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"Equity markets rallied in response to massive US government economic stimulus, pushing the S&P 500 Total Return Index to gain 12.82% in April," said Sol Waksman, president of BarclayHedge. "Many CTAs held their profitable short equity positions from March into April only to see those profits turn to losses. Fortunately, downtrends in energy and agricultural markets coupled with uptrends in precious metals proved to be profitable and help put April onto the plus side of the ledger."

Most Barclay CTA Index subsectors were in the black in April led by the Cryptocurrency Traders Index which gained 17.26%. The Discretionary Traders Index was up 1.19% for the month, the Agricultural Traders Index returned 0.97%, the MPI Barclay Elite Systematic Traders Index rose 0.23% and the Financial & Metals Traders Index was up 0.08%.

Sectors in the red in April included the Currency Traders Index, down 0.81%, the Diversified Traders Index, losing 0.13%, and the Systematic Traders Index, off 0.10%.

All sectors but two were in the black year-to-date through April, the exceptions being the MPI Barclay Elite Systematic Traders Index, which was off 3.83%, and the Financial & Metals Traders Index, which was down 0.09%.

Among the year-to-date gainers were the Cryptocurrency Traders Index, up 23.51%, the Currency Traders Index, gaining 5.12%, the Agricultural Traders Index, returning 2.99%, and the Systematic Traders Index, up 2.92%.

The Barclay BTOP50 Index, which tracks the performance of the largest CTAs that are still open for new investment, was up 0.30% in April but down 1.83% year-to-date through the end of the month.