Below are some of this month’s key highlights for the Columbus strategy.  For more details, including to get the monthly allocations, please download the report by clicking the button at the end of this message.

March Highlights

  • February was characterized by a volatility crisis which brought down the Credit Suisse inverse volatility ETN (XIV).
  • However, and as highlighted in the Special Report sent to subscribers on February 10th, Columbus didn’t seem to care much if at all.  While many other quantitative algorithms hit the panic button and moved to a conservative allocation, Columbus simply stayed the course and captured the ensuing market rebound very nicely.
  • The Special Report highlighted a few other past market crises, and in every case, Columbus made the right decision supported by hard statistics. This volatility crisis proved to be no exception and demonstrated once again the relevance of using hard data over human emotions.  Please refer to Section 5 in the report to learn more.
  • Columbus is up 2.3% year-to-date while our Columbus live model account is up 14.7% since its inception in April 2017.
  • This month’s allocations are generally similar to last month’s.  There is a shift from large caps to small caps in US equities, and a pare back in emerging markets and Japanese equities in order to free up funds to allocate to the commodities complex (DBC).
  • In summary, Columbus continues to be in a “risk-on” situation, with the bulk of its allocations in equity markets and commodities.

I encourage you to download the report and read the discussion in section 6 to learn more about Columbus’ portfolio allocation decisions and the related rationale.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me for any feedback or suggestions.  I’m always looking for ways to improve our service.  Enjoy!

Best regards,

Jean-Marc and the Laplace Insights team