{"id":68787,"date":"2018-01-30T06:59:33","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T05:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/news\/ctas-post-exceptional-returns-in-early-2018\/"},"modified":"2020-01-01T22:12:48","modified_gmt":"2020-01-01T21:12:48","slug":"ctas-post-exceptional-returns-in-early-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/news\/ctas-post-exceptional-returns-in-early-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"CTAS post exceptional returns in early 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Such exceptional performance results from the upward trend in equity indices, amid buoyant<br \/>\neconomic conditions globally and the soft pace of monetary retrenchment from central banks. Meanwhile,<br \/>\nthe current U.S. earnings season is looking to be a good vintage thus far, though less than 30% of the<br \/>\ncompanies listed on the S&#038;P 500 have reported earnings as we go to press. Nonetheless, this has been<br \/>\nenough to see the consensus revising upwards the 2018 earnings growth picture for the S&#038;P 500 to 15.7%<br \/>\nat present from 11.8% three months ago.<\/p>\n<p><quote>CTAs have also benefitted from supportive conditions in other asset classes. Commodity prices are<br \/>\nenjoying strong upward trends amidst solid demand conditions and lower oil supply in countries such as<br \/>\nVenezuela.<\/quote><br \/>\n Their long positions on industrial metals have benefitted from better than expected economic<br \/>\nactivity in China. Additionally, their FX bucket was rewarding of late. In particular, the short positioning on<br \/>\nthe USD received a boost as the U.S. administration appeared to back a weaker dollar in Davos last week.<br \/>\nThe long positioning on the Euro and the Canadian dollar vs. the U.S. dollar were a source of substantial<br \/>\ngains as a result. The long positioning on EM currencies vs. the USD also delivered gains. There is<br \/>\nnonetheless one missing engine for CTAs: fixed income. The long stance on bonds was a source of losses<br \/>\nover the course of January that partially erased their gains. According to our data, CTAs have already<br \/>\nturned short U.S. fixed income but remain substantially long on European bonds.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Going forward, we maintain a neutral stance on CTAs despite their strong recent results.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> The fact that most<br \/>\nbuckets contribute positively to performance is a strong asset. However, the high net-long position on<br \/>\nequities is a source of risk in our view due the rich market valuation. We do not expect major trend<br \/>\nreversals in equities or commodities in the near term, but refrain from adding to CTAs after the recent rally.<br \/>\nA neutral stance on CTAs implies a 10% allocation in a hedge fund portfolio (based on BarclayHedge data).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.next-finance.net\/http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ctas_delevering.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" aligncenter size-full wp-image-68781\" src=\"IMG\/jpg\/ctas_delevering.jpg\" alt=\"ctas_delevering.jpg\" align=\"center\" width=\"916\" height=\"320\" \/><\/a><div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-68787 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-herald-lay-c1'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a class=\"herald-popup\" href='http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ctas_delevering.jpg'><img width=\"470\" height=\"313\" src=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ctas_delevering-470x313.jpg\" class=\"attachment-herald-lay-c1 size-herald-lay-c1\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ctas_delevering-470x313.jpg 470w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ctas_delevering-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ctas_delevering-414x276.jpg 414w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ctas_delevering-130x86.jpg 130w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ctas_delevering-187x124.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 470px) 100vw, 470px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Persistent trends across asset classes continued to fuel CTA returns over the recent weeks. According to<br \/>\nseveral benchmarks of performance, January is on track to see them delivering the highest monthly returns<br \/>\nin a decade! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1470],"tags":[1687,1743,1655,1723,1690,1651,2214,1662,2243,1672],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68787"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68788,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68787\/revisions\/68788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}