Back in 1980 Frank Pusateri, Bucky Isaacson and a small group of futures traders met in Chicago to form an organization to serve the interests of commodity trading advisors (CTAs). The organization was the forerunner to the Managed Futures Association, which morphed into the Managed Funds Association (MFA) at the turn of the century.
In recent years many CTAs have felt the efforts of the MFA have focused on the institutional hedge fund universe to the detriment of its original managed futures trading founders.
On Nov. 11 many of those original pioneers held CTA Expo 2008. The program brought together CTA and potential allocators. Those in attendance said that the event was successful and were nearly unanimous in the opinion that CTAs needed an organization to tell their story. “MFA is irrelevant to CTAs,” commented one attendee.
Despite its unique attributes, managed futures are often lumped in with hedge funds. In the November Futures Managed Money article, Frank Pusateri points out that managed futures is being hurt buy this association. “The CTA community, by allowing itself to be linked with hedge funds, has obscured its strengths and inherited the weaknesses of hedge funds,” Pusateri stated.
The most important attributes for alternative investments often cited by investment experts is a non-correlation to traditional assets and liquidity. Managed futures have this in spades but have not grown at the same pace as the larger hedge fund universe in the last decade. In 2008 managed futures have outperformed every other asset class but are still relegated to the backwaters of investment strategies.
Pusateri noted that that CTAs needed to do a better job of creating awareness of the benefits of managed futures. To help that along, he helped put together the CTA Expo. Their story needs to be told.
Tags: CTAs, Managed Futures, MFA
