Recent content by ChrisM

The best is to calculate your performance as 2/20 from the beginning no matter what you charge your clients.

Good practice here is to calculate performance always net of your standard fees even if you give discounts to early investors.

ssb, it took me some time to understand CTA business market conditions and still have learned a lot from you here, IMO your post brings a lot of valuable information for us, which is appreciated. Please feel free to share more of your experience, if possible.

I posted that few years ago. Now notional funding is common.

Very good question. You have manual option in IB`s menu and I believe this is being widely used. As I am not a big fan of anonymous trader`s forums please PM me with any other specific questions.

Regarding accounting (and general CTA questions) - please download CME publication "Guide to Becoming a CTA" (as far as I know you may contact CME to receive this free publication). I have also found this document available in "General Topics" section on this website...

General standard for calculating performance is net of fees i.e. presenting result after fees deduction.

As I have not tried any other way myself, just leaving the door open for any alternative solutions I may not be aware of.

Exactly. You calculate monthly performance based on accounting standards and bill clients separately. I know this one works, but there may be other ways.

You calculate monthly performance based on monthly performance fees even if you charge them quarterly.

I am not financial products marketing expert but I think this means distributing CTA program through IBs. Brokerage business has additional challenge to deal with - clients losing money trading their own accounts. Using good CTA program can provide stability and steady commission flow for FCM.

Aaron, good to hear from you back again.

Last message was posted long time ago, so things look little different now. Typical fees for CTA program are management fee and incentive (off profit) fee. It is common that at the start CTA offers "zero deal" i.e. incentive fee only. Once your performance record grows you progressively turn...

This one is the smallest of all problems.

If you don't know, don't worry about this.