After being the largest hedge fund strategy in 1990 representing 71% of the overall hedge fund assets global macro has shrunk and now only represents about 15% of total assets.  While most people assume that this dropoff in assets was due to poor performance the numbers actually show a totally different story.  In fact according to the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Indexes, global macro has been the number one investment strategy with a total return of 502% from 1994 through June 2009.  Compare that with a total return of 335% from long short equity or 321% from event driven funds.

Of course most investors also have a misguided perception that every trade is like the trade that “broke the Bank of England.”  That trade in 1992 made Soros and his Quantum Fund over $1 Billion in a few days and garnered a lot of publicity.  The funny thing is that in a study done later by the IMF it was shown that if anything hedge funds shorting the Pound actually dampened the effects.  And in interviews since it is obvious that while the position size was huge the realistic downside was not.  Yes, Soros had a $10 Billion position on that week but thats not the right way to look at it.  Instead he and his portfolio manager Stanley Druckenmiller figured that if they were wrong they would lose a few hundred million at worst and that if they were right they would earn a billion or more.  Anyone who has traded for any period of time will tell you that a trade that has a risk to reward ratio of 5:1 is a fantastic trade.  As you can see, not only did Soros and Druckenmiller not break a bank, but they also did not take a huge outsized risk.

So while most investors think that global macro is made up of a bunch of drunk cowboys that are always swinging for the fences the real stories, and the numbers behind them do not bear this out.  In fact if you look at what global macro has actually done you will see that macro traders are some of the best risk managers in the world.  In the chart below we have the Barclays Group Global Macro Index and the SP500.  Starting with $1000 from 1997 to the end of July 2009 the Global Macro Index delivered 219.77% with a worst case drawdown of 6.24%.  Contrast that with the SP500 which from 1997 tot he end of July 2009 only delivered 33.30% with a worst case drawdown of -52.56%. (click on chart to enlarge)

Barclays Group Global Macro Index Vs. SP500 Jan 1997-July 2009

The above chart shows how well that global macro has done in absolute terms since 1997 but what about the risk that they took to achive these results?  Well as you an see in the chart the dips in the macro index look a lot shallower and shorter then the dips in the SP500.  Looking at the actual drawdowns shows that this is in fact the case.

In the chart below we have the drawdowns of the SP500 and then the drawdowns of the Barclays Group Global Macro Index.  As you can see the SP500 has had two massive drawdowns in the last 12 years.  The SP500 dropped over -46% in 2002 and then dropped over -52% in 2008.  In fact as of the end of July 2009 the SP500 is still down over -36%.  Contrast this with the Barclays Global macro Index which has had a worst case drawdown of -6.42% and is currently only -3.22% away from new equity highs. (click on chart to enlarge)

Barclays Group Global Macro Index and SP500 drawdowns Jan 1997-July 2009

As you can see the perception of the global macro trader as a gunslinging cowboy is anything but the truth.  Instead they are some of the most consistent and risk adverse traders in the world.  In fact some of the hedge funds with the longest, and best, track records are global macro funds.  Three of the best and longest running global macro funds are Soros and his Quantum fund which have delivered north of 30% annually since 1967, Bruce Kovner and Caxton Associates have delivered over 25% annually since 1983, and Paul Tudor Jones and his BVI Global Fund has returned 23% annually since 1986.  Obviously these are some of the best of the best but can you name three other fund managers with returns like this, that also follow the same basic strategy?

So what enables global macro to do so well when everyone else is rapidly losing money?  Global macro does well because of the fact that it is entirely opportunistic.  Macro does not pigeonhole an investor into US equities or emerging market bonds, or European event arbitrage.  Instead macro enables investors to go wherever and whenever.  By trading all four major asset classes not only can macro traders generate uncorrelated returns but can also see dislocations that other investors miss, or in some cases are forced to miss.  For example if a long/short equity manager thinks that we are on the verge of hyperinflation and wants to be long gold he has two different options.  He can go long companies that should do well in the face of inflation and then go short stocks that should do poorly.  The macro trader on the other hand has far more flexibility and can go long commodities, go long and short currencies, go short regular bonds, long TIPS, and can still go long and short stocks.  The opportunity set is much larger for the global macro trader then it is for the long/short equity manager.

Going forward we see no reason to believe that global macro will not continue to outperform.  When we are in a bubble and everyone is making money, macro will perform inline or slightly underperform, and when things go crazy and everyone else is losing money global macro will be generating positive returns.

Happy Trading,

Dave@TheMacroTrader.com

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Macro Trading has several advantages to regular trading or investing.  Most people either are long only or they trade one asset class.  Instead of focusing on one area of the financial markets, Global Macro Traders focus on the best risk to reward opportunities they can find regardless of asset class or whether it is long or short.  By not tying ourselves to one source of returns we can better balance our risk profile with our return objectives.  Global Macro allows one the flexibility to not be dependent on any one thing or be held hostage by the downside of a particular asset.

