CTA

EmuFit1895

To answer the OP's question ("how do you hedge against the worst case scenarios") I'd keep 10% each in T-bills (SGOV) gold (IAU), managed futures (CTA), and international funds (VXUS). Then leave the other 60% in VOO and let it ride out the storms over the long term.

Sharlach

I allocated 20% into managed futures ETF's recently. They're algorithmically traded momentum funds that hold futures for not just bonds, but also currencies and commodities (oil, copper, gold, etc) as well. Really good hedge against stocks in general, and they're much better at capturing any kind of bond/currency/commodity volatility than I ever could. I went with HFMF since they target 2x volatility and my plan is to reallocate if it starts to diverge with my equities, but you can get something like CTA, DMBF, or KMLM if you want to collect monthly dividends. They're paying out just under 5% right now and that's after some recent share price appreciation.

jasperCrow

🥭 is wanting to pull the market down so CTA’s get short then he releases some Axios article to squeeze them and push to new ATHS. That’s been his playbook the last 2 years in case you haven’t paid attention. Lower first then new ATH.

skymagic

every analysis I've read is wrong AF ...CTA's are fully allocated and will be persistent downward pressure as they sell, end of story 😎

skymagic

trading cheat sheet: institutional rebalancing CTA's under/over poisitioned Gamma is ghey 😎

Capable_Delay4802

The CTA only affected companies less than 5 mil in rev. This wouldn’t have affected your gripe at all.

otto_delmar

Hi again. I played around with your proposed alternative. Simulated data for EDV aren't available, so I used TLT. Same time windows: 1988-current, and 2000-current. Various combinations with KMLM and DBMF respectively. The evidence from those backtests is mixed and tied to both historical luck for gold and TLT, and the different management strategies of KMLM and DBMF. Conceptually, relying on the “fund of funds” approach of DBMF seems more robust to me. It diversifies across the positioning of several CTA managers, disperses manager and model luck, and remains adaptive rather than committing fixed portions of the portfolio to gold and long-term bonds regardless of weather conditions. If you have a conceptual defense for maintaining static portions of gold and long bonds vs relying on MF alone, could you please share?

WendyDumpsterFire

The CTA was intended to make it harder for bad actors to hide their identities and ill-gotten gains through shell companies and opaque corporate structures. As originally implemented, it required covered companies to report information about their beneficial owners https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2026/08/11/us-businesses-no-longer-face-corporate-transparency-act-reporting/ NO MORE RICO CHARGES THEN WHY DID AL CAPONE GO TO JAIL

GneissFrog

Uh oh, CTA funds that covered yesterday are reloading, as this opening pump and dump keeps the downtrend in play. These systematic trading funds will continue to sell every bounce as they have for weeks now, until it stops working.

trumpdiego

CTA's sellers in every scenario next week so there's that

GneissFrog

Every bounce in tech has been sold off for the past month but people keep trying to time the bottom. CTA funds don't care about fundamentals or valuations. They follow trends. P/e ratios, backlogs, etc, etc, none of that is relevant to them at all. They will continue to sell every bounce until it stops working because that's how systematic funds like theirs operate.

WillTheGreat

I mean no shit, CTA funds need to defend their positions.

