Kettera Strategies Heat Map - September 2020
The quant macro programs we track generally did better than the benchmarks in September. Those programs with a heavy commodities focus appeared to fare better than those concentrated on financial markets. September returns spanned the gamut in Discretionary Macro, however, as discretionary managers’ returns strategies varied greatly. Performance seemed to depend as much on chosen trade duration as market sector (e.g. many of the more profitable managers were those that took shorter-term retracement bets). Currencies, metals and energies seemed to be where these programs reaped the most return.
For Systematic Trend Programs, September was a “give-back” month, as nearly all systematic trend programs ended up in (moderate) negative territory, mostly thanks to positioning in FX (mostly long European currencies) and industrial commodities (mostly long metals positions). The sharp reversal in equities indices at the start of the month didn’t help models either, although some shorter-term systems seemed to catch the new direction. Some positive returns were found in long fixed income and (some) agricultural commodities positions.
In contrast to the longer-term systematic trend strategies, returns of short-term programs and high frequency traders seemed to vary widely. (Some programs appeared to cancel out others.) September was a turbulent month that produced numerous short-term reversals across nearly all asset classes. The worse markets for these models, in contrast to longer-term, trend-based models, seemed to be fixed income and equities indices.
Agricultural Commodities Specialists appeared to be the outperformers of the month. As grains all rallied strongly on the last day of the month (on notably lower stocks than estimated), ag traders generally did well as they anticipated the lower-than-expected stocks and were long going into the report.
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For the “style classes” and “baskets” presented in this letter: The “style baskets” referenced above were created by Kettera for research purposes to track the category and are classifications drawn by Kettera Strategies in their review of programs on and for the Hydra Platform. The arrows represent the style basket’s overall performance for the month (e.g. the sideways arrow indicates that the basket was largely flat overall, a solid red down arrow indicates the basket (on average) was largely negative compared to most months, etc.). The “style basket” for a class is created from monthly returns (net of fees) of programs that are either: programs currently or formerly on Hydra; or under review with an expectation of being added to Hydra. The weighting of a program in a basket depends upon into which of these three groups the program falls. Style baskets are not investible products or index products being offered to investors. They are meant purely for analysis and comparison purposes. These also were not created to stimulate interest in any underlying or associated program. Nonetheless, as these research tools may be regarded to be “hypothetical” combinations of managers, hypothetical performance results have many inherent limitations, some of which are described below. No representation is being made that any product or account will achieve profits or losses similar to those shown. In fact, there are frequently sharp differences between hypothetical performance results and the actual results subsequently achieved by any particular trading program. One of the limitations of hypothetical results is that they are generally prepared with the benefit of hindsight. In addition, hypothetical trading does not involve financial risk, and no hypothetical trading record can completely account for the impact of financial risk in actual trading. There are numerous other factors related to the markets in general or to the implementation of any specific trading program which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results and all of which can adversely affect actual trading results.
Benchmark sources:
1-The Hedge Fund Intelligence Global Macro Index and HFI Currency Index
2-The Societe Generale Trend Index and SG CTA Index
3-The Societe General Short-term Traders Index: (same link as above)
4-The Eurekahedge AI Hedge Fund Index
5-The BarclayHedge Currency Traders Index and BTOP FX Traders Index
6- S&P GSCI Metals & Energy Index and S&P GSCI Ag Commodities Index
7-The CBOE Eurekahedge Relative Value Volatility Hedge Fund Index
8-The Eurekahedge-Mizuho Multi-Strategy Index: (See above)
9-The Eurekahedge Long Short Equities Hedge Fund Index: (See above)
10-Blend of BarclayHedge Equity Market Neutral Index with Eurekahedge Equity Mkt Neutral Index (see link above)
11 – Barclay Crypto Traders Index.
Indices and other financial benchmarks shown are provided for illustrative purposes only, are unmanaged, reflect reinvestment of income and dividends and do not reflect the impact of advisory fees. Index data is reported as of date of publication and may be a month-to-date estimate if all underlying components have not yet reported. The index providers may update their reported performance from time to time. Kettera disclaims any obligation to verify these numbers or to update or revise the performance numbers.
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