Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – The year 2023 proved to be more challenging for most trend-following managers compared to the exceptional performance seen in 2022. However, February of this year is once again showing promise for the managed futures space, including the small group trend-followers from the Nordics. Lynx Asset Management’s trend-following vehicle, Lynx, is leading the pack with an advance of 7.3 percent through this mid-week, followed by RPM Evolving CTA Fund and SEB Asset Allocation with advances exceeding 5.0 percent.
The Swedish-domiciled Lynx has gained 8.8 percent so far in 2024 through February 27, mirroring last year’s decline of 8.9 percent This decline followed the trend-following vehicle’s second-best annual performance in 2022, with a notable advance of 35.9 percent. Lynx Asset Management’s Systematic Macro vehicle, which emerged as the best-performing Nordic hedge fund in January with a 6.9 percent gain, continued its solid performance into the first half of February, achieving a gain of 4.0 percent.
RPM Evolving CTA Fund, which invests in a select group of young and evolving CTA managers, has advanced by 5.7 percent month-to-date through February 26, bringing its year-to-date performance to 5.5 percent. SEB’s quant-driven trend-follower, SEB Asset Selection, gained 5.5 percent during the same period in February. However, the fund managed by SEB’s Quantitative Strategies and Liquid Alternatives team had a better start to 2024 and has advanced 9.2 percent year-to-date.
Mandatum Asset Management’s managed futures vehicle has also seen positive performance in February, with a 3.5 percent gain through February 26. Mandatum Managed Futures Fund, which uses machine learning algorithms to select the right combination of momentum-based models for a given environment, was among the few trend-following funds in the Nordics to finish 2023 in positive territory after two solid months towards the end of the year.
This encouraging outlook for Nordic trend-following CTAs primarily reflects the performance of daily-traded trend-followers. Performance reports from funds with monthly liquidity are expected to provide further insights into this month’s environment for trend-followers. Notably, the SG CTA Index, which tracks a pool of CTAs from the largest managers, indicates an estimated industry gain of 5.6 percent through the mid-week period.
