Managed Futures Return 5.83% in 2006 on 4th Quarter Profits

FAIRFIELD, Iowa, January 11, 2007 - Managed futures gained 5.83% in 2006, according to flash estimates from the Barclay BTOP50 Index.

"Even though the BTOP50 was up 2.24% in the first quarter, it gave nearly all of that back by the end of September," says Sol Waksman, founder and president of The Barclay Group.

"Most profits came in the last three months of 2006, fueled by sustained declines in energy, precious metals, and U.S. bond prices."

The Barclay BTOP50 Index, which monitors performance of the largest CTAs, gained 5.83% in 2006, and has a compound annual return of 7.50% over the past five years. The more broadly-based Barclay CTA Index gained 3.66% in 2006, and has averaged a 5.87% return over the past five years.

"Traders utilizing discretionary, or judgment-based approaches, were among the best performers in 2006," says Waksman. "On the other hand, systems-based traders had a difficult year due to recurring price reversals in commodity markets."

Five of Barclay's six CTA sector indexes had positive returns in 2006. The Discretionary Traders Index gained 8.17%, Diversified Traders Index was up 5.72%, Agricultural Traders rose 4.44%, Systemic Traders gained 2.31%, while the Financial and Metals Index rose 1.62%.

Only the Currency Traders Index was down for the year, sliding 0.26%.

"Currency traders did their best to try to stay above water in a market impacted by several cross-currents. The US Dollar weakened throughout 2006 against the Euro and Sterling, but gained ground in the last eight months against the Japanese, Canadian, and Swiss currencies."

Click here to view 27 years of Barclay CTA Index data.

View eight years of monthly returns for the Barclay BTOP50 Index.

Sol Waksman is an experienced media source, providing perspectives on hedge fund and managed futures trends.

Call 641-472-3456 or email sol@barclayhedge.com for more commentary or background.

The Barclay Group, founded in 1985, actively tracks more than 6,000 hedge funds and managed futures programs. Barclay has created and regularly updates 18 proprietary hedge fund indexes and eight managed futures indexes.

Institutional investors, brokerage firms and private banks worldwide utilize Barclay's indexes as performance benchmarks for the hedge fund and managed futures industries.