Posts by Niels Kaastrup-Larsen

April saw conflicting headlines over the future of trend following, but what the media did not focus on so much…is the failing of the stock and bond markets to “survive” without artificial life support.

As equities surge to all-time highs, volatility has all but vanished. Investors are betting the calm will last, shorting the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, at rates not seen in at least 15 years.

Large speculators, mostly hedge funds, shorted VIX futures contracts in sizes not seen before.

One of Wall Street’s Most Popular Trading Strategies Is Now Failing
Machines that decide when to buy and sell are struggling to keep up with central banks and Donald Trump.

Remember this headline from Bloomberg on March 1?

Well…as we close the month of March, it sure looks like this journalist got his timing right…

Many trend followers continued their recovery from the November 2018 low, despite China, Trump and North Korea taking center stage in February. Also find out which pension fund recently told me: “I am hearing people throwing the towel in on these types of basic trend following strategies, that makes me kind of bullish on them.”

So after a solid December, trend followers found themselves playing defense as best they could, just like in this weekends 2019 Super Bowl.

January is also the month where each year I get to spend time with my peers at 2 of the worlds largest hedge fund/CTA conferences in Miami.

Can we just be real for a minute?

2018 was a roller coaster of a year…and one of those years where you could easily feel a bit sick to your stomach when you looked at the performance of your investments.

(at least it was for most trend followers)…but lately even hardcore equity bulls have felt the pain, just like bond investors did until a couple of months ago. Indeed 2018 will be remembered by many investors for its lows, rather than its highs.

Since 1999, the 3 best months of performance for managed futures, represented by the SG Trend Index, have been November, December and January… but as November did not live up to this reputation, let’s see if December and January can make up for this.

Last months post was headed “Calm before the Storm?”…and little did I know, that only a few days in to October, the storm would be blowing across many markets, but in particular Equities and Energies.

With the BOJ accelerating their extreme monetary policies and the FED putting on the breaks…this storm could get bigger…