For years at a time, a certain type of trade is often disregarded. Silent and unattractive. Most people associate them with hedge fund managers operating models in windowless offices that no one outside of their world truly comprehends. Then a year like this one or 2022 occurs, and all of a sudden everyone wants to discuss managed futures once more.
The timing makes sense. As of late March 2026, the markets are actually uncomfortable in a way that is distinct from the normal anxiety that investors have grown accustomed to. The S&P 500 has been steadily declining. Bonds are meant to protect you when stocks decline, but they haven’t done so. The price of an oil barrel is more than $112.
| Key Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Strategy | Managed Futures (CTA — Commodity Trading Advisors) |
| Largest ETF | iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF (DBMF) |
| ETF Manager | Andrew Beer, Managing Member, DBi |
| Total Category AUM | ~$6.5 billion (ETFAction.com) |
| DBMF 2026 Inflows | ~$1 billion year-to-date |
| 2022 Performance | Managed futures up ~20% vs. S&P 500 down ~18%, bonds down ~13% |
| Major New Entrants | BlackRock, Invesco, Fidelity Investments |
| Recommended Allocation | 3%–5% of overall portfolio (Andrew Beer, DBi) |
| Key Market Context | US-Iran war, oil above $112, stagflation fears, Nasdaq in correction |
| Reference Website | CNBC ETF Edge |
The Strait of Hormuz became a geopolitical fault line when Iran retaliated across the Persian Gulf after the US and Israel attacked Iranian steel and nuclear facilities last week. Customer satisfaction fell to its lowest point in three months. Inflation expectations for the coming year surged. The traditional 60/40 balanced portfolio feels less like a strategy and more like wishful thinking in this type of macroenvironment.
This is precisely the point at which managed futures gain traction. The strategy takes long and short positions across futures contracts in commodities, currencies, bonds, and stocks. It is usually managed by commodity trading advisors using systematic trend-following models.
It doesn’t care if markets rise or fall, at least not in the same way as conventional funds. It requires movement, trend, and perseverance that develops over months as opposed to minutes. And there is no shortage of that at the moment, with bonds trending in ways they shouldn’t be and energy markets trending sharply upward.
The most convincing case for this strategy is still the data from 2022. Managed futures strategies were up about 20% that year when the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index was down about 13% and the S&P 500 was down about 18%. It’s not a rounding error.
That is the fundamental idea behind the strategy’s real-time, large-scale performance under circumstances that destroyed traditional portfolios. On CNBC’s ETF Edge, Andrew Beer, a managing member at DBi and the creator of the iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF, the biggest in the market, stated unequivocally that an approach that can react to changing trends across asset classes is a good fit given the volatility of the geopolitical environment and the uncertainty surrounding inflation and interest rates.
The category is still quite small. The total assets held by managed futures ETFs are approximately $6.5 billion, which is genuinely modest when compared to the larger ETF universe. However, this year’s inflows have been noteworthy; DBMF alone has brought in roughly $1 billion. Who else just showed up, however, is more telling than the raw numbers. In the last year, BlackRock, Invesco, and Fidelity have all joined the managed futures ETF market.
It’s not a coincidence when three of the biggest asset managers in the world introduce products in the same niche category within the same 12-month period. It’s a signal. The appearance of those three names is one of the most obvious indications that retail demand is genuine and expanding rather than merely a transient spike motivated by fear, according to Nate Geraci, president of NovaDius, on ETF Edge.
This cycle feels different from 2022 in part because of the geopolitical aspect. The Federal Reserve’s aggressive tightening in response to inflation that had been steadily rising for years was the main source of stress at the time. The Strait of Hormuz is at the center of an ongoing conflict that is changing energy supply chains. Economists have already begun to reduce growth projections while increasing their inflation forecasts through year-end.
At this week’s meeting, it is generally anticipated that the Fed will keep interest rates between 3.5 and 3.75 percent, essentially caught between combating inflation and avoiding stifling a slowing economy. The traditional portfolio hedge is failing in real time without the policy cushion that typically allows bonds to absorb equity losses. In contrast to what investors expect during risk-off periods, two-year Treasury yields increased by more than 35 basis points while stocks were declining.
As all of this takes place, it’s difficult to ignore how seriously the infrastructure of traditional diversification is being strained. The 60/40 framework was predicated on the idea that central banks could lower interest rates whenever growth stalled, giving bonds a boost to offset the pain of equity. Now, that assumption appears to be much less trustworthy. In contrast, managed futures were not predicated on that premise. Because its models don’t care about the story, its performance is structurally uncorrelated with stocks and bonds. They adhere to price patterns. These have been produced in large quantities by the current environment.
Beer’s recommendation that investors consider a 3% to 5% allocation, held steadily alongside infrastructure or hard assets, is likely the appropriate wording. It’s not a crisis trade. After the damage is done, it’s not something to load up on. A quiet, permanent position that remains in place until everything else ceases to function as it should. The catch is that these strategies can and do lag during calmer, trending equity markets. Geraci was candid about this on the show.
Investors who bought in during the chaos of 2022 and then watched managed futures trail a bull market rally have occasionally pulled out right before the next difficult time came. Before investing, it is crucial to realize that the strategy is intended to function over entire market cycles rather than quarter by quarter.
In one version of this tale, managed futures end up as a typical allocation in diversified retail portfolios, coexisting with bond ETFs and index funds in the same way that alternative strategies were previously limited to institutional accounts. Some of that work has already been completed by the ETF wrapper, opening up a strategy that previously required access to hedge funds to anyone with a brokerage account.
No amount of performance history could likely normalize it as much as BlackRock’s entry alone. Whether or not the current period of joint stock-and-bond stress lasts long enough for investors to feel compelled to take action will probably determine whether or not that wider adoption actually occurs. That need seems pretty urgent right now, with oil above $112, the Fed remaining stable, and the Nasdaq in correction territory.