Full Title: Managed Trading: Myths & Truths

Author: Jack Schwager (Twitter @jackschwager)

Publisher/Date:  Wiley (1996)

List Cost/Pages:  $55 Hardcover / 318 pages

Cover Notes:
With Market Wizards and The New Market Wizards, two of the bestselling finance titles of all time, Jack Schwager is one of the most important and visible figures in the futures industry today. Now, in Managed Trading, the latest volume in the Schwager on Futures series, he takes an in-depth look at the increasingly prominent new asset class: managed futures, professionally managed investments in commodity and financial futures markets. Due to their potentially high returns and their diversification and inflation hedging potential, managed futures have grown rapidly in popularity and acceptance in the past decade. Today, there are over $25 million in managed futures accounts. Schwager’s full-scale examination covers all aspects of this investment sector, encompassing performance evaluation, manager selection, investment timing, and portfolio considerations. In the process, he explodes many commonly held investment myths. Managed Trading is the most substantive book on the subject, and an indispensable Schwager title no investor should be without.

The following are some of the many topics covered:

  • Why “actual” trading results are sometimes a misnomer
  • Why many investors in managed futures lose money even when they select a winning manager
  • Why shifting assets from “winners” to “losers” is often an excellent strategy
  • Why it is usually better to invest in managers when they are experiencing drawdowns as opposed to when they are on winning streaks
  • Why the actual performance of funds and pools routinely deteriorates dramatically from the prospectus results
  • Is past performance predictive of future performance?
  • Is the addition of managed futures to conventional portfolios beneficial or detrimental to performance?
  • Is diversification beneficial?
  • Performance measures: conventional and new
  • Why all conventional CTA indexes are misleading

With numerous charts, tables, and examples illustrating key points throughout, Managed Trading is written in the informative, insightful, and nontechnical style that is Schwager’s hallmark. An important addition to this landmark series by one of the world’s premier authorities.