Posts by Niels Kaastrup-Larsen

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…

As the FED delivered its anticipated rate hike during the last week of the month (the eighths since December 2015), the month of September was in many respect a relatively quiet month for most markets.

As “usual” the US stock markets made a new all-time high, and as “usual” European markets struggled to keep up with this trend.

…it may be worth remembering that in 2009 when Central Banks were trying to save the financial system…Emerging Markets were part of the solution…however today, I fear that they are part of the problem.

US indices are within striking distance of new highs and Apple moved within a whisker ($65bn to be precise) of being valued at $1,000,000,000,000.

So all is good you would think…right?

Well not if you were long Facebook and GAM Holding stocks, as both firms saw their shares tumble by 20%…in one day!

Does this “contradiction” reveal a bigger problem in financial markets?

Like in any major negotiation, there will be good days and bad days…and over here in Europe…the BREXIT negotiations seem like a perfect example of this.

When I look at the performance of CTA’s during the month of June, there were a lot of these good days and not so good days…but in the end the Bulls prevailed.