Curious, How is this new strategy working for you?
Carry trade can easily beat any quoted returns. If you buy 1 contract on the first trading day and roll quarterly by putting up $11k margin, with extra few grands in spare, all you need is 220 points a year to double the money. At current level 4500, that is only 4.8% upside, easily achievable in almost any year. This year SPX is 20%+, that is $40k do nothing money. More leverage play is futures option, I lost some on this strategy because options have expiration day, it is hard to guess where the level will end up in a given timeframe.