The latest report from Preqin finds that increasing numbers of active investors and a positive general view of performance among existing investors have driven inflows into CTAs over recent quarters. The number of institutional investors actively investing in CTAs reached a record 1,067 in 2015, up from 1,017 in 2014. The total assets under management for CTAs is at $241bn as of the end of Q1, up from $204bn at the beginning of 2015.
Furthermore, 69% of investors interviewed at the end of 2015 reported that their CTA portfolios had met their performance expectations for the year, the second highest proportion of any leading hedge fund strategy. In the same survey, 29% of all hedge fund investors said they planned on increasing their exposure to CTAs in 2016, while only 5% intended to decrease it.
CTAs have seen four quarters of net inflows of capital since the start of 2015, with net asset flows of $38bn in new investor capital committed to the strategy. Although CTAs returned only -0.08% in 2015, 2016 began strongly with funds making gains of 1.52% in the first quarter. CTAs as a whole saw net inflows of $13.7bn in Q1 2016, the highest of any leading strategy.
New CTA launches peaked in 2013, with 153 funds launched in the year. Since then, the rate of launches has declined; there were just 73 new fund launches in 2015 and 12 so far in 2016, just 6% of all hedge fund inceptions.
“CTAs play an important role in a number of institutional investors’ portfolios. These vehicles, operating trading strategies across a wide range of commodity and financial markets, offer the possibility of returns with low correlation to other financial markets and can smooth returns in investor portfolios. With recent widespread turbulence, it is perhaps unsurprising that increasing numbers of investors have been attracted to CTAs’ potential for low correlation to other investments.
Partly as a result of this, so far in 2016 CTAs have seen the highest level of inflows across all leading hedge strategies. Despite a difficult performance year in 2015, CTAs have seen solid returns in the opening months of 2016, and if these gains persist we may yet see further inflows from investors,” said Amy Bensted, Head of Hedge Fund Products, Preqin.