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CTA PLACEMENT

Attain assists investors with investing through professional money managers known as Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs). Learn more about CTAs here. Attain helps investors select a CTA that’s right for them, open a trading account for the CTA to manage, and monitor the CTA activity on an ongoing basis.

How it works at Attain

Our CTA Placement services start with one of our CTA specialists working one on one with investors to select a CTA or portfolio of CTAs which best fits with their investing goals and risk appetite. This includes sharing our due diligence reports, personal experience with the advisors, and statistical performance evaluations.

Once a selection is made, Attain assists investors in getting an account open and funded for the CTA to manage – acting as the liaison between the client, advisor, and clearing firm to insure all of the proper paperwork and disclosures are signed off on.

After the account has started trading, Attain monitors the account daily on behalf of the client to ensure that performance is tracking with historical averages, that the advisor is following his/her strategy, and that the fees being charged by the advisor are correct.

Finally, Attain works with clients to manage their overall portfolio, setting up sub- accounts for multiple advisor trading and tracking, relating multiple accounts’ margin balances to enable notional trading, hedging currency risk for foreign investors, and setting up cash accounts which earn interest through U.S. Treasury Bills.

Performance

Attain's list of recommended CTAs on the Advisor (CTAs) Performance page is sorted by Attain's Flag ranking system, with 5 flags being the best. Our rankings are based on eight different statistical categories which measure risk and experience along with performance. We are not content to merely show the top percentage gainers, and instead view performance in relation to risk as the most important.

Those advisors not in Bold are ones Attain does not currently work with. If they are a CTA with only a 1 or 2 flag rating, we probably don’t work with them on purpose — finding them too risky or not experienced enough — and include them for comparison only. If they are highly ranked with 3, 4, or 5 flags, yet not in BOLD - it is likely we intend to add them to our recommended list – yet have not finished our due diligence on the CTA yet.

Below see five Attain recommended CTAs we have selected from our full list which give investors a good sense of the different ways professional commodity traders can make money for their clients – with each approaching the commodity markets in a different way and having success with their particular method.

Past Performance is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results

Advisor/Program	Program Description	Compound RoR	Max DD	Since	Min Investment (000s)
Attain Portfolio Advisors - Strategic Diversification Program	100% systematic trading	7.32%	(23.15%)	05/04	1,000
Cervino Capital Management - Diversified Options 2X	Financials/Stock Index Option Trading	6.96%	(10.23%)	01/08	25
Financial Commodity Investments	Commodity option selling	24.00%	(34.63%)	07/04	50
Mesirow Financial Commodities - Absolute Return Strategy	Discretionary trading	15.81%	(1.56%)	06/05	800
NDX Capital Management - Shadrach Program	Livestock spread trading	26.38%	(13.67%)	10/06	100

*Sorted Alphabetically. Compound ROR = The annual rate of return which, if compounded over the number of years in the period analyzed, would yield the cumulative gain or loss achieved during that period. Max DD = The maximum loss between an equity high and subsequent equity low point, or valley.

Due Diligence

Attain does extensive research on the Performance AND Quality of hundreds of CTAs through our due diligence process, with only those managers we would feel comfortable investing our own money in making our recommended list.

A due diligence review of the advisor’s performance and risk figures, maximum drawdowns, use of margin, correlation studies, risk ratios, fees, capacity, and more provides a quantitative, technical view.

Analysis of the CTA’s background, organizational structure, accounting, trade execution, risk procedures, trading logic, capacity, and more provide a qualitative, fundamental view.

By combining both the performance (quantitative) review and quality (qualitative) review, Attain can provide the investor with a better overall picture of a particular CTA.

Added Benefits

There are several added benefits of having your Managed Futures Account traded through Attain, which may not be available elsewhere.

• Attain recommends all investors hold as much of their account value as possible in interest bearing T-Bills. Many other brokers tell investors futures accounts do not earn interest, don’t mention T-Bills, or allow you to buy T-Bills on the margin excess balance of your account only. Read more about earning interest in your futures account here
• Attain allows foreign investors to hold their accounts in Euros, Swiss francs, British Pounds, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, and more. There is no need to convert the account into US dollars, and there is no extra paperwork needed! This opens up the possibility for access to top rated US Dollar based managers without the US Dollar risk. Your entire initial investment would remain in your local currency, with only profits and losses from the trading of the account in US Dollars.
• Attain monitors client’s CTA accounts on a daily basis. We check to insure the trades in your account are consistent with the trades the CTA is placing in other client’s accounts, and that those trades are in line with the CTAs trading strategy and risk profile. For example, a trend following advisor who suddenly starts doing naked Natural Gas options would raise a red flag. We also monitor whether the fees being deducted from your account are being calculated correctly.
• Attain sets up a master account for each client, with one account for the client’s cash balance and several sub accounts related to it for the trading and tracking of different CTAs. This allows clients to quickly see how much each advisor is up or down in the individual sub accounts, while the master account shows the total account balance. Even if only trading a single CTA – Attain still sets up two sub accounts for clients, one for the cash deposited in the account and one for the CTA to trade in. T-Bills are purchased in the cash account only, insuring that the client keeps 100% of the interest on the account, as the CTA is entitled to 20% of the profits in the account he/she manages.
• For more sophisticated investors who wish to leverage their available cash to trade multiple managers notionally – Attain assists investors in cross margining different accounts to enable them to trade a total notional amount greater than their actual invested capital. ($100,000 traded as $500,000, for example).