Legal & Disclaimers

Automated Trading is a ‘dba’ (doing business as) of Reliance Capital Markets II, LLC

Overview

The information contained in the reports within this website is provided with the objective of “standardizing” trading system and managed futures performance, and is intended for informational purposes only. It should not be viewed as a solicitation for the referenced system or vendor. As past performance does not guarantee future results, these results may have no bearing on, and may not be indicative of, any individual returns realized through participation in this or any other investment. No part of this website should be considered apart from the Disclosure Documents and disclaimers contained herein.

Every effort has been made to ensure that the information on this website is accurate and complete, but neither RCM, nor our officers, principals, employees or agents shall be liable to any person for any losses, damages, costs or expenses (including, but not limited to, loss of profits, loss of use, direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages) resulting from any errors in, omissions of or alterations to the information. The foregoing shall apply regardless of whether a claim arises in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability otherwise.

In instances where qualitative judgments are issued, the opinions expressed are that of the author, and may not necessarily reflect those of RCM, their respective subsidiaries, affiliates, officers or employees. You are urged to draw your own conclusions from the data and analysis presented here and elsewhere.

Alternative Investment Risk Statements

The risk of loss in trading commodity futures contracts and forex, whether on one’s own or through a managed account, can be substantial. You should therefore carefully consider whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial condition. You may sustain a total loss of the initial margin funds and any additional funds that you deposit with your broker to establish or maintain a position in the commodity futures market.

Any specific investment or investment service contained or referred to in this website may not be suitable for all investors. You should not rely on any of the information as a substitute for the exercise of your own skill and judgment in making such a decision on the appropriateness of such investments.

Finally, the ability to withstand losses and to adhere to a particular trading program in spite of trading losses are material points which can adversely affect investor performance.

We recommend investors visit the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) website at the following address before trading: http://www.cftc.gov/cftc/cftcbeforetrade.htm

Managed Futures Accounts (CTAs)

Managed futures accounts can subject to substantial charges for management and advisory fees. The numbers within this website include all such fees, but it may be necessary for those accounts that are subject to these charges to make substantial trading profits in the future to avoid depletion or exhaustion of their assets.

Investors interested in investing with a managed futures program (excepting those programs which are offered exclusively to qualified eligible persons as that term is defined by CFTC regulation 4.7) will be required to receive and sign off on a disclosure document in compliance with certain CFT rules The disclosure documents contains a complete description of the principal risk factors and each fee to be charged to your account by the CTA, as well as the composite performance of accounts under the CTA’s management over at least the most recent five years. Investor interested in investing in any of the programs on this website are urged to carefully read these disclosure documents, including, but not limited to the performance information, before investing in any such programs.

Those investors who are qualified eligible persons as that term is defined by CFTC regulation 4.7 and interested in investing in a program exempt from having to provide a disclosure document and considered by the regulations to be sophisticated enough to understand the risks and be able to interpret the accuracy and completeness of any performance information on their own.

RCM receives a portion of the commodity brokerage commissions you pay in connection with your futures trading and/or a portion of the interest income (if any) earned on an account’s assets. CTAs may also pay RCM a portion of the fees they receive from accounts introduced to them by RCM.

3rd Party Trading Systems

Trading Systems are automated computer programs which issue buy and sell signals for customer accounts, and as such; may not react to changes in market conditions as a human manager might. Trading systems can be subject to substantial commission charges and costs for the purchase or lease of the system. While the numbers within this website include all such fees, but it may be necessary for those accounts that are subject to these charges to make substantial trading profits in the future to avoid depletion or exhaustion of their assets.

RCM makes no guarantee, implied or otherwise as to the information provided to investors by third party trading system vendors or through their respective websites. As such, use of these third party trading systems is at the investors own risk and you acknowledge and agree that RCM is not responsible for any shortcomings, errors in charging or billing, misrepresentations, or any other wrongdoing on the part of the owner of said third party trading system(s). RCM recommends investors review the trading system vendors’ policies regarding privacy, billing, errors and omissions, etc. before investing.

Managed Forex

Trading in foreign exchange is speculative and may involve the loss of principal; therefore, funds placed under management should be risk capital funds that if lost will not significantly affect one’s personal financial well being. They are intended for sophisticated investors and are not suitable for everyone.

Managed forex accounts can subject to substantial charges for management and advisory fees. The performance numbers reported for Managed forex programs on this website include all such fees, but it may be necessary for those accounts that are subject to these charges to make substantial trading profits in the future to avoid depletion or exhaustion of their assets.

Due to the unregulated nature of the foreign currency exchange markets, not all managed forex account advisors are registered with the CFTC.

Unlike Futures Commission Merchants clearing futures trades, forex brokers are not required to segregate customer funds. Further, there is no equivalent of the Securities Investors Protection Corporation insurance as applicable in the case of securities broker dealers’ bankruptcies. Accordingly, in the event of a bankruptcy of a client’s forex broker, the client could be unable to recover any of its assets held by such broker.

