BarclayHedge Blog

FAIRFIELD, Iowa, April 10, 2008 – Managed futures lost 0.36% in March according to the Barclay CTA Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The Index is up 7.09% for the first quarter of 2008.

“Nearly 57 percent of the CTAs on our platform were profitable in March,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge.

“This is a significant achievement, considering the abrupt price reversals in commodity markets on March 19th, when crude oil dropped 4.5 percent and gold fell 5.9 percent in one day.”
Agricultural Traders lost 3.51% in March, and Discretionary Traders were down 0.91%.

“The challenge that agricultural traders face is that there are limited opportunities for diversification within an agricultural portfolio,” says Waksman.

“Despite the fact that most grains have been in a sustained uptrend for the past 18 months, agricultural traders can still be hurt when prices across the sector drop suddenly.”
Although Diversified Traders lost 0.99% in March, the Index has returned 13.92% in the first three months of 2008.

Barclay’s Currency Traders Index gained 0.56% in March, and Financial/Metals Traders rose 0.23%.

“Continued divergence between interest rates in the US and Europe has created profitable trading opportunities in the financial markets,” says Waksman.

“This interest rate divergence has also helped to drive the U.S dollar down, marking new lows against both the euro and the Japanese yen, and providing currency traders with opportunities to profit.”

The Barclay BTOP50 Index, which monitors performance of the largest traders, slipped 0.52% in March, but is still up 4.96% for the quarter.

Click here to view 28 years of Barclay CTA Index data.

Sol Waksman is an experienced media source, providing perspectives on hedge fund and managed futures trends. For more commentary or background, call 641-472-3456 or email swaksman@barclayhedge.com.

BarclayHedge, formerly known as The Barclay Group, was founded in 1985, and actively tracks more than 6,600 hedge funds, fund of hedge funds, and managed futures programs. Barclay has created and regularly updates 18 proprietary hedge fund indexes and eight managed futures indexes. Institutional investors, brokerage firms and private banks worldwide utilize Barclay’s data as performance benchmarks for the hedge fund and managed futures industries.

Labels: BarclayHedge press release, managed futures

# posted by BarclayHedge @ 3:17 PM