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The Potential Benefits of Managed Futures

June 2024

Managed futures strategies are a portfolio of actively traded futures contracts that take long or short positions based on bullish or bearish signals. These strategies can take advantage of directional trends in many asset classes, including fixed income, currencies, equities and commodities. Managed futures strategies are known for their low correlation to traditional asset classes and therefore have the potential to provide diversification to portfolios.

The Benefits of Managed Futures

Used by investment professionals for more than 30 years, managed futures are an asset class with over $360 billion in assets under management. Managed futures can play an important role by:

    1. Providing the potential for positive returns in a variety of economic environments
    2. Creating a truly well-diversified portfolio with exposure to commodities and financial futures
    3. Helping to potentially reduce risk
    4. Providing exposure to a broad range of global markets

1. Potential for Enhanced Returns

Historically, managed futures have produced positive returns in both bull and bear markets, outperforming bonds in five of the last seven market environments.

Performance of Managed Futures, U.S. Stock and U.S. Bonds

Growth of a Hypothetical $1,000 investment – September 1, 2000, through June 30, 2024

Chart: Performance of Managed Futures, U.S. Stocks, and U.S. Bonds

2. Potential for Increased Diversification

Managed futures provide exposure to a broad variety of global markets in commodities and financial futures. These hypothetical portfolios illustrate how an allocation to managed futures enhanced returns and diversified the portfolio.

Chart: Potential for Increased Diversification

3. Potential for Reduced Risk

Managed futures have historically shown strong performance when traditional investments have suffered. This graph illustrates the performance of managed futures during the five worst drawdowns of the S&P 500 Index since 1987.

Chart showing managed futures during 5 worst drawdowns for the S&P 500 Index

Index Returns as of June 30, 2024
1 Year5 Years10 Years
S&P 500 Index24.56%15.05%12.86%
CISDM CTA Index9.84%9.44%7.54%
Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index2.63%-0.23%1.35%

4. Exposure to a Broad Range of Global Markets

Managed futures have the ability to provide exposure to a broad range of global markets. This may include, but is not necessarily limited to, sectors such as currencies, stock indices, commodities, and fixed income. As you can see below, there are multiple markets within each asset class, providing the ability for more diversification as compared to traditional stock and bond portfolios.

Table: Exposure to a Broad Range of Global Markets

 

Learn more about Long/Short Commodities >