Data Limitations

When evaluating the information found on our site, please keep a few things in mind. The mention of specific asset class performance within any publications from RCM (i.e. Managed Futures was up +3.2%, the S&P down -4.6%) is based on the noted source index (i.e. Newedge CTA Index, S&P 500 Index, etc.), and investors should take care to understand that any index performance is for the constituents of that index only, and does not represent the entire universe of possible investments within that asset class. Further, there can be limitations and biases to indices such as survivorship and self reporting biases, and instant history.

The mention of general asset class performance (i.e. managed futures did well, stocks were down, bonds were up) is based on RCM’s direct experience in those asset classes, estimates of performance of dozens of CTAs followed by RCM, and averaging of various indices designed to track said asset classes.

The mention of market based performance (i.e. Corn was up 5% today) reflects all available information as of the time and date of the publication.

CTAs and Managed Forex

The performance data for the various Commodity Trading Advisor (“CTA”) and managed forex programs listed throughout this website are compiled from various sources, including Barclay Hedge, RCM’s own estimates of performance based on account managed by advisors on its books, and reports directly from the advisors. These performance figures should not be relied on independent of the individual advisor’s disclosure document, which has important information regarding the method of calculation used, whether or not the performance includes proprietary results, and other important footnotes on the advisor’s track record.

Regulations require managed futures performance to be calculated as a composite of all accounts of non qualified eligible persons trading the same program. The ‘averaging’ of individual account performance can cause individual performance to be higher or lower than the reported composite performance depending on several factors, including commission and fee levels and investment amount and duration.

Some of the statistics throughout this website show rates of return for only the listed period (i.e. 12 mos, 36 mos, 5 yrs, 10 yrs), where rates of return, drawdowns, etc. for periods longer than the period shown may be higher or lower than those shown.

Further, in instances where estimates are included, performance numbers are calculated using the liquidating value of a single client at RCM trading the listed program, and are believed to be representative of all similar clients invested in the program. A 20% incentive fee and 2% annual management fee are deducted from all profitable months, regardless of whether the program is at a new equity high. These numbers may vary from the actual performance numbers presented by the CTA upon completing their accounting for the month gone by, and, again, should not be considered apart from the performance numbers listed in the disclosure document for the program listed.

Certain CTA programs listed on this website may display proprietary performance data. The CFTC considers proprietary performance information to be less reflective of how a trading program would have performed had a CTA been trading an account of a client. Because of this, proprietary performance information is required to be labeled as supplemental in disclosure documents used by CTAs, and RCM does its best efforts to label such programs as proprietary by including such in their title. You should carefully consider this in the event that an advisor’s track record includes proprietary performance information.

While the information and statistics given are believed to be complete and accurate, we cannot guarantee their completeness or accuracy. RCM has not undertaken to verify the completeness or accuracy of any of the information and statistics provided by third parties. As a term and condition of your use of this website, you expressly hold harmless and waive any claim you have or may have as a result of any of the information and statistics provided by third parties contained on this website being incomplete or inaccurate.

Trading SystemsThe trading system performance on this website is calculated via trades generated on three data sets: 1. Backtested, 2. Real-Time, and where available 3. Client Fills.Backtested Trades are generated by running a trading system backwards in time, and seeing what trades would have been done in the past when applied to backadjusted data. Real-Time Trades are generated by running the trading system forwardson data each and every day, and logging the trades as they happen in real time day after day. Client Fill Trades are generated by running the trading system on LIVE tick data for actual clients and tracking the actual buy and sell prices those clients trading the system receive in their account.Client fill results are used to calculate monthly returns for any month in which clients were trading for the entire month, real time fills for those months in which there are no client fills for the entire month, and computer generated fills for those months occurring before we loaded the system onto our trade servers. The results are hypothetical in that they represent returns in a model account. The model account rises or falls by the single contract profit and loss achieved by the system in whichever data set is available. The hypothetical model account begins with the initial capital level listed, and is reset to that amount each month. The percentage returns reflect inclusion of commissions, slippage, fees, and the cost of the system. The monthly cost deduction = number of monthly trades * listed commission + listed slippage value. The monthly cost of the system is subtracted from the net profit/loss prior to calculating the percentage return. For systems with one time purchase costs, the monthly cost is calculated by dividing the purchase cost over the first 36 months of the track record.The trading system performance data on this website may change at any time without warning due to several circumstances, including but not limited to refreshes of market data used to calculate system signals, upgrades or changes to the system code by its developer, changes to the minimum investment amount, commissions, or slippage estimates, and more.

The actual percentage gains/losses experienced by investors will vary depending on many factors, including, but not limited to: starting account balances, market behavior, the duration and extent of investor participation (whether or not all signals are taken) in the specified system, and money management techniques.

Please note that the method of resetting the model account to the initial value at the start of each month creates a track record which is representative of the simple returns for each time period, but that it does not, by definition, show how returns would compound over time. Should an investor following said program trade a single contract indefinitely without also resetting their account to the initial capital amount each month, their performance will differ from the performance detailed herein.

