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“Although commodity indexes gained nearly 3.5 percent in February, the profits for CTAs came largely from the financial markets,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge. “U.S. and Asian equity markets overcame Greek jitters early in February and rallied nicely through month-end.”

The Barclay BTOP50 Index, which monitors performance of the largest managed futures funds, outperformed all other sectors, gaining 0.72% in February.

“The largest traders, based on liquidity considerations, tend to have higher percentage exposures to financial markets than the smaller traders,” says Waksman. “That worked in their favor as financial markets gained strength in February.”

Six of Barclay’s eight managed futures indices had gains in February. The Barclay Financial & Metals Traders Index was up 0.59%, Currency Traders gained 0.46%, and Discretionary Traders rose 0.11%.

Although the Barclay Agricultural Traders Index lost 1.70% in February, the index is still up 1.68% for the year after a strong 3.44% gain in January. Full performance chart available Source

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