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…
Defining Strategies is Key to Portfolio Construction In our previous article on managed futures strategies, we discussed the number of unique strategies utilized by commodity trading advisors. It is how Coquest Advisors categorizes the wide variety of CTAs they…
Managed Futures -- What's in a Strategy? When we talk about managed futures, some people simply assume you are talking about diversified systematic trend following. That is an easy assumption to make as the vast majority of managed futures…
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)…
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…
Managed Futures -- The Ultimate Diversification We all are familiar with the phrase, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” It is a slightly cynical adage based on the idea that all things come with a cost,…
When John Vassallo moved to New York in 1988 to take a job on the trading floor with Rafferty Associates he had no idea it would lead to the launch of a company that would grow and expand for the…
2019 was somewhat of a breakout year for commodity trading advisors (CTAs) and the managed futures industry. The BarclayHedge CTA Index returned 5.28%, its best year since 2014 and only its second positive year since that breakout year. The index,…
Jeff Norman, founder of Alpha Centauri Capital Management and designer of its global macro Tactical Opportunities Program, has an affinity for games, particularly math-related games, which goes back to his childhood. “I always liked games and I played a…
Registration Has Opened For The 2020 CTA Challenge We receive inquiries from Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) throughout the year about getting added to the CTA Challenge. By design this campaign is a revolving annual event that evaluates investment program…
Stay Tuned - Sign-Ups Begin Soon For The 2020 CTA Challenge October begins the initial sign-up period for the 2020 CTA Challenge. CTAs that are not currently participating in 2019 should contact Coquest to have their programs added to…
The Ups And Downs With Volatility Last week I traveled to Chicago, joining hundreds of Managed Futures industry insiders that had converged in the windy city for overlapping annual conferences. One was the CTA Expo and Emerging Manager Forum,…
Now in its 7th consecutive year, the Coquest CTA Challenge finds success in utilizing a proprietary model for performing quantitative and qualitative evaluations of alternative investment programs. The results of these evaluations are presented as annual rankings and advertised to…
The Consistent Leaderboard The current top 5 leaders in the CTA Challenge so far in 2019 have, for the most part, remained in the top 5 all year. Despite some minor moves, we have not really seen the other 85…
Now in its 7th consecutive year, the Coquest CTA Challenge finds success in utilizing a proprietary model for performing quantitative and qualitative evaluations of alternative investment programs. The results of these evaluations are presented as annual rankings and advertised to…