Simplify Managed Futures Strategy ETF (CTA)
Investment Funds • Exchange-Traded Fund • NYSE ARCA
Last updated: Sep 01, 2026 at 5:00 PM ET
Dividends
Dividend Metrics
Simplify Managed Futures Strategy ETF (CTA)
NYSE ARCA • Exchange-Traded Fund • USA
Sector Allocations
Technical Indicators
Simple Moving Averages
Exponential Moving Averages
Holdings
Related GNG Research
Is CTA Broken? Three Wars, Nine Funds, and Exactly What To Do About It 😉
In December I told you CTA wasn't broken, just cyclical. In March it went UP while the market fell 10%. Then May and June happened and it fell 19% while the S&P set twenty-five all-time highs 😳 Simplify's own risk profile: Brent crude is 56.95% of CTA's entire risk. Three energy contracts are 84.68%. No stocks, no bonds, no currencies. Eight commodity contracts = 100% of the fund 🤯 CTA isn't broken. It's working perfectly on a job you no longer need done. It stopped being a hedge and became a leveraged bet on whether a war continues. Those aren't the same thing 🥺 The fix isn't selling CTA, it's resizing it for a better hedging bucket: CTA 30% · DBMF 25% · IALT 25% · KMLM 10% · IAUM 10%. Five sleeves that break on different days, for a blended 0.78% expense ratio 🖖 40% better annual returns than CTA (and 10% better than the S&P) with 50% less volatility (of both CTA and the S&P). Even lower volatility than a 60/40 portfolio!🤯 Peak declines 50% lower than CTA's And with far better consistency of returns (no down year in the last 5) and 5/5 of the last corrections positive returns and -56% downside capture of the S&P. These 5 ETFs work so perfectly because they all diversify each other and create stronger negative correlation to stocks than CTA alone. There is no free lunch in investing Except diversification and this is the best hedging bucket I've seen yet.
What Happens After The Correction Ends? Ultra ZEUS Plan C (My Family's Portfolio For The Next Year)
The fundamentals and history as well as positive headlines surrounding the war now make the correction likely over. The bottom was likely reached on Monday, March 30th (-8.9%). Now begins the V-shaped recovery. The market bottom corresponded with a 17% undervaluation in the S&P where 12 month free cash flow growth consensus is up to 16% (18% CAGR through 2028). That means a 34% upside to fair value at market lows and 30% in the next 12 months from current levels. Since 1929 every correction outside of a recession has been a V-shaped recovery. This downturn lasted 4 weeks which corresponds to a 5 to 7 week recovery to new record highs. Moody's estimates that if the war ends it will take 6 to 8 weeks for oil prices to return to pre-war $70 levels. That's a 35% decline in crude representing a 0.6% tailwind to GDP. Most investors using hovercraft portfolios (with diverse baskets of bonds, commodities and shorts) can ride out the coming pain, THOUGH the run up in crude could cause significant pain for CTA. Due to the unique needs of our company and my ZEUS family this year, Ultra ZEUS (which was up 7% in the correction) is rebalancing to Plan C which is a 63% equity and 37% hedges allocation. When TAIL hits $11.36 it triggers the rebalancing and then we sell all shorts as well as MRK and EPD (replaced with WTRG with 54% upside potential over 12 months) and AMZN and MSFT. 31% 12-month base-case return.
Ultra ZEUS: The Ultimate "Magic Money Machine" (22% Target Return with Ultra Low Volatility) For My Family's Needs For 2026
GNG Research is built around a dream to democratize financial information and to create investing tools and automated systems that allow ANYONE to achieve their financial dreams. The Medallion Fund from Renaissance Tech shows the power of a well-designed algo fund, and Connor and Glenn are hard at work building tools that will allow for superhuman portfolio optimization (like 1.7% peak declines) To support our incredible development team (Sleep is still a thing! 😉😂), we plan to expand to 9 or 10 people in 2026, at a cost of around $600K. To fund the conservative $600K it will cost to build out GNG's team and tools, we'll have to rely on the ZEUS LEGACY Family Charity Hedge Fund, which protects 17 people (and GNG). Our 1 million Monte Carlo simulations at the end of 2025 indicate that the S&P is most likely to experience 16% gains in 2026 (similar to 2025), but with 20% annual volatility (2 corrections most likely). In order to generate a conservative $500K in annual profits, we need an 8.65% gain in the ZEUS portfolio BUT historically we achieve 50% of fundamentally justified returns (so we need to shoot for 20%, $1 million). Ultra ZEUS 2026 is the strangest-looking portfolio I've ever built, but after 30 hours of R&D and five layers of double-checking the math, it's 99.9% optimal for my family's (and GNG's) needs for 2026. This 2.7% yielding portfolio has 20% growth, a forward PE of 16 (PEG of 1.1), and has profitability (quality) that's 30% to 70% better than the market. It captures 71% of the market's upside and -4% of the downside.
Simplify Managed Futures: 12 Facts Investors Need To Know
The Struggle is Real: In 2025, while the S&P 500 rallied +17.6%, CTA was essentially flat to down (-1.6% YTD). This massive performance gap is why the fund feels "broken" to many investors right now. Unlike its peer DBMF (which is up +12.3%), CTA intentionally bans itself from betting on stocks. DBMF copied hedge funds that rode the stock rally; CTA was forced to sit it out to ensure it remains a true diversifier. Managed futures need "trends" (long, sustained moves). 2025 was a year of "reversals" in commodities and interest rates. Trends would start and then snap back immediately, causing CTA to buy high and sell low repeatedly. CTA’s correlation to stocks this year was negative (it moved opposite to the market). You paid for diversification, and you got it—even though it hurt your returns in a year where stocks only went up. Academic research shows managed futures perform best in massive booms or massive busts (a smile shape). They perform worst in the flat/choppy "middle." We are currently in that boring, painful middle. CTA is an aggressive "sniper" strategy compared to its peers. When it wins (like in 2024: +24%), it wins big. When it loses, it looks worse than conservative funds. This jumpiness is normal for the strategy. The strategy isn't broken; it's cyclical. It had a great 2022, a flat 2023, a great 2024, and now a bad 2025, the 12 month rolling return chart at the bottom of the article proves that. Despite how tempting it is to trade CTA using technicals, remember the price moves almost entirely based on its holdings. As Jack Bogle said "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There!" 😉
News
Get full access to GNG Research
Create a free account to access portfolio tracking, advanced tools, and more.