Here we are comparing the returns of the Barclays Global Macro Index against the SP500.  As you can see the Macro Index has performed significantly better than the SP500 from 1997 through the end of October 2008.

While the Global Macro Index is currently in a drawdown it is far smaller than that of the SP500. The SP500 is down -37.47% while the Global Macro Index is only down -7.14%.

Anyone that is still tied to the notion that all you need to do is buy and hold has lost money over the last 10 years. While we hope that investors are finally coming around to the idea of absolute returns and risk management, we also realize that investors by nature are irrational and that they will continue to repeat the same mistakes.

We here at The Macro Trader try to generate absolute returns because a relative loss is still a loss. If you are interested in learning more please send us an e-mail.

Happy Trading,
The Macro Trader

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Nothing really changed this week in our Equity Risk Index.  We are still only 12.50% bullish which of course means that we are very bearish.  When the index is this bearish we basically step aside or go short.  Right now there are some relative yield and sentiment indicators that are slightly bullish but not one model that we follow is actually on a buy signal.

We will continue to update our Equity Risk Index each week on the site.  Among our many proprietary tools that we use at The Macro Trader  we also have risk indexes for fixed income, precious metals, and currency markets.  If you have any questions feel free to e-mail us.  If you want to get the risk index as well as our other posts in your RSS reader just click on the RSS button on the right hand side of the page.  And of course if you have any questions regarding the newsletter simply shoot us an e-mail.

Happy Trading,

The Macro Trader

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We received a few e-mails in regards to our last post where we discussed our performance. One of the things that was brought up a few times was why we have self-admittedly taken on too little risk. The simple answer is that we don’t like to lose money. Drawdowns are not something that we enjoy that much.

For a better explanation, let us first explain how we trade. Our basic method of scaling risk is described in the Stanley Druckenmiller interview in The New Market Wizards by Jack Schwager and is further explained in the interview with Christian Siva-Jothy in the book Inside The House Of Money by Steven Drobny. You start out by generating positive returns, and once you are up enough for the year, you can start taking on more risk. For example, if we are up 20%, we don’t mind taking on a risk that could potentially take us down 5%. We’d still be up 15% for the year. On the other hand, if we are only at 0% for the year a -5% hit would be really bad. So basically we trade away with strict loss limits until we are up enough to start raising our risk limits.

We strive to deliver good trading ideas on an absolute and on a risk-adjusted basis. A 50% gain is great, but if you had to risk 100% to get there, then it doesn’t look too good anymore. In that case, being wrong once blows up your account.

You can find more of the same in several other newsletters. For instance, if you pick up a copy of the Hulbert Financial Digest, you can find scores of newsletters that manage to have one 100%+ year and then proceed to lose -87% the next year, -37% the year after that, and so on. Trade like that and you’ll be lucky to have a whopping $10 bucks left in your account.

Happy Trading,

The Macro Trader

If you would like to receive our new FREE course “Macro Trading 101″ put your e-mail in the box below.

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Here at TheMacroTrader.com we use several different strategies across several asset classes. Why do we do this? For several reasons not the least of which is so that we can find and exploit as many of the best risk to reward situations as possible. If you tie yourself to one strategy or one asset class you are limiting your potential opportunites.

In this article we will focus on using systems. As we have already mentioned we use several systems. Some are purely automatic. If they say buy we will go and buy if they say to sell we will sell. We also have several systems that leave us a lot of discretion as to what we do. We look at many different variables depending on the asset class and time horizon. For instance in some of our short term systems we only use prices of the actual instrument to determine buys and sells. On some of our longer term systems we use economic data such as interest rates, market valuations, technical studies, inflation, competing yields, etc.

Right now we have several systems for domestic and foreign equities, domestic bonds (treasuries, corporates, and junk), precious metals, currencies, commodities, volatility trading, and asset allocation. All of the systems we use have historically beaten their benchmarks with less risk. So over time we can expect to outperform.

As noted earlier we also have systems that leave us with varying amounts of discretion. Some of the systems are only used to alert us of a potential trade. We then go in and look to see if we feel it is worth doing. For instance one of our systems is designed to highlight potential option trades across several different indexes. Its main variable is volatility. While we could possibly use it as a stand alone system at this point in time we think it is better used to highlight potential opportunities.

So how do we use it? We update it every week and most weeks it will show us a few different areas worth looking at. We than go in and research those potential trades to assess the situation. If the right conditions are present and we can see a catalyst we will then go in and put on the trade. If not we will continue monitoring the situation in case it changes. While we only put on about a third of the trades that it presents us we feel it is an invaluable tool because it highlights many situations that we would otherwise miss. To sum it up in one sentence it highlights promising situations. That is but one example of using a systematic process in our trading.

In summary using systematic processes in trading allow us to cover more asset classes and more countries. It allows us to spot more opportunities and to more consistently achieve above average and less correlated returns.

Happy Trading,

The Macro Trader

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