February 2026 Deck Download

(Mike) Slides 1-4:

Hi everyone, I’m Mike Pacitto with iM Global Partner, joined by Co-Founder of DBi and Co-Portfolio Manager, Andrew Beer. Thanks for watching our Feburary 2026 update on the iM Global Partner DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF– ticker: DBMF.

This month we’re calling our update simply “alpha-generation,” which Andrew will expand upon shortly. But along those lines, let’s start off with a few updates that we think you’ll find of interest.

(Mike) Slide 5:

First, sticking with that alpha-generation theme –

This table shows a very basic comparison of DBMF versus the S&P 500 since the inception of DBMF in mid-2019.

As everyone has heard us say many times, we believe managed futures and DBMF specifically is a must-have part of any alternatives portfolio – but that’s a qualitative narrative – what do the numbers say?

Well we think it’s pretty clear here that there are few alternatives – especially liquid ones – that have shown this kind of diversifying impact with simultaneous alpha-generating power.

Going down the table – strong performance, albeit not as high as the very high bar US equities have set over the period – but a full 5-plus points lower standard deviation and 6-plus points lower drawdown than equities – a Sharpe Ratio that’s over three quarters as high as equities –

But here’s where it gets good for an alts allocator – less than zero correlation and beta to equities, diversifying as an alt should – and 9.5% annualized alpha – in other words, delivering uncorrelated performance for portfolios. We’d challenge any other alternative asset class or strategy to display those kinds of numbers, and this is exactly why we think any alts portfolio that doesn’t have managed futures is missing a critical component and is incomplete.

(Mike) Slide 6:

Okay, now a quick update on tax-loss carryforwards – which we touch on from time to time since the managed futures asset class can be less tax efficient than we’d like. But the good news here is that we have embedded tax-loss carryforwards in DBMF of around $165m as of the end of February – meaning, we’ll see some cap gains/distribution insulation for a while for the majority of the portfolio. While we’re not tax advisors, let us know if you’d like any further color on this current attribute of DBMF.

(Mike) Slide 7:

And finally this: as of the end of February, DBMF surpassed $3B in assets, making it the largest strategy in the Morningstar® systematic trend category which includes mutual funds and ETFs.

It’s been a long road to get here, but we’re not done – we’re still only a small amount in the broad category at large, which includes hedge funds – and our goal is to not only grow DBMF, but to grow this asset class as we try to best inform allocators about the incomparable benefits of managed futures for portfolios.

And we certainly want to thank every single client who has invested with us, recognizing what we’re trying to do and trying to deliver to investors – which is to provide a fiduciary-friendly, institutional-grade, efficient low cost solution to the space.

With all that said, Andrew, over to you!

(Andrew) Slide 8:

Thanks, Mike.

Just about everything worked in February, and we posted one of the best months ever – up nearly 8%. Year to date, we’re up over 11% with US equities flattish. This kind of alpha generation does not come from “trend following” – rather, as noted in the first bullet, it is because the trend signal sometimes enables Commodity Trading Advisors, more commonly known as CTAs, to be early, contrarian and right. Buying gold below $3000, embracing the rotation into non-US stocks, maybe the recent pivot into long crude oil. On the macro front, as we have discussed in these videos, big changes are afoot, and the conflagration in the Middle East clearly demonstrates. In general, big changes, or more technically regime shifts, radically increase the opportunity set for CTAs as markets reprice assets.

To go back to performance, in February DBMF rose nearly 8%, well ahead of the SocGen CTA Index, which rose a bit over 3%. The Morningstar Systematic Trend Category continued its streak of beating hedge funds and rose nearly 4%. What is striking to us is what’s in the third bullet point: CTA alpha is driven by moves in major markets