Systematic Firms Lead CTA Performance

CTAs had a good September to continue a solid year in performance terms, with systematic firms leading the way as discretionary traders struggled.

The Barclay CTA Index, managed by BarclayHedge, rose 1.28% with just over 85% of firms reporting results, bringing year-to-date performance to +8.72%. While crypto firms benefitted from a rise on asset prices in September to post a sub-strategy leading +8.19% (+9.39% year-to-date), most striking in the data is the divergence between systematic and discretionary traders.

The MPI Barclay Elite Systematic Traders Index, which is constructed to capture the average return of the 20 largest systematic traders, rose 4.34% in September, bringing year-to-date performance to a strategy-leading +18.1%. The Systematic Traders Index also performed well, rising 1.89% for +9.4% year-to-date, but the Discretionary Traders Index fell 1.2%, dragging performance down to +4.85% thus far in 2026.

Elsewhere, currency traders had a solid month, rising 1.42% to +3.45% year-to-date, while Agri traders were down 0.28% (-0.83% year-to-date), Fin/Mets traders were +0.38% (+4.86%), and Diversified traders were +1.79% for +11.88%.

The BTOP50 Index, which seeks to replicate the overall composition of the managed futures industry with regard to trading style and overall market exposure, rose an estimated 3.04% in September. This brings year-to-date performance to +14.19%.

Meanwhile, the systematic outperformance was reinforced by SG Prime’s Macro trading indices. The headline SG Macro Trading Index rose 1.41% in September for +7.39% year-to-date, largely driven by quant traders, with the Macro Quantitative Trading Index rising 3.49% on the month for +13.33% year-to-date. By contrast, the Macro Discretionary Trading Index  barely moved, rising 0.09% in September, for +4.29% year-to-date.