SELECTED MANAGER LIST
We believe that the real value of managed futures is as a component of a portfolio. Therefore, we do not offer a large list of selected CTAs for selfservice
purposes. Instead, we offer a limited list of CTAs and programs as stand-alone investments.
Bluenose Capital Management, LLC (BNC) is a registered Commodity Trading Advisor located in Williamsburg, Virginia, whose primary goal is the development and implementation of Alternative Investment Strategies to generate better than average investment returns. BNC uses Absolute Return Strategies which, due to low correlation with traditional financial markets, are intended to produce positive returns in all market environments.
Bluenose Capital Management, LLC currently offers 3, options based trading programs, two based on S&P 500 futures contracts and one utilizing options on oil futures contracts. Bluenose’s investment approach for all three programs is essentially the same. All three programs are options based and incorporate five vital elements; fundamental analysis, technical analysis, money-management, strategy identification and risk assessment. Our managed futures programs utilize the writing (selling) of options on various futures contracts including but not limited to the S&P 500, Gold, Oil and Treasuries with the S&P 500 being the primary.
Managed futures are futures positions entered into by professional money managers known as commodity trading advisors (CTA’s) on behalf of investors. CTA’s invest in energy, agriculture and currency markets (among others) using futures contracts and determine their positions based on expected profit potential.
Together, Rob McLallen and Joe Natoli, the firm’s principals, have over 30 years of experience in financial services including alternative investments, managed futures and options trading. Alternative Investments are investments that are not one of the three traditional asset types (stocks, bonds and cash).
Bluenose Capital Management currently offers three alternative investment and managed futures programs, BNC EI, BNC BI, and BNC CL.
Buckingham Global Advisors, LLC is a Commodity Trading Advisor, currently registered with CFTC and a member of National Futures Association.
Buckingham Global Advisors, LLC (“Buckingham”) is a research-driven wealth management advisor. Buckingham’s team has years of experience in trading, investment research, strategy design, risk management, and opportunity identification.
Buckingham applies macro and micro economic analyses, combines fundamental and quantitative research to improve investment returns and control risks. Buckingham focuses on liquid instruments. Currently we run only one CTA program – Weekly Emini Program. The program trades Emini S&P 500 futures options exclusively.
Our investment philosophy is simple but powerful. In principle, we adhere to Chicago school’s Market Efficiency Hypothesis indicating that active fund management is no better off than passive indexing. Thus, we do not usually predict what market would go, instead we mainly manage the risks associated to our positions. In any given time, market can go up or down each with around 50% probability, this simple statistics is our building block to craft our trading plans in order to capture the excessive return.
We believe that broad market is close to 90% efficient. We are taking advantages of those 10% of market dislocation opportunities happening in the derivative market.
Learn more about the Weekly E-mini Program >>
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Gary D. Hart is the President and sole principal of Camkay Capital Management. Camkay provides an opportunity for people to invest in something that has the potential to increase in value every year, regardless of the health of the economy or whether the stock market was up or down.
Camkay’s managed futures program is the result of research started in the mid 1990′s when Gary was looking for a method to grow his money during the construction industry’s downturns. He wanted something that was not dependent on increasing real estate prices, GDP growth, or a bullish stock market. By entering both bullish and bearish short term trades in the stock index futures, Camkay’s program has the potential to profit in any market environment. Please be advised that trading futures involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
The Stock Indices Short-Term Program attempts to take advantage of short-term inefficiencies in the stock index futures markets by using multiple independent intra-day and swing trading models. Trades are generated with proprietary computer generated signals. The average holding period for the swing trading models is five trading days, but can be as short as one day and as long as twenty days. The intra-day strategies are primarily trend following in nature and utilize market volatility. The swing trading strategies are primarily counter-trend in nature, with some incorporating fundamental data as well. This combination of time frames and model types is designed with the intention of providing consistent returns during any market environment.
Carbide Capital Inc is a discretionary Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA). Carbide Capital is led by Aaron Wallace, Chief Investment Officer who oversees investment strategy and trade implementation. Mr. Wallace has over 15 years of investment management and trading experience. Prior to establishing Carbide Capital, he was the head trader for 7 years at Universa Investments L.P., a multi-billion dollar options focused hedge fund.
Prior to Universa, Mr. Wallace worked as an equity derivatives trader at KBC Bank. He also, along with one of the founding partners, established a hedge fund seeding platform while at KBC Bank. This allowed Mr. Wallace to be exposed to all aspects of the hedge fund business, including research, trading, risk management, marketing, and operations. Mr. Wallace graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Business Administration from Northeastern University.
The Carbide Absolute Return Program seeks to produce non-correlated returns through a long/short options strategy focused on the S&P 500. The program generally has a bias towards short option positions due to the volatility risk premium inherent in the options market. The options market can reflect pricing inefficiencies due to behavioral biases. Options can then be used to construct trades that produce positive returns under various market scenarios. Carbide incorporates a comprehensive investment approach, using macro data, technical analysis, and volatility to make trading decisions.
The overall goal of the Seasonal Spread and Option Strategy (“SSOS”) is to achieve account appreciation through the use of an exchange futures and options investment strategy. Generally trading will be done by combining futures and options spread positions. It focuses on seasonal tendencies using both technical and fundamental analysis. Positions may be held for as little as a day or for as long as nine months depending on market conditions. The strategy may trade in any futures market in which certain seasonal tendencies and/or characteristics can be readily identified.
