AlphaCentric Converts Hedge Fund Into New Managed Futures Mutual Fund
Managed futures funds provide investors with exposure to commodities, currencies, stocks, and bonds by investing in a range of securities, including futures, forwards, swaps and ETFs. Due to the trend following, long/short nature of their investment strategies, these funds have very low correlation to traditional asset classes. As markets continue to be volatile and correlations between asset classes continue to increase, managed future funds are gaining more and more interest. In fact, this category of funds has been the most popular single-strategy category of liquid alternative funds over the past year, pulling in $8.5 billion of assets over the twelve month period ending November 30, 2015, according to data from Morningstar. New AlphaCentric Fund While managed futures funds were available exclusively to high-net worth individuals and institutions in the past, today there more than 50 managed futures funds available as ’40 Act mutual funds, and on December 18, AlphaCentric and Integrated Managed Futures Corp (“IMFC”) added another to the growing roster: the AlphaCentric/IMFC Managed Futures Strategy Fund (MUTF: IMXAX ). Sub-advised by IMFC, the new fund differentiates itself from its peers by pursuing its investment objective of capital appreciation through IMFC’s proprietary investment program, which attempts to identify investment opportunities with limited downside and potentially large rewards. This investment program removes subjectivity and human emotion from the day-to-day decision-making process. The fund’s assets are allocated across asset classes using IMFC’s multi-factor models, which consider momentum, yield, value, relative buying power of different currencies, commodity cost of production and supply/demand statistics, price-to-earnings and -book ratios, the difference in yield between issuers or financial instruments, and more. The fund also maintains large cash positions as part of its investment strategy. Fund Details The AlphaCentric/IMFC Managed Futures Strategy Fund is available in three classes: A ( IMXAX ), C (MUTF: IMXCX ), and I (MUTF: IMXIX ). The Class I shares have been created through the conversion of a hedge fund (the Attain IMFC Macro Fund LLC) and will take on the performance track record of that fund dating back to March 10, 2014. The investment management fee for all shares of the fund is 1.75%, and the respective net-expense ratios are 2.24%, 2.99%, and 1.99%. The minimum initial investment for all three share classes is $2,500. Integrated Managed Futures Corp. will serve as the sub-advisor to the fund. Roland Austrup, Robert Koloshuk, and John Lukovich are listed in the fund’s prospectus as its portfolio managers. For more information, view a copy of the fund’s prospectus . Jason Seagraves contributed to this article.