amanj41

This is fucking retarded. Clearly just propping to avoid the CTA sell triggers

amanj41

MMs fighting to keep us above CTA sell trigger levels

Ahamadrayasbaboon

Sell F, buy GDX, CTA

Ahamadrayasbaboon

Prolly not in ‘26.  SGOV CTA when low XLP/XLV/XLU when low or SCHD anytime

RedPlumpTomato

My AI Slop Analysis: I'll give you credit for one thing: the screenshot is real money and real gains, which puts you ahead of half the posts in this sub. But let's actually look at what you're showing us, because the numbers tell a different story than the post. Your account sits at $1,301,268. You're up $182,333 this year, which is 16.29%. That means you started 2026 with roughly $1.12 million dollars. FartPolluter's comment landed because it's mathematically correct — you needed a seven-figure starting stack to produce this result. That's not a criticism of you personally, it's just context that the post doesn't provide. Here's where it gets interesting. The S&P 500 is up 11.09% so far this year. You beat it by about 5 points, which is genuinely respectable. But the Nasdaq 100 is up 18.61% — you trailed it by 2 points. Your return for 2026 lands exactly between SPY and QQQ, which is the return profile of someone holding a balanced large-cap portfolio with a moderate tech tilt. Nothing wrong with that. But look at your equity curve in that screenshot. It's smooth. It rises almost continuously with tiny blips. That is not what a low-float penny stock portfolio looks like. Low-float trading produces jagged, violent curves with gut-punch drawdowns. What you're showing looks like broad market exposure, not a hand-curated watchlist of overlooked micro-caps filtered through 55-day moving averages. Now the method itself. You describe watching price action around 5/13/34/55-day moving averages and changes in volume and liquidity. Those are tools. Every charting platform has them and every retail trader uses them. What's missing from your description is any specificity about what you're actually looking for — what configuration signals an entry, what signals an exit, what your position sizing looks like, what your actual win rate is. "I look for stability in multi-stage trends" is a sentence that could describe anything or nothing. And then the post ends with a funnel. Not a shared watchlist, not a specific example, not a trade breakdown — just "send me a DM and I'll invite you to the free group." Your only replies in this thread are "Send invitation." Not a single response discussing the actual methodology you came here to share. Maybe the group is genuinely educational and free forever. Maybe you're a millionaire who got bored and wants to give back. Both are possible. But from what's actually visible here — vague method description, unattributed returns, smooth curve that doesn't match the strategy described, and a CTA that ends at a private group — there's not enough here to act on. If you want to actually help people, post a specific trade: ticker, why you entered, what the setup was, where you put your stop. One real example is worth more than a hundred free groups.

Jealous_Bookkeeper20

Short-term drops like this aren't usually driven by changes in company fundamentals. When volatility rises, risk-parity funds and CTA trend-followers sell mechanically to hit their volatility targets. That selling gets accelerated by market maker delta-hedging. When option open interest shifts, dealers must sell the underlying shares to hedge their positions, which adds mechanical downward pressure.

Reasonable-Pass-2456

This week we have a lot of selling off area and factors. CTA, PCE, that call is very risky tbh.

trumpdiego

Just remember kids CTA is seller in all scenarios this week 👀 you know what that means

Mean_Bumblebee1945

COT commitment of trader data shows that way over 100B worth of stocks will get dumped by large CTA funds. All the algos that had the non stop buy bottons running, will systematically dump their holdings to the market.

Ahamadrayasbaboon

Defensive stocks still fall, but may not fall as hard. SCHD is a broad fund that has a greater concentration of defensive sectors than most. XLU, XLV, XLP, XLE. Some of those are still above their 1yr SMAs….you can let the exuberance catch first, as people rotate out of them when they get cocky.  Gold, I would not pick now. Corporate bonds suck. Long-term gov’t bonds suck.  SGOV is the ultimate hedge, as it does not correlate, but it may not beat inflation.  CTA does managed futures in commodities.   Time in the market beats timing the market. I’m holding onto my Qs. 

snkscore

Well if the alternative proposed portfolio 60/40 then 40% bonds is a bigger bet than doing a 60/25/15. The main ETFs are mostly DBMF, CTA, and KMLM. DBMF attempts to mimic one of the main managed futures indexes, but it uses replication, trying to model and reverse engineer what the top managed futures hedge funds do but for much less expense ratio. [https://totalrealreturns.com/n/USSTOCKS,DBMF,BND](https://totalrealreturns.com/n/USSTOCKS,DBMF,BND) You can see when the COVID crash happens both bonds and managed futures don't move much and when we get the big 2022 drawdown with inflation stocks and bonds go down but DBMF goes up. If you did some rebalancing at some point you'd be coming out really well. Managed futures are not correlated with stocks or bonds, so this gives another asset type.

Yory_Alsik

I think BOA, JPM , or Goldman (cant remember which one) were publishing articles that they were seeing massive CTA inflows very early april and then we had one of the most historic 8-week bull run of all time. They don't always seem to be wrong and I don't think they were advising anyone to sell back then (though different arms of their business could have had different opinions).