Please read carefully the CFTC required disclaimer regarding hypothetical results below.

HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE MANY INHERENT LIMITATIONS, SOME OF WHICH ARE DESCRIBED BELOW. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFITS OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN; IN FACT, THERE ARE FREQUENTLY SHARP DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS AND THE ACTUAL RESULTS SUBSEQUENTLY ACHIEVED BY ANY PARTICULAR TRADING PROGRAM. ONE OF THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS IS THAT THEY ARE GENERALLY PREPARED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. IN ADDITION, HYPOTHETICAL TRADING DOES NOT INVOLVE FINANCIAL RISK, AND NO HYPOTHETICAL TRADING RECORD CAN COMPLETELY ACCOUNT FOR THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL RISK OF ACTUAL TRADING. FOR EXAMPLE, THE ABILITY TO WITHSTAND LOSSES OR TO ADHERE TO A PARTICULAR TRADING PROGRAM IN SPITE OF TRADING LOSSES ARE MATERIAL POINTS WHICH CAN ALSO ADVERSELY AFFECT ACTUAL TRADING RESULTS. THERE ARE NUMEROUS OTHER FACTORS RELATED TO THE MARKETS IN GENERAL OR TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ANY SPECIFIC TRADING PROGRAM WHICH CANNOT BE FULLY ACCOUNTED FOR IN THE PREPARATION OF HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS AND ALL WHICH CAN ADVERSELY AFFECT TRADING RESULTS.

Custom Portfolios

Putting portfolios of trading systems, managed forex programs, and CTAs together in a portfolio creates a hypothetical past performance track record, as the combined performance was created after the fact. Even a portfolio whose components each have track records which are 100% actual, and are not hypothetical, must still be considered hypothetical, as the components may not have traded together in the manner shown. The hypothetical performance of a custom portfolio should not be considered separate from the respective disclosure documents associated with the portfolio’s components. As always, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

COMPOSITE HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE MANY INHERENT LIMITATIONS, SOME OF WHICH ARE DESCRIBED BELOW. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY MULTI-ADVISOR MANAGED ACCOUNT OR POOL WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE A COMPOSITE PERFORMANCE RECORD SIMILAR TO THAT SHOWN. IN FACT, THERE ARE FREQUENTLY SHARP DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A HYPOTHETICAL COMPOSITE PERFORMANCE RECORD AND THE ACTUAL RECORD SUBSEQUENTLY ACHIEVED.

ONE OF THE LIMITATIONS OF A HYPOTHETICAL COMPOSITE PERFORMANCE RECORD IS THAT DECISIONS RELATING TO THE SELECTION OF TRADING ADVISORS AND THE ALLOCATION OF ASSETS AMONG THOSE ADVISORS WERE MADE WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT BASED UPON THE HISTORICAL RATES OF RETURN OF THE SELECTED TRADING ADVISORS. THEREFORE, COMPOSITE PERFORMANCE RECORDS INVARIABLY SHOW POSITIVE RATES OF RETURN. ANOTHER INHERENT LIMITATION ON THESE RESULTS IS THAT THE ALLOCATION DECISIONS REFLECTED IN THE PERFORMANCE RECORD WERE NOT MADE UNDER ACTUAL MARKET CONDITIONS AND, THEREFORE, CANNOT COMPLETELY ACCOUNT FOR THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL RISK IN ACTUAL TRADING. FURTHERMORE, THE COMPOSITE PERFORMANCE RECORD MAY BE DISTORTED BECAUSE THE ALLOCATION OF ASSETS CHANGES FROM TIME TO TIME AND THESE ADJUSTMENTS ARE NOT REFLECTED IN THE COMPOSITE.

THESE PERFORMANCE TABLES AND RESULTS ARE HYPOTHETICAL IN NATURE AND DO NOT REPRESENT TRADING IN ACTUAL ACCOUNTS.

Cited Information

To protect their privacy, the image and last name of the RCM clients whose quotes appear on the home page have been changed. The first name, quote, and date they became a client are original.

Within publications found on the RCM site, we may, from time to time, quote or feature the writing of an individual outside of RCM. Such presentation does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation. You are advised to research the individuals and entities in question for yourself prior to engaging in business with them.

In these instances, every effort has been made to ensure that the information obtained from and attribution to these individuals is accurate and complete, but neither RCM, nor our officers, principals, employees or agents shall be liable to any person for any losses, damages, costs or expenses (including, but not limited to, loss of profits, loss of use, direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages) resulting from any errors in, omissions of or alterations to the information. The foregoing shall apply regardless of whether a claim arises in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability otherwise.

Further, please be aware that some of the websites that you may link to through this website are not supported by RCM. Because the material made available on these websites is not under the control of RCM, we make no representation to you about these websites nor the material you may find there. The fact that RCM has linked to these websites does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation of any kind. The links to these websites are being provided only as a convenience to you.