Trading Performance June 2018
Here I am, back after an absence of 3 months, with another report.
The trading performance in the last 3 months has been poor. Banknifty trend following has been ok, but the commodity momentum trading as well as Bond Futures trend following and discretionary options has led to a net loss in the portfolio. With no gains from BankNifty trend following, and large losses in the other three segments, the last 3 months saw a loss of around 8% in the overall trading portfolio.
2018-19 has been a strange year for trend following traders. While the market has continued to make new highs, the way it gets to the new highs, 2 steps forward, 1.5 steps back has played havoc with most “fast response” strategies, and has been excellent for those strategies which respond slowly.
With Bonds, I think banks played a game for the quarter ending Mar 2018, where to make sure that had smaller MTM losses in their gilts portfolio, they forced yields down by massive buying of treasuries in the last week of March, which led to trend reversal signals. These signals promptly reversed. Unfortunately, for me, I also increased the position size at this time, which has led to a huge loss, which will take years to recover from.
With commodities, the problem was me and my lack of faith in the momentum strategy. I stopped trading the commodities after losses, and the strategies started performing again. Now I intend to follow the success of the strategies on paper before restarting.