Ahamadrayasbaboon

I hedge with CTA and defensive stock sector ETFs, plus a small T-bill position. I was hedging with gold, too, but not so much lately. 

Rocket_Man54321

if you need a hold hedge that isnt dead money or VOO/VT, DBMF is a CTA hedge fund tracking ETF (kinda like the Nancy one but for hedge funds) that I think is a sleeper pick among the AI rug pull frenzy. idk if ppl even hedge at all though 🤷‍♂️

New-Specialist-2594

QMHNX/QSPNX/CTA/DBMF on the Long side. XRT/TNA/EDC/FDIS/XLT/XBI,/IYT...etc on the short side. All depends on SMA/EDA. 70ish avg CAGR last 8-9 yrs. 10-15% CAGR in 2022. Works like a charm.

UncouthMarvin

CTA and KMLM. But I'm highly regarded

Ok_GAINZ

CTA's been pumping Viagra for months. These hards-on, just wont fade.

GoodInvestGroup

If only you didn’t start with trolling and name calling we could entertain the community by exchanging tax transcripts. Now for homework for your next reply, research and tell me the difference simulation makes for algo trading. Also look up CFTC and CTA compliance requirements for futures trading. Last but not least, do you believe anything in the age of AI or do you prefer to trust numbers you can observe in real time, massage historically and copy to test yourself?

_TheOoze_

True degens ride the CTA.

Emotional-Breath-838

Cash is trash. If you want something that can run when the market is down or simply holds up better when things are tanking, here’s what I found that requires further research. (Don’t let their poor performance in a raging bull market fool you. Sometimes that’s a feature.) DBMF, CTA, KMLM these are managed futures that can go short or long as needed to offset a crisis. CAOS is an ETF that serves as a crash risk with S&P 500 protective puts strategy designed for sharp market sell offs. BTAL is long low-beta stocks and short high-beta stocks. It benefits when the high beta stocks crash. TAIL holds treasuries plus out of the money S&P 500 puts. PIT is diversified commodities like energy, metals, livestock, agriculture. USMV is equities but it’s the minimum volatility. It will go down when everything else does but much less. I group them like this: True crash protection: CAOS, TAIL, BTAL Diversifiers: PIT, DBMF, CTA, KMLM Lower risk equity: USMV I also keep cash in preferred stocks like STRC and SATA. They pay out fantastic distributions but they’re subject to the fluctuations of both the market and BTC.

CornerOne238

Look at KMLM and CTA

Thebaxxxx

All companies take note, if youre gonna dillute the shares, hide it behind a hype ai headline so CTA algos pump your stock. Suresh is playing the game so good how can you not admire

Smallestsak

at some point you have to have conviction in your thesis as well though. Following the market’s short term behavior because the market is omnipotent is just being a CTA algo.

ants_are_everywhere

I've noticed a trend of markets closing *just* green. In the absence of barrier options for indexes, this may be caused by manipulation of the futures market to drive trend signals used by CTA algorithms.

CornerOne238

Just buy CTA and let it ride whatever direction market goes lol

vsladko

In Chicago it feels 50/50 tbh. Though majority of the time I just take the CTA or bike

skymagic

looks like Jane Street turned off the CTA algos for some reason

Thebaxxxx

A revolution is upon us men. And it all starts with poet. This is like game stank on crack. > state street has had a chokehold on major tech sentiment for far too long and they take advantage of this. No company is worth 5 trilli and no ones making 500 billion a year. Its all made up. They couldnt do the accounting right even if they tried. > its a never ending scheme that all the elite are in and ruins the fun of trading. The fed, the puntus, they all use that shit for their own need. > poet is the start of something new. Based outta signapore. They got the defiance people to start a leveraged etf on their stock. They have no debt and answer to no one. They achieve funding through deluting the stock. > wallstreet hates them becouse they see themselves reflected off of poet. Signapore is likely involved indirectly with the stock to ensure its survival and pulse is maintained. Ive seen CTA's come and go from poet, ive seen jane street employ their little game. Theyre all getting fucked on poet becouse theres a much larger 3rd party at play on this particular mid cap. > poet will steadily climb at a pleasant rate and defiance will likley co-found a proxy company out of signapore and continue adding to their catalogue. > it doesnt fucking matter that they burn cash. Theyre making stuff. Thats all elon had to do for 10 years, make stuff and burn cash. All rationality is off the table thanks to state street, but they cant have this one.

