LEGAL & DISCLAIMERS
Overview
The information contained in the reports within this website is provided with the objective of “standardizing” alternative investment performance, and is intended for informational purposes only. It should not be viewed as a solicitation for the referenced manager or program. 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 Acorn Investments, 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 or otherwise.
In instances where qualitative judgments are issued, the opinions expressed are that of the author, and may not necessarily reflect those of Acorn Investments, 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, options on futures, cryptocurrency, 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 Accounts (CTAs)
Managed 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 CFTC 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.
Acorn Investments receives a portion of the commodity brokerage commissions you pay in connection with your trading and/or a portion of the interest income (if any) earned on an account’s assets. CTAs may also pay Acorn Investments a portion of the fees they receive from accounts introduced to them by Acorn Investments.
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.
Acorn Investments 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 Acorn Investments 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). Acorn Investments recommends investors review the trading system vendors’ policies regarding privacy, billing, errors and omissions, etc. before investing.
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 wellbeing. They are intended for sophisticated investors and are not suitable for everyone.
Forex accounts can subject to substantial charges for management and advisory fees. The performance numbers reported for 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
The mention of specific asset class performance within any publications from Acorn Investments (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 Acorn Investments‘s direct experience in those asset classes, estimates of performance of dozens of CTAs followed by Acorn Investments, 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.
The CTA Intelligence Award citations have certain limitations, in that the pool of possible winners is comprised of Introducing Brokers who submit applications for the award, and does not include the entire universe of registered Introducing Brokers.
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 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 may be calculated using the liquidating value of Acorn Investments clients trading the listed program 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. Acorn Investments does its best efforts to label such programs as proprietary by including such in their title, but can not guarantee all track records containing proprietary results are labeled as such.
While the information and statistics given are believed to be complete and accurate, we cannot guarantee their completeness or accuracy. Acorn Investments 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.
Custom Portfolios
Putting portfolios of different investments 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 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.
Cryptocurrency
Acorn Investments IS A MEMBER OF NFA AND IS SUBJECT TO NFA’S REGULATORY OVERSIGHT AND EXAMINATIONS. HOWEVER, YOU SHOULD BE AWARE THAT NFA DOES NOT HAVE REGULATORY OVERSIGHT AUTHORITY OVER UNDERLYING OR SPOT VIRTUAL CURRENCY PRODUCTS OR TRANSACTIONS OR VIRTUAL CURRENCY EXCHANGES, CUSTODIANS OR MARKETS.
Cited Information
Within publications found on the Acorn Investments site, we may, from time to time, quote or feature the writing of an individual outside of Acorn Investments. 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 Acorn Investments, 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 Acorn Investments. Because the material made available on these websites is not under the control of Acorn Investments, we make no representation to you about these websites nor the material you may find there. The fact that Acorn Investments 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.
Forex trading, commodity trading, managed futures, and other alternative investments are complex and carry a risk of substantial losses. As such, they are not suitable for all investors.