Key Takeaways
- • Leading CTA managers convened in Stockholm on November 18, 2025, to assess trend-following strategy performance during a year marked by political shocks and significant strategy dispersion across the industry.
- • The roundtable identified "Liberation Day" and similar abrupt political events as key drivers of rapid market direction shifts that challenged both trend-following and non-trend models throughout 2025.
- • Strategy dispersion in 2025 was attributed to fundamental differences in execution speed, portfolio breadth, risk treatment methodology, and underlying design philosophy rather than market confusion or strategy failure.
- • Participating managers included prominent CTAs such as Jerry Parker (Chesapeake), Kathryn Kaminski (AlphaSimplex), Joe Kelly (Campbell), Thomas Babbedge (GreshamQuant), Andrew Beer (DBi), Harold de Boer (Transtrend), Martin Källström (Lynx), Moritz Seibert (Takahē), and Razvan Remsing (Aspect).
- • The discussion underscored the importance of strategy resilience in an investment environment characterized by political volatility and unstable policy regimes that create unpredictable market responses.
Summary
Stockholm's established tradition of hosting a roundtable of world-leading Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) continued on November 18, 2025, with managers assembling to evaluate performance and resilience in a year defined by political uncertainty and market turbulence. The annual gathering brought together nine prominent trend-following managers to examine how their strategies responded to rapidly shifting market conditions driven by geopolitical events and policy shocks.
The 2025 year presented a unique challenge for trend-following strategies. Participants noted that abrupt political events, including what the roundtable identified as "Liberation Day," created sudden reversals in market direction that tested both traditional trend models and alternative approaches. Rather than viewing this dispersion as a sign of strategy weakness, the managers emphasized that differences in strategy performance reflected fundamental structural variations in how each fund approaches trend-following—including differences in signal speed, portfolio construction breadth, risk management frameworks, and core design principles.
The roundtable discussion revealed consensus around the notion that 2025's volatility was not unprecedented, but rather represented a natural operating environment for strategies with different technical and philosophical foundations. Managers discussed how varying execution speeds and risk treatment approaches produced divergent results when faced with rapid political reversals, and how portfolio breadth decisions influenced exposure to different asset classes during turbulent periods. The session, moderated by Kamran Ghalitschi of HedgeNordic, explored what institutional resilience means when traditional trend signals are disrupted by non-linear political shocks and policy uncertainty.
The roundtable's insights suggest that investors evaluating CTA performance in 2025 should assess strategy dispersion not as a sector-wide failure, but as evidence of genuine structural differences in approach. This framework is particularly relevant for institutional investors and family offices allocating to alternative strategies, as it highlights the importance of understanding a manager's specific methodology, speed of execution, and risk philosophy when evaluating suitability for portfolios facing heightened geopolitical uncertainty.
The 2025 year presented a unique challenge for trend-following strategies. Participants noted that abrupt political events, including what the roundtable identified as "Liberation Day," created sudden reversals in market direction that tested both traditional trend models and alternative approaches. Rather than viewing this dispersion as a sign of strategy weakness, the managers emphasized that differences in strategy performance reflected fundamental structural variations in how each fund approaches trend-following—including differences in signal speed, portfolio construction breadth, risk management frameworks, and core design principles.
The roundtable discussion revealed consensus around the notion that 2025's volatility was not unprecedented, but rather represented a natural operating environment for strategies with different technical and philosophical foundations. Managers discussed how varying execution speeds and risk treatment approaches produced divergent results when faced with rapid political reversals, and how portfolio breadth decisions influenced exposure to different asset classes during turbulent periods. The session, moderated by Kamran Ghalitschi of HedgeNordic, explored what institutional resilience means when traditional trend signals are disrupted by non-linear political shocks and policy uncertainty.
The roundtable's insights suggest that investors evaluating CTA performance in 2025 should assess strategy dispersion not as a sector-wide failure, but as evidence of genuine structural differences in approach. This framework is particularly relevant for institutional investors and family offices allocating to alternative strategies, as it highlights the importance of understanding a manager's specific methodology, speed of execution, and risk philosophy when evaluating suitability for portfolios facing heightened geopolitical uncertainty.
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