gamjatang111

CTA buys put, markett get short squeezed stock go up. CTA buys calls, market gets gemma squeezed stock goes up. I see

ecoburner87

US govt algos triggered this whole CTA and momentum trade run up and they will keep pumping til Bessent gives his insiders the sign to short 

95Daphne

It definitely isn’t, and in fact, I’d say it’s become more and more clear that post-COVID crash moves have become less and less being about organic buying and selling. It’s been more about… Options market games in the big Nasdaq stocks (this started to be a thing in late 2019 and was temporarily interrupted, so this is going on 8 years here). Trend follower type stuff (though I’d think the CTA shorts would’ve been covered by like last week lmao). 0DTEs Vanna/gamma (so more options stuff) If you don’t understand options, it’s best to just not get mad about it and not entirely leave the market at any point.

Kirko_Cousins

QQQ past the call wall, super-positive gamma. CTA flip imminent?

ShelterBubbly7854

Fair point, but I want to clarify a couple things. The site mention was in response to someone directly asking what I use to track the flow/screen. It was not the purpose of the post, and I’m not trying to turn the thread into an ad. Also, the “0 paid subscribers / $0 revenue” post was not a complaint. It was me sharing a founder update and asking for feedback in an appropriate business/startup community. That is very different from advertising inside this sub. Have you seen me post an actual ad here, ask people to subscribe, or drop a CTA in the original post? The post was about the trading process: unusual flow, VWAP confirmation, avoiding failed open spikes, and tracking what actually worked vs what did not. I understand the skepticism because I am building in this space but please correct me if I am actively promoting or running ads and I will adhere to your cease and desist. :)

Ragebait_Destroyer

No, these people really believe a 6 trillion dollar market is smaller than a 1 trillion dollar market. They actually can't do basic math. CTA/momentum buyer are why it's high, unfortunately for longs momentum trading works the same on the way up as it does on the way down.

Ragebait_Destroyer

Mostly CTA buyers, and retail. That's done now.

skymagic

I could be wrong but I feel like the delulu CTA's are fully allocated by now 🤣

TreGet234

Thoughts on managed futures etf? Gemini mentioned them as a 2008 crash hedge. Though CTA recently surged to ath so probably a bad time to buy.

Agitated_Regular9593

Honestly this shit is like 65% liquidity and passive CTA buying. It’ll go higher. Massive inflation + all of earnings concentrated In tech businesses that are largely independent or temporarily insulated from oil prices. Effectively renders federal reserve completely powerless to stop inflation unless they hike rates like +5% at minimum. Cannot serve gigantic US debt unless interest rates are essentially negative in real terms- they did this after world war 2. Inflated the debt away and robbed the consumer in doing so. TGA gonna dump funds collected from tax season back into the banking system. +1.5 trillion of liquidity. Fed cannot cut for shit for a while, liquidity entering system consistently. It’s a bubble. And it is ridiculous. But unless something materially changes about the ai optimism that fundamentally shows us it is bullshit (these companies aren’t really expected to turn a profit until 2030), then it’ll probably pump at least until the VC and private credit guys can get exit liquidity for space x and open ai ipo. Biggest actual point of failure is Oracle probably being unable to service its own debt or complete data centers in time with the contracts they’ve signed. The financial engineering could unwind things just due to construction delays or other relatively benign things. I guess what I’d say is that the liquidity dynamics that govern the market say we will probably go higher— for the record I am extremely bearish and think this shit is insane and we are setup for something that is on par with the Great Depression.

Mean_Bumblebee1945

All you had to read was the Goldman sachs CTA report that hedge funds will buy equities worth 87 and 70B with 2x lecerage last week and the one before. The buying spree has ended Friday.

bemeandnotyou

Yes, well aware that every mouthpiece on TV repeatedly saying the same thing. Also CTA's are riding that trend, however White collar entry jobs are getting erased and major corp has been announcing layoffs coupled with low hire=? Recession or at the very least an excuse for a cut.

