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Global growth for 2015 is projected at 3.1 percent, 0.3 percentage point lower than in 2014, and 0.2 percentage point below the forecasts in the July 2015 World Economic Outlook (WEO) Update. Prospects across the main countries and regions remain uneven. Relative to last year, the recovery in advanced economies is expected to pick up slightly, while activity in emerging market and developing economies is projected to slow for the fifth year in a row, primarily reflecting weaker prospects for some large emerging market economies and oil-exporting countries.

Historically, periods of USD appreciation have led to outflows of investment dollars resulting in economic hardship, crisis and even regime change in emerging market nations. The 1997-1998 Asian crisis, the related default of Russia and the collapse of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, for instance, were precipitated by a strong USD and a rapid reversal of capital flows from Asia back to the U.S. It is estimated the crisis resulted in the repatriation of $250-$500 billion.

Over the past year, the real trade-weighted U.S. dollar (USD) index increased over 10%, fostering a slowing of global economic growth, increased volatility in financial markets and plummeting commodity prices. This serves as a reminder of the influence the USD has on global trade and asset markets. Periods of dollar appreciation, as highlighted in the graph below, are not well understood by the investing public as there have been only two major appreciation periods since the removal of the gold standard in 1971. The potential consequences from a third major USD appreciation can have a significant effect on expected asset class returns.

For the past several months, IASG has been in the process of updating the aesthetics of our site. To do this properly, we conducted an IASG user questionnaire to get a better sense of what users liked, disliked, and wanted to see more of…For the most part, feedback was incredibly good. Users loved the functionality […]

The IASG CTA Index has approximately 75% of managers updated through July performance with almost all sectors posting positive returns for the month. The one exception is the agricultural index where many managers struggled with grain pricing continuing downward pricing and many with expectations that there would be a bounce back in grains.

Between late June and end-July, U.S. agricultural prices traced an extraordinarily wide and rapid boom-and-bust, wild even for futures markets. The managers felt well-positioned in corn bullspreads, which did little despite the sharp changes in expectations for supply tightness; apparently it all occurred so fast that the commercial grain business was too frozen to assess and re-position. As December corn rose 90c per bushel in reaction to widespread flooding east of the Mississippi River, and then, après deluge, abruptly fell back 75c, the December-March spread narrowed only a scant 2c and then reversed by as much. The result was a crummy month for us.

Here is a list that I’ve developed for Individual investors to know the answers to or ask before investing their risk capital with a Commodity Trading Advisor or Professional Money Manager.  This checklist is ever evolving as new information comes to light or the dynamics change in the market place. Our hope in providing this […]

In order to fully get the “error” in selling grain at harvest and then buying calls to replace that grain, so as to still participate in possible higher prices you need to understand how carrying charges work in the grain markets. The definition of “carrying charges” is: an expense or effective cost arising from unproductive […]

Buying (Long) a Call Option: A basic option strategy to be familiar with and learn the advantages and disadvantages of is buying a Call Option (Long Call). Buying a call option is the opposite of buying a put option in that buying a call gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy the […]