Currency Traders the Only Down Note in Positive Month for CTAs
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: May 19, 2021
CTAs had a strong April, according to the Barclay CTA Index, managed by BarclayHedge, rising 1.43% with over 80% of funds reporting. This means the Index is up 3.8% for the year-to-date.
Of the eight sub-indices, only Currency Traders was in negative territory, down 0.44% – year-to-date this index is the only one in negative territory at 0.58%.
Best performer in April was, again, Cryptocurrency Traders, at +9.7% (+121.54% ytd), while there were also good gains recorded by Discretionary Diversified Traders, both of which were up 2.27% for the month. The MPI Barclay Elite Systematic Traders Index was also up strongly, by 2.64%, for a year-to-date performance of +5.65%.
Also year-to-date, after the crypto traders, Diversified Traders are up 6.08%, while Discretionary Traders at up 4.96%.
The BTOP50 Index, which tracks the largest managers, was up 2.35% in April, for +5% on the year.
Elsewhere, The SG Macro Trading Index was up 2.27% for the month (+4.16% year-to-date), while the sub quantitative index was up 2.32% (+2.42) and the discretionary index was +2.21% (+5.59%). The SG Commodity Trading Index was +4.23% in April for +8.33% year-to-date. The SG Trend Index was +2.89% for +6.91% on the year.