James161324

Rally has been driven by retail inflows and CTA were heavy short and has flipped exposure to long

ecoburner87

hedge funds and CTA buying - big institutions aren't piling in

salacious_lion

I'm convinced that this entire rally was just Trump manipulating the market now. I don't believe any of this bullshit about CTA's or valuation anymore. It's pure retardation.

dontslambro

More CTA cash getting deployed this hour

dontslambro

Can’t even go negative for the session open. Fuck CTA

dontslambro

Keep seeing articles about 35 billion CTA money came in last week and they will deploy another 25 billion this week. So basically this market won’t go down until May

Camusknuckle

Thanks for introducing me to the concept of CTA algos

MutaliskGluon

Yeah ive definitely been wrong on price action and how the market would respond. I foolishly think the market is forward looking and related to consumer spending and driving companies profits (apparently only AI CapEx and CTA flows matter) Funnily enough, i predicted the sell off literally perfectly a month+ in advance. I even actually called 3 mondays ago as a "potential bottom" based on my charting but my bias of being a roided up grizzly bear prevented me from acting on it. https://imgur.com/a/Il1sYEq Overlay that with what SPY did and holy shit. I even ended the prediction after we took out the 649 low because that was the area where it would either continue or bounce.

RenfrowsGrapes

Market went up 12% because massive CTA algorithms said they needed equity

Puzzleheaded_Tie5967

CTA buying

Plenty_Psychology545

You are right. It is not human but it was not HFT as well. CTA finds were responsible for the current steep increase. Looking at the price action on Friday it seems CTA funds are done. I was happy to do day trading and gain 50% compared to what i would have gained by buy and hold but i am not complaining.

WillTheGreat

Extreme gamma exposure at SPX 7000 level is the proof. Meaning that will serve as the magnet for the stock market, considering how big that exposure is it means any move below 7000 will see heavy selling from dealers to cover the puts. Dealers bought those 7000 at a $82 premium, but because they're ITM the risk for dealers is they will have to buy to cover if the market keeps going up. These assumptions are based on large flow of money. CTA inflows is based on factual data and historical trends, large momentum based hedge funds buying the market in rapid succession in historical proportion leads to consolidation for the upcoming weeks. Any good trader should've acknowledged the potential for a massive rally by the massive gamma exposure. The capitulation started at 6850 because that's the top of the $37b institutional collar sandwich (6850/6550). Meaning a break below 6550 would lead to massive selling (which happened, SPX dropped 200 bp in 2 days), and a move above 6850 would result in capitulation because dealers need to cover...which means buying calls and ES futures to hedge. Right now there's approx. $30b+ collar at the 7000 level split between May and June. When the collar is ITM means whichever institution placed that bet is looking for a downside reversal in the market. Given the size of the position, 7000 is your magnet. Consolidating around that level. The market will likely swing 2-3% around that magnet given the gamma exposure. The level to watch on the downside is 6850. That leaves the puts ITM and above the premium, meaning there will be heavy downside risk as dealers reposition to cover. It's not about being smart, if learning how to position yourself to maximize your returns by understand where money is going. Which levels need to be defended by institutional buyers and sellers.

WillTheGreat

> Where is the proof for each of them? or you based them from your own eyeball observation? Then if ultimately all you can say is there will be volatility, then where is the thought leadership? Even my the grandma selling pancakes can tell me there is volatility. So what are you trying to predict? That there will be movements? Wow. Incredible. Extreme gamma exposure at SPX 7000 level is the proof. Meaning that will serve as the magnet for the stock market, considering how big that exposure is it means any move below 7000 will see heavy selling from dealers to cover the puts. Dealers bought those 7000 at a $82 premium, but because they're ITM the risk for dealers is they will have to buy to cover if the market keeps going up. These assumptions are based on large flow of money. CTA inflows is based on factual data and historical trends, large momentum based hedge funds buying the market in rapid succession in historical proportion leads to consolidation for the upcoming weeks. Any good trader should've acknowledged the potential for a massive rally by the massive gamma exposure. The capitulation started at 6850 because that's the top of the $37b institutional collar sandwich (6850/6550). Meaning a break below 6550 would lead to massive selling (which happened, SPX dropped 200 bp in 2 days), and a move above 6850 would result in capitulation because dealers need to cover...which means buying calls and ES futures to hedge. Right now there's approx. $30b+ collar at the 7000 level split between May and June. When the collar is ITM means whichever institution placed that bet is looking for a downside reversal in the market. Given the size of the position, 7000 is your magnet. Consolidating around that level. The market will likely swing 2-3% around that magnet given the gamma exposure. The level to watch on the downside is 6850. That leaves the puts ITM and above the premium, meaning there will be heavy downside risk as dealers reposition to cover. It's not about being smart, if learning how to position yourself to maximize your returns by understand where money is going. Which levels need to be defended by institutional buyers and sellers.

