Pure countertrend CTA to open to investors

Investment manager Peter Moon has recently launched a CTA program called 3SD Countertrend, that is run through managed accounts out of Connecticut-based 3SD Capital. The futures trading program is expected to open to investors this month (March).

Moon started in the mid-70s, when he was trading his personal account, until he moved to the fund management industry.

"My history of countertrend futures goes back to my first CTA in 1987, Royston Investments in Chicago, which I launched after working for Peter Steidlmayer, floor trader and inventor of Market Profile," he tells Opalesque.

"That was a discretionary program that ran until 2008 when I decided to systematise the strategy, having reached a point where I felt I no longer had the necessary fortitude and risk tolerance to be a counter-trend trader stepping in against roaring markets. When that process was completed, I ran the system for AHL (part of Man Group) on a $50m trial account, but when they bought GLG they had their negative correlation with size and no longer wanted any 'de-trend' component in the AHL trend product. Then I ran the system for Tudor Investment from California and after a few years was relocated to their Greenwich head office. When I left Tudor in 2016, the system's AuM was $200m."

That's when he realised he needed to be independent again, he continues. Especially since his program was unusual, requiring him to run the research exactly the way he intended. He also wanted out of the vagaries of the fund industry. While setting up 3SD, he found the current business model favoured running single managed accounts. He also found that clients approved of managers' use of third party providers - whereas, he says, in the past, not running everything in-house was seen as a weakness.

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.