Quants surfing the momentum of assets around the world have caught the bullish wave powering government bonds in a tentative reprieve for the besieged $355 billion industry.
Trend followers, or commodity trading advisers, have posted their best quarter since late 2017 after recession panic juiced long wagers tracking interest-rate markets, according to a Societe Generale SA index of the largest funds.
The bad news: They’re only up 1.9 percent, even as stocks and crude post their best first-quarter performance in over a decade. Automated traders have largely missed out on the biggest gains on offer as their trading signals flash caution after last year’s market meltdown.
All told, whipsawing trends continue to dog the industry after the worst outflows in over 10 years in 2018.
“What hurt trend followers last year were these really choppy markets,” said Sandrine Ungari, head of cross-asset quantitative research at SocGen. “Trends in bonds tend to be more consistent especially when it’s a bull environment triggered by recession fears and more dovish central bank policies.”
SocGen reckons this breed of quant is now modestly overweight stocks, neutral commodities and notably long bonds -- suggesting pain in the months ahead if risk assets rally on and Treasury bears emerge from hibernation en masse. Ten-year U.S. government bond yields have jumped about 10 basis points to 2.47 percent from the low reached last week.
CTAs and macro hedge funds as a combined group on Credit Suisse Group AG’s prime brokerage have increased stock exposures in the futures market close to levels notched just before the brutal sell-off in the fourth quarter.
With government bonds and risk assets sending conflicting signals on the business cycle, it’s unclear whether automated followers can ride decisive trends to catch up with hedge funds and the equity benchmark.
After CTAs rose to fame by notching double-digit returns during the financial crisis, they’ve largely flopped ever since. The SocGen CTA Index has climbed just 11 percent over the past decade -- seven percentage points behind the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index and a huge 232 percentage points behind the S&P 500.
Trend followers, which manage more than $350 billion according to estimates from BarclayHedge, have become acutely vulnerable to short-lived trends. Blame it on monetary shifts spurring rallies and sell-offs in quick succession, rising idiosyncratic risks such as Brexit, or sleepy algorithms.