I_am_Nerman

CTA forced buying

Suitable-Quarter-427

Bro, you've just discovered the single most important rule of markets: price moves on the gap between expectation and reality, not on the news itself. The blockade didn't tank the market because the market had already been pricing in escalation for 3 weeks — that's why your mid-March DCA caught the drop. By the time it actually happened on Friday, every dealer desk, every CTA, every macro fund had already shorted oil-sensitive names, bought defense, bought vol, and rotated out of risk. When the actual headline hit, there was nobody left to sell. So what happens? Short covering, vol crush, and a 2% rip higher because positioning was offsides to the downside. This is literally why "buy the rumor, sell the news" exists as a cliché. It's not a cliché, it's the mechanic. A few things that would have shown you this before the rip, not after: Dealer gamma positioning — when dealers are short gamma into a feared event, they have to buy the dip mechanically once the event resolves. Friday morning dealers were max short gamma on SPX. Rip was almost guaranteed. VIX term structure — front-month VIX was ~28, 3-month was ~19. That's a steep backwardation, which historically resolves with a vol crush + equity rip ~70% of the time within 5 trading days. Put/call skew — was at the 95th percentile vs the last 12 months on Thursday. When everyone is hedged, the surprise is to the upside. CTA positioning — trend models were already 80% short equities going into the weekend. They had no more selling left to do. None of this is hindsight magic — it was all visible Friday morning if you knew where to look. WTF do you actually do: Stop trying to time DCA around news. The whole point of DCA is that you've decided in advance you can't predict this stuff. Mid-month paycheck → invest mid-month. Don't second-guess it. Over 20 years the timing-around-news effect rounds to zero, the staying-invested effect doesn't. If you do want to time it, time it on positioning data, not headlines. Headlines are public, positioning tells you where the pain trade is. Pain trade is where price goes. Keep a small "tactical" sleeve (5-10% of portfolio) for when positioning is screaming extreme. Leave the other 90% on autopilot. I built akhedgepartners.com basically for this exact frustration — dealer gamma, VIX term structure, CTA positioning, and put/call skew all on one screen with the AK Co-Pilot that'll literally answer "is the market positioned for a relief rally" in plain English. Won't make you right every time, but you'll stop being surprised by moves like Friday's. And honestly? The fact that you noticed the gap between "news bad, price up" means your instincts are better than 95% of retail. You just need the data to back up the pattern recognition. Keep DCAing, the market will continue to make zero sense, and 30 years from now you'll be glad you didn't try to outsmart it.

xghtai737

Bottoms are formed when value investors step in. Tops are formed when momentum slows down and the trend followers step out. We were seeing the process of momentum coming to an end prior to the war. The momentum investors have fast and slow algorithms. It takes a while for the slow ones to turn. Those are the big ones that really move markets. If those had turned, we might have been looking at a bear market this year. But, the rumor that the war was coming to a close brought in speculative buying which pushed the market up high enough that it triggered CTA trend following buying. It was mostly just algorithmic buying. 'The price is going up, therefore I must buy. The price is going down, therefore I must sell.' It's mindless trend following with a ton of money behind it. If you're looking for a deeper reason than a short pop on speculation that the war was ending followed by tons of trend following money being triggered to buy, I think you'll be disappointed.

pm-me-your-pm-now

More than this they will create the menu design and probably ask you to come back after 6 hours to create a CTA button.

