New York-based Catalyst Capital Advisors and Aspect Capital, a London-based investment manager, have launched a new mutual fund that puts a new spin on the traditional 60/40 investment strategy.

The Catalyst/Aspect Enhanced Multi Asset Fund (CASIX) is billed as a fund that uses a traditional 60/40 strategy with a managed futures overlay that can hold long or short positions over 140 markets.

The futures provide an uncorrelated source of returns against the other aspects of the fund, said David Miller, co-founder and CIO of Catalyst.

“[A 60/40 allocation] has a great risk-adjusted return, but when you combine it with a good trend-following strategy, you get a dramatically better risk-adjusted return, at least historically,” he said.

The strategy is a timely one, Miller said, as the traditional 60/40 mix of stocks and bonds has not performed well in recent years because of the increased correlation of equity and fixed-income performance.

The firm says on its website that the "highly liquid, directionally unbiased nature of trend following with exposure to a broad spectrum of diverse financial and commodity markets has shown strong negative correlation to equities during sustained periods of market stress."

Catalyst Capital said its managed futures strategy provides more diversification than a traditional 60/40 fund through "increased asset class breadth and via the multiple time horizons which price trends are captured by the managed futures component."

Anthony Todd, CEO and co-founder of Aspect Capital, said believes a managed futures investment strategy is ideal for th current economic environment.

“Over the course of the next 10 years, the risk for investors is that the market conditions and the market environment that we’re going to see are going to be very different from the ones we’ve seen over the last 40 years,” he said.

The fund can work as part of an alternative allocation in a portfolio if an advisor is using an untraditional 50/30/20 allocation, Miller said. However, he believes the fund itself can serve as a new portfolio allocation model for advisors.

“It should get a materially better return than your typical model allocation that most financial advisors would build because most of them tend to be very capital inefficient,” he said.

The fund will have A-, C- and I-class shares, a $2,500 minimum and be available on major platforms, including Charles Schwab, TD, Pershing, Fidelity and E*Trade, firm officials said.

It has a 2.04% net expense cap with a 1.99% adjusted expense fee, Miller said.