Our new Alternative Multi Strategy program aims to deliver superior absolute returns with its. We focus mainly on spread trading and create alpha from our understanding of the mean reversion of commodity spreads that occur within seasonal tendencies. The program mainly utilizes the quantitative analysis of data but it also considers market fundamentals. Our
alternative multi strategies include: Statistical Arbitrage, Spread Trading, Relative Value Long/Short, Volatility Arbitrage, Global Macro and more.
NickJen has created a prodigious network of deep commercial relationships with market participants that is continually growing.
Our Commodity only program is called the NRD-1. Since developing the NRD-1 program in 2008 we have implemented minor improvements, enabling us to become a premier program within the managed futures space.
NickJen uses a discretionary, fundamental based approach to trading. 70% of the portfolio strategy focuses on the Agricultural and Soft markets. The remaining balance is composed of the Energy, Meat and Metal sectors.
Trading decisions are developed through highly extensive, statistically based analysis, review of supply and demand conditions, inventory levels weather developments and forecasts and economic trends and reports. NickJen looks to capitalize on market irregularities by adapting to changing market conditions. We continue to evolve our research to identify new sources of returns to improve how to procure them. NickJen’s goal is to prioritize capital through low M/E seeking returns at a relatively low level of volatility.
In 2017, Michael Zobel developed a set of specific trading rules and conditions for a new venture called Okulus Capital LLC. He contracted a programmer to write these methods into an automated trading system. The system is able to be back tested and optimized. More systems and futures contracts will be developed and optimized in the near future.
Michael began his futures career in 1985 working as a summer intern for General Mills at the Chicago Board of Trade. In 1987, Michael worked as a floor clerk for Hennessey & Associates at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Later that year Barnes & Company purchased Hennessey and after the floor closed Michael took over updating the owner’s personal proprietary trading charts. Michael was given responsibility to manage a proprietary account using a specific set of rules. The portfolio included all U.S. Futures markets; Short Sterling; Long Gilts; FTSE and Hang Seng Indexes.
In 1989 Michael was offered the opportunity to assist Richard Barnes. Mr. Barnes was the owner of Barnes & Company located in the Chicago Board of Trade. They sat side by side during trading hours where Michael placed orders and received fills from the trading floors, kept count of the contracts traded and averaged the prices. He still maintained Mr. Barnes personal charts.
In 1989, Michael became a proprietary trader for Argus/Linnco/LFG. He was held accountable for an initial investment of a $50,000 account and traded the vast majority of the US. Futures and Commodity markets. The account closed in 1999 and the customer since inception total was $1.8 million.
Michael became a Commodity Trading Advisor in 1992 under the name Leboz Trading Company. Assets under management averaged $3 million with a maximum of $8.5 million. During this time he actively traded 25 various financial and commodities markets. Michael effectively conducted market risk and money management via in-house Excel spreadsheets and consistently maintained a custom monthly customer correspondence and a marketing database. During this time, he complied with NFA and CFTC regulations and all routine audits were within NFA guidelines. Michael attended National Futures Association and Managed Futures Association futures conventions from 1992-1996.
*Note: Internationally recognized Barclay’s CTA Index listed Leboz Trading Company as the #1 ROR Trader managing less than $10m for the five-year period of 1989-1994.
In 2004, Michael traded the cash and futures U.S. Ten-Year Treasury Notes at Rosenthal Collins Group. Strategies included seeking inefficiencies in the yield curve using spreadsheets and exaggeration in prices due to market news and momentum then capitalizing on these situations.
From 2006-2010, Michael managed one offshore and two wealthy private individual accounts under the name Sable Investments.
PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- For the 5 year period, 10/1/89 through 9/30/94, ranked #1 for CTAs with less than $10 million under management.
- For the period 10/1/90 to 9/30/94, ranked #22 by Barclay’s for the Top 30 CTAs ranked by Percentage of Profitable 12-Month Periods, #23 out of the Top 30 CTAs ranked by Barclay Ratio, #20 out of the Top 30 CTAs Ranked by Sterling Ratio, #10 out of the Top 30 CTAs ranked by Percentage of Quarters in the Top Quartile and #12 out of High Volatility Traders with a Monthly STD more than 8.31%.
- For the 3 year period 1/92 – 12/94, ranked #6 on the CTA Consistency Index (CCI) out of CTAs with less than $10 million under management.
- For the 3 year period 1/92 – 12/94, ranked #12 on the CTA Consistency Index (CCI) out of the Top 20 CTAs who trade a financial portfolio.
- For the 3 year period, 4/1/92 through 3/31/95, ranked #17 out of the 20 top CTA performers.
- For the period 10/1/92 through 9/30/93 ranked #5 by Compound Annual Return out of the Top 30 CTAs with less than $10 million under management.
- For the first 3 months of 1993, ranked #18 out of the 20 top CTA performers.
- For the 18 month period 7/93 – 12/94, ranked #14 on the CTA Consistency Index (CCI) out of the 20 top CTA performers with less than $10 million under management.
- For the period 12 month period 7/1/93 through 6/30/94 ranked #21 by Compound Annual Return out of the Top 30 CTAs with less than $10 million under management.
- September 1993, ranked #5 for CTAs with less than $10 million under management.
- For the 18 month period 10/93 – 3/95, ranked #19 on the CTA Consistency Index (CCI) out of the 20 top CTA performers with less than $10 million under management.
- For the 3 year period, 4/1/94 through 3/31/94, ranked #3 out of the 20 top CTA performers.
- May 1994, ranked #6 for CTAs with less than $10 million under management.
- For the year 1999, ranked #8 for CTAs with less than $10 million under management.