With the lackluster returns in the equity markets, many investors are looking for alternatives for their investment dollars, one of the sectors attracting a lot of interest is the futures markets or commodity markets.

Many of these new investors in the futures markets are looking for someone experienced. They are looking for someone with an established track record to handle the trading decisions of their personal account. In the world of futures, these money managers are referred to as Commodity Trading Advisors or CTAs. Many investors wrongly assume that they do not qualify to have a CTA manage their personal futures account, I will attempt to clarify some of these misconceptions.

Reasons for this common misconception include:
- Investors do not know that managed futures with a documented track record exist for individual investors
- Investors assume that they would not qualify because of high initial account sizes
- Investors have heard the horror stories of a truck showing up at someones front door with a delivery of 5,000 bushels of Corn

Managed Futures has been an investment class that has historically been available to institutions and high net worth individuals, like everything this is changing. The track records and performance information for managed futures remains difficult to find for the average investor. While individual investors might assume that they would not meet the criteria of participating in a managed futures program, this is not always the case. Many managed futures programs have lower requirements than most would expect bringing managed futures as an asset class to the mainstream investor.

These managed futures programs have documented track records and the managers are required to be registered with both the NFA (National Futures Association) as well as the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission). All managers are required to provide potential clients with a disclosure document that covers the risks as well as the historical performance for their programs. Client accounts are established with a broker that introduces the account to the Manager.

Many investors wrongly assume that they do not qualify for a managed futures account because they assume that they need to meet high initial account balances in order to participate in these programs, this is just not true. Currently we offer a variety of managed futures programs. You might be surprised to learn that you can open a managed futures account with as little as $35,000.

The different managed futures programs that we offer are programs that have shown consistent positive returns with historically low volatility that are managed by proven Commodity Trading Advisors. While we understand that there are many investors and traders that are looking for triple digit yearly returns, experience has taught us that most investors are not looking for the flash in the pan program that shows high volatility but are more comfortable with a consistent return with lower volatility. One of the benefits of investing with a managed futures program is that the performance of the program does not depend on the direction of anyone particular market. Managed Futures have shown to have a low correlation with stock markets. These programs are not dependent on the market direction to provide returns.

Many have heard the old story of I knew someone that had to take delivery of corn and a truck showed up at his front yard with 5,000 bushels of corn this is just not true. A futures contract represents the obligation to either buy or sell a commodity of a certain class at a certain time in the future (why they are called futures), it is the duty of the Commodity Trading Advisor to remove this risk from their trading program. Traders should remember that over 90% of futures contracts never go to delivery they are offset in the market. The process of delivery usually only happens to a trader that is new and unfamiliar with the markets and is trading alone. Brokers usually help new traders by making sure that these small but very costly mistakes do not occur.