CTA industry bifurcating into trend and non-trend
Tom described a bifurcation in the CTA world between established, large 'trend' managers and a diverse 'non-trend' category encompassing short-term, quant macro, and commodity specialists.
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The story so far
CONTESTED · 81 MENTIONS · 27 EPISODES · 19 SHOWS
22 JUL 2026 — 15 AUG 2026 · TODAY
70 SUPPORT · 9 CHALLENGE · 2 REPEAT
- MONETARY MATTERS WITH JACK FARLEY
20 EPISODES BETWEEN · 59 MENTIONS
- THE RATIONAL REMINDER PODCAST · 4 MENTIONS
- TOP TRADERS UNPLUGGED · 4 MENTIONS
- PLANET MICROCAP PODCAST
- EXCESS RETURNS
- THOUGHTFUL MONEY · 2 MENTIONS
- MOTLEY FOOL MONEY · 3 MENTIONS
- CAPITAL ALLOCATORS · 4 MENTIONS
- EXCESS RETURNS · 2 MENTIONS
- THE ACQUIRERS PODCAST · 4 MENTIONS
- THE RATIONAL REMINDER PODCAST · 7 MENTIONS
- Lifecycle investing: young workers should use leverage
- Static all-equity strategy reduces retirement failure rates
- Sequence of returns risk drops with flexible spending
- Variable withdrawals eliminate need for defensive cash allocations
- Shift asset allocation to 100% equity before leveraging
- Redefining risk as goal failure versus volatility
- Leveraged lifecycle strategy diversifies across time
- THE DERIVATIVE · 7 MENTIONS
- Managing uncorrelation versus purchasing tail-risk insurance
- Trend following remains structurally uncorrelated over time
- Institutional asset bucketing hurts multi-asset portfolio retention
- Combining equity beta with trend alpha maximizes efficiency
- Managed futures belong in tactical allocations, not buy-and-hold
- Equities outperform long-term buy-and-hold bond allocations
- Combining managed futures and equities mitigates abandonment
- MASTERS IN BUSINESS
- TOP TRADERS UNPLUGGED · 9 MENTIONS
- Portable alpha as a more efficient leverage · CHALLENGES
- Lever concave risks creates disasters
- Positively convex: more risk is less risk
- Markets are permanently coupled through diversification
- Long vol as a band-aid for bad portfolios
- Diversification increases exposure to fractal tails
- Big market moves stem from leverage and correlation
- Market moves are 90% endogenous
- Diversification's benefits depend on payoff
- WSJ WHAT'S NEWS · 4 MENTIONS
- THE LONG VIEW
- THE DERIVATIVE
- THE MEB FABER SHOW
- BLOOMBERG SURVEILLANCE
- TOP TRADERS UNPLUGGED
- WE STUDY BILLIONAIRES - THE INVESTORS PODCAST NETWORK
- ANIMAL SPIRITS · 9 MENTIONS
- Investor behavior challenges with momentum underperformance
- Momentum factor's robustness across asset classes
- Momentum's defensive cash-out strategies
- Momentum's behavioral edge persists
- Momentum's lag at market bottoms
- Momentum as a diversifier to value
- Price action signals near-term fundamentals
- Systematic sell discipline is critical
- Avoid over-optimizing momentum strategies
- BLOOMBERG SURVEILLANCE
- FORWARD GUIDANCE · 2 MENTIONS
- OPTIMAL FINANCE DAILY · 5 MENTIONS
- THE MEB FABER SHOW
- TOP TRADERS UNPLUGGED · 3 MENTIONS
- Commodities as inflation diversifiers via enhanced beta
- CTA industry bifurcating into trend and non-trend · THIS IDEA
- Non-trend CTA strategies add little value
HOW THE SHOWS HAVE DISCUSSED THIS THESIS OVER TIME · NOT A PERFORMANCE RECORD