2006 off to sluggish start for FX managers

Despite a brisk start for commodity trading advisors (CTAs) in general this year, forex currency fund managers in January extended last year’s slide.

According to the Barclay Group (www.barclaygrp.com), the managed futures industry was up 1 percent in January — and hedge funds were up 3.7 percent — while currency CTAs posted a -0.09 percent return for the first month of the year.

The larger currency fund managers didn’t seem to be faring especially well. Barclay’s BTOP FX Index, which tracks the performance of the 50 largest currency CTAs, was down -2.01 percent on the year as of Feb. 27.

Currencies have been stagnating in the early part of the year, with many of the major currencies wandering in trading ranges as of late February after small moves early in the year.