GoZukkYourself

Goldman (Garrett): the speed of CTA global equity buying over the last week is top five all time … +$86 billion over that time frame... gs futures strats have this cohort modelled to purchase an additional $70 billion of the next 5 sessions (flat tape), while past performance is not indicative of future returns … \[the three\] previous episodes of \[similar\] accelerated demand have seen short term consolidation, followed by medium term strength for S&P500 (t+1 month =+ 2.19% avg return, t+3m = +8.18% avg return) https://preview.redd.it/3nx2s1rnisvg1.png?width=680&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a7f24121dbb12a7c486a752fbee42d8c88b6021

Ensemble_InABox

Rolled a 6/6 CTA!!

Ahamadrayasbaboon

CTA? The commodities ETF?

IvoryTowerResident

thats literally what happened? Look at CTA positioning prior to this rally

I_am_Nerman

**CTA bought back at the fastest pace on record**

filthimartini

One data center DOES NOT move the index. Options move the index. The tail wags the dog brother. The JPM collar moves the index. Peak Vega moves the index. Options positioning and VOL control / CTA price agnostic buyers can cause liquidity cascades. For your own sake turn off cnbc bro. If you don’t understand what I’m saying, put it in chat GPT. You don’t have to stay dumb. It’s a choice.

moboo

I’m talking further out than Q1. Again, care to guess which way they’re moving? (Also, for your statement to make sense you have to essentially claim that the prices before the upward move were more or less “right.”) Why are we talking stale/lagging data when good alt data better captures now? If old government data is the best you’ve got then no wonder you’re surprised. Don’t assume you’re operating on the best info if you’re perpetually living 40-75 days in the past. And none of this accounts for *positioning* and flows. You can’t have a market structure like we did and find this V-shape move all that shocking if the passive bid was maintained (employee tax receipts rising), CTA buying showed up, LOs and HFs were as bearishly positioned as they’d been since the post Liberation Day lows, 2022 lows, and Covid lows.

Teckel22

It's al about the CTA's man. You know these billionaire investors called the CTA's are stupid man. If a line crosses another line they are forced to buy and or sell. And right now they're forced to buy dude. CTA's are stupid man

Prize_Motor8689

Few things: - crude oil fell today, boosting risk assets. Talks are still ongoing and 20 ships made it thru strait of Hormuz in the last 24 hours. - PPI inflation was cooler than expected. 10yr fell, good macro conditions for US stocks. - lots of short covering. Look at short indexes and how they moved today. - CTA data shows large buys from institutional investors coming. - retail investor activity higher today than avg past few weeks. - really strong day for mag 7 stocks, which carry the indexes. - airlines ripping because of the potential United/Jet Blue merger. Short term market volatility doesn’t have to make sense, but seems like investors are shifting their attention to upcoming earnings.

95Daphne

Unless PPI moves markets because of how ugly it is, probably won’t be as interesting of a session today. May be pretty flattish. When April VIX expires though, it’ll be more likely you see weakness, but if we don’t see much movement downward, the CTA shorts apparently haven’t been fully covered.

Wonderful-Stable9839

Early. It's earning säsong and CTA forced buy. Sell in May and go away. Next seasonality drop will happen in early May.

Bene_observari

You know someone is going to get paid for absorbing the selloff that would be occurring right now. The CTA is sitting right under the bid just taking it like a champ right now.

WordsHappenedHere

Nailed it. This is why contrarian plays usually work so well, especially at market bottoms. People think the market is this thing designed to reward the most. It’s not. It’s designed to reward the fewest amount of people possible. Yes of course you can simply DCA overtime and win. But you have to be a buyer in weakness. And you have to buy and hold. That’s the only really certain way to win. But short term? It’s a game of options flow and market mechanics. Which CTA desks are still short? Which quant funds are pressing the down side? Which MMs need to hedge further? The best way I’ve found to read this is just watching options sweeps flow. Like yesterday, right at the open a huge SPX sweep came in for $6,600 strikes when we opened down near 6,470. I mean it was right at the open and was 0dt. As soon as I saw it I knew they were going to dip and rip the market. Closed all my puts and just waited to EOD to reload some tail risk.

