strategy types. Risk assets finished higher and yields crept lower as the Federal Reserve signaled…
CTA Challenge Insights – May 2021 May saw equity markets finish slightly higher despite inflation numbers rising at their fastest pace in over a decade. Broad commodity markets fared well, while continued dovish monetary policy caused the dollar to…
Portfolio Building - Where CTA Challenge Pays Off The Coquest Advisors CTA Challenge accomplishes many goals, for Coquest, the commodity trading advisors (CTAs) that participate, and ultimately—and most importantly—investors. We have discussed Coquest Advisors’ processes in analyzing managers for…
CTA Challenge Insights April 2021 The global economic recovery continued to accelerate in April as equity and commodity markets trended higher off the back of accommodative monetary and fiscal policies and increased demand for raw materials. Inflationary fears continued…
CQA - CTA Challenge Insights March 2021 The first quarter of 2021 was defined by heightened volatility in markets ranging from equities to commodities. Fiscal stimulus combined with hopes of a swifter economic recovery caused many markets to reach…
February was a strong month for most CTA strategies, with the majority of CTA Challenge participants finishing the month with positive performance. While we often generalize about sub-strategy performance (e.g., trend following versus global macro, or long term versus short…
Why Daily Numbers are Key to the CTA Challenge In our last few articles, we discussed the advantages of managed futures and how Coquest Advisors has created its CTA Challenge competition to present the best-of-breed commodity trading advisors (CTAs)…
The CTA Challenge and Managed Futures -- How Rankings are Calculated The CTA Challenge is an alternative investment product research and ranking campaign specifically focused on asset managers that trade managed futures investment programs. Given the unique characteristics of…
Managed Futures -- What is the CTA Challenge? In 2011, a young commodity trading advisor (CTA) approached Coquest Advisors Managing Director Maxwell Eagye and posed a question. “Why don’t you raise assets for me? I have better risk adjusted…
The CTA Challenge -- What are Managed Futures? The CTA Challenge is an alternative investment product research and ranking campaign, specifically focused on asset managers that trade managed futures investment programs. But what exactly are "Managed futures"? Managed futures…
2020 CTA Challenge -- Bonus Rankings Winners by Strategy Type For the first time since we began the CTA Challenge in 2013, Coquest is now compiling annual rankings for independent strategy types in addition to the overall rankings. We…
2020 CTA Challenge Wrap-up The CTA Challenge was designed to identify best-in-class managers on a risk-adjusted basis. The events that transpired this past year help to reiterate the importance of the CTA Challenge’s evaluative process. No single strategy group…
2020 CTA Challenge -- Winner Announcement! Congratulations to AG Capital Investments! AG's Discretionary Global Macro Program secures the #1 spot in the 2020 CTA Challenge, beating out the other 114 participating Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) programs for the year.…
2020 CTA Challenge Concludes Final Evaluations Begin for 2020 Participants The 2020 CTA Challenge ends after the close of business tonight. Results will be advertised once the full annual evaluation is completed. Thank you to all of our Sponsors…
2020 CTA Challenge - Home Stretch The 2020 CTA Challenge is in its final month of evaluation. From January 1 until the end of November, the rankings have seen quite a few changes; there is still a chance for almost…
Happy Holidays From Coquest Inc. Happy Holidays and a Festive New Year to you and your family! Wishing everyone a safe and enjoyable season. Registration is Open For The 2021 CTA Challenge! Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) who are interested in…
The 2020 CTA Challenge has two months left before the annual competition comes to an end. We have seen quite a bit of performance activity so far this year and some big changes to the rankings as time progressed. With…
Registration is Open For The 2021 CTA Challenge! Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) interested in participating in the 2021 CTA Challenge should contact Coquest now to get your program registered. The registration period closes December 4, 2020. There is no cost…
Registration is Open For The 2021 CTA Challenge! Registration is now open! Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) interested in participating in the 2021 CTA Challenge should contact Coquest now to get your program registered. The registration period closes December 4, 2020. Click…
Where Real Research Is Done: Daily Data Analysis Gathering daily performance, position, risk and margin data for the CTA Challenge is precisely what makes our analysis better. Almost all other managed futures performance ranking databases rely solely on monthly performance…
What Is A "Discretionary Commodities" Investment? I am so glad that you asked. There are many types of investment programs in the liquid alternatives space, each using their own combination of data inputs, human skill and computer assistance to trade…
Luck vs Skill: Guiding Investors Through The Noise The CTA Challenge, by design, seeks to separate liquid alternative investment programs into multiple categories. The most relevant of which identifies investment programs that win by luck versus those that win by…
Managed Futures Performance - Big Moves In July We are only a few weeks into July and already see some big performance moves for the month. Multiple programs in the CTA Challenge have positive returns up double digits so far…
CTA Challenge - Halfway Through 2020 After we finished out June, I took a pause to fully evaluate the good, the bad and the ugly for the first half of 2020. I was pleasantly surprised to find there was a…
Energy Markets Make Headlines In the last newsletter, I discussed how March 2020 was a wild ride in the Equity Index and Volatility Index markets...and then in April the Energy futures markets stepped in with the proverbial "if you thought…
2020 CTA Challenge - Initial Rankings Are Here! Initial year-to-date rankings for 2020 are here and AG Capital is off to an early lead, as of the end of March. AG performed well in the past 2 years of the…
Liquid Alternative Investments Outpace The S&P 500 We are now navigating a new norm of investment volatility fueled by global industry disruption, geopolitical liquidity measures and investor fears. Analysts have been warning for months, or years, that the U.S. economy…