What is a commodity pool? Is this a viable way to get into the commodity markets?
Commodity pools are essentially the mutual funds of the futures industry. By definition, a commodity pool is a private investment structure, typically a Limited Partnership, that combines the contributions of multiple investors to be used in futures and option trading in the commodity markets. Simply put, a commodity pool is a fund that operates as a single entity to speculate in the futures markets on behalf of the funds investors. Another way to look at it, a commodity pool is a specialized hedge fund that deals only in futures, or options on futures, traded on organized futures exchanges and is registered as such with the U.S. regulators.
The term, “commodity pool” is a legal word assigned to this type of fund by regulators; commodity pools are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the National Futures Association (NFA). This is in stark contrast to traditional mutual funds, or even hedge funds, which answer to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).
The person, or entity, responsible for managing the commodity pool’s assets and the trading activity within the fund is referred to as the Commodity Pool Operator (CPO). A CPO differs greatly from the alternative form of managed futures, a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) in the manner in which client funds are allocated and traded. As mentioned, a CPO pools investor funds to create a single trading account. Trades are executed within the commodity pool account with profits and losses allocated to participants based on the size of their contribution to the fund. A CTA, on the other hand, instructs his clients to open individual accounts; any trade executed by the advisor on behalf of his clients is done so directly in each individual client account.