CUbuffGuy

401k auto-buy day, also many CTA vol funds just passively buying mean reversion upward. With any lack of news defauult will be up from here. But as soon as we get news and volume comes in, it will reprice quick

Meekiaketchup

Funds (e.g. pension funds, teachers fund etc) have to rebalance after a quarter. After the straight line drop in march they have to buy before going into April. CTA accounts have been net shorting throughout march. So going into April they have to cover their shorts.

DeezCodeNutz

CTA's be like, 'Bruh, we be too short! Gotta shrek it now!"

CUbuffGuy

CTA funds go brrrrrr Love me some momentum

bemeandnotyou

LMAO, Rumor on the street that Ren tech is in the red past year, CTA's are getting gang banged by weekly truth/untruth.

Ahamadrayasbaboon

Everything correlates if a downturn goes long enough.  But, managed futures, like CTA don’t always correlate, since it’s commodities.  Consumer Staples/Consumer Defensive like XLP and RSPS have low correlation to SP500.  Energy sector, utility sector, and healthcare sector have relatively low correlation.   Things with low correlation tend to have the poorest performance long-term. CTA, XLP, and RSPS are among the small hedges I buy dips of occasionally. I can’t back that strategy up with data. 

Snowedin-69

I noticed the model honed on a trending strategy. Does it includes commodities, metals, international equity, and bonds trends, or a subset? I have recently dabbled in trending ETFs such as DBMF and CTA and wondering how close either are to your scenario.

No-Consequence-8768

You should have been moving money here & there these Past few months. You should have your Growth in line & your Hedges in line 24/7. I move into more of QMHNX, CTA, ORR, DBMF, QSPNX, etc... yet mostly because I don't have to Sell to Buy I Short Numerous ETFs, some Leveraged to take advantage of the Math decay.... You you say for The conflict happening in Middle East, somewhere far, far away from here.... I bought some Oil & Inverse travel related ETFs...

w562d67Z

Would love for us to stay in touch. I'm a CTA and a trader working for a $10 bil RIA so I owuld be very interested in this as a service since I almost always have a short vol book in ES and risk assets.

CUbuffGuy

CTA funds are the worst thing to happen to this market since algorithmic trading

Fishherr

Dealers are still long from 6800-6700. CTA for BOFA, GS is 6735-6775. You would need a big boy to really sell hard and get a full downward affect. You just donated to Wall Street unfortunately. Best of luck to you.

Used_Bag6446

I would recommend looking at the holdings of some popular ETFs and then constructing your own “basket” of stocks. The fees on these sector specific ETFs tend to be high, and they often include tons of names that are only tangentially related to the sector. CIBR, for example, has some really odd picks like Leidos, Booz Allen, BlackBerry. Cisco is the number one holding. And it’s not even actively managed. It’s a 0.58% fee just to track an index, the Nasdaq cybersecurity CTA index. I went through a similar situation in 2021 between SOXX and making my own picks in the semi industry. Glad I took the basket approach.

IslandExact429

I refuse to believe that the billion spent on hedging will go to 0 Will we have a liberation day sell off? Probably not. A quick 5%. I think CTA’s and trade desks would call for this You can’t squeeze up neutral gamma without catalyst and a positive trend

HesFromBarrancas

WTI & DXY CTA/commercial positions were at almost historic short levels entering January. Unemployment bottoming. Inflation rising. Big trend change coming on those assets. Very early innings.

no_simpsons

Nice engagement. Since you mentioned you're retired, consider less focus on equities. This doesn't mean "60/40". I mean maybe core/satellite where the core is a blend of equities + gold + CTA trend + small bitcoin + international + other diversifiers, bonds or volatility, or commodities. Can get a pretty damn decent CAGR. The more diversifiers you have the more rebalancing premium you can harvest in a sideways market.

IslandExact429

Maybe Goldman wasn’t lying about CTA selling

Turbulent-Eye-146

It seems like the volatility of the market triggered the CTA forced sale, as warned by Goldman Sachs. [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/risks-rise-bitcoin-gold-silver-211315482.html](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/risks-rise-bitcoin-gold-silver-211315482.html)

IndependentQuit2897

Watching execution, not chasing candles. For $SRPT specifically, I’m focused on follow-through from the 3-year EMBARK data and whether sentiment starts catching up to fundamentals and especially with the recent approval for CTA in New Zealand.