As part of a regular exercise, we scan the NFA register for new and closed managers. This report will be developed over time and will be a recurring feature. We would like to highlight that some of the closures and registrations are due to corporate (re)structuring and does not necessarily indicate that the manager has shut down their trading program. The number of managers registered with the NFA declined by 30, which is in line with prior months.
After a brief uptick in June, the number of managers continued to decrease at approximately the average speed of the last year. The trend is now pretty consistent, in a regular month, some 30 entities withdraw their NFA status. August, featured a decrease in the number of managers seeking or doing business under the CTA registration. We observed a decrease in the number of active CTAs, in line with earlier estimates, with a net loss of 35 managers. We observed 21 new managers and 51 managers closed throughout August.
Key findings and discussion: With all indicators pointing towards decelerating, interest in smaller CTA/Managed Futures firms, it may not be surprising that there have been fewer CTAs (in aggregate) this month than we have seen in previous updates. It is, however, interesting to observe that closed outpaced new manager by a factor of two, on a consistent basis.
One of the key components of our methodology is having a clear view of the industry. We believe this is particularly important in this environment, given the fact that asset raising is more difficult and assets gravitate towards the larger managers.
Additional info can be found here: https://nilssonhedge.com/reports/new-and-closed/newnclosed-2020-august/
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