"I'm a long term fan and returning subscriber. I also happen to be portfolio manager for one of the managed futures funds mentioned in the Bloomberg article that you reprinted yesterday. In my opinion, your additional comment of "manager greed and investor gullibility" adds unnecessary sensationalism to an already poor headline. I am aware of your general view that fund fees have become high and can be detrimental to investors. I agree with you when referring to traditional, long-only managers that can be easily replicated via an ETF or index. However, managed futures investing has been around for over three decades and is a highly skilled, actively managed approach. The great investment managers in this space will charge and arguably deserve higher fees, typically 2&20, because they have delivered consistent out-performance historically. In addition, the managed futures investment style is acknowledged by financial academics as one of the best portfolio diversifiers available, because it has delivered that out-performance in a distinctly non-correlated fashion. Underneath the sensational headline, and excluded from your excerpt, the article does point out that an index of the 40 leading managers earned an annual return of over 8% compared to just 1% for the S&P500 including dividends, between 2000 and March 2011. That's a 7% per annum difference that adds to a total return difference of over 120%!! And please note that the 8% annual return is after deducting those horrible hedge fund fees, that have may cause "sticker shock" for mutual fund investors. I guess you get what you pay for, as the saying goes. Meanwhile, I will continue to pay for my subscription. Thanks for the opportunity to respond."

David Fuller's view Note to all readers: In the interests of full disclosure, I received a similar email from this subscriber yesterday, who also asked me not to post it. My response contained this concluding paragraph, now shown in italics:

In the interests of balanced reporting, I would be happy to post your email, or an amended version if you prefer, because the points you make are relevant to the discussion and would be of interest to other subscribers. Nevertheless, I note that you do not want me to post your reply below, and of course will respect that wish.

Here is my response to today's email:

Thanks for your interest in Fullermoney and for accepting my invitation to submit an email for publication.

Yes, managed futures trading has been around for a long time and I am in favour of it, having traded these markets for my own portfolio since the early 1970s. The main appeal of futures, as we know, is the ability to go long or short on a leveraged basis. There are some highly skilled managers out there, including a number of our subscribers who are mainly investment managers or advisers, from long only to futures funds.

Inevitably, in addition to the highly skilled investment managers around the globe, there are many more wannabes. Among the best, measured by performance over a decade or more, I have never heard of an experienced manager (Ponzi scheme operators aside) who has not experienced periods of underperformance from time to time, or suffered a blow-out if trading in highly leveraged futures.

As a fund of funds manager, and certainly not the only one among Fullermoney subscribers, in addition to asset allocation you are providing a useful due diligence service in monitoring and selecting managers with successful track records. I do not think that anyone minds paying for results but these cannot be guaranteed. Meanwhile, there are some not insignificant upfront fees to pay before the investor in the fund can be rewarded.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. I wish you and every other subscriber success with your investments, and fervently hope that this service plays a small role in that process. The Altegris Managed Futures Strategy Funds (MFTIX) and also (MCRIX) are in the Library, and I suspect that some of the people interested in this email and response will also be interested in monitoring their progress.

Note to other investment manager paid-up subscribers: If the funds which you manage are not yet in the Library, we would be happy to include them, provided we can get price date from Bloomberg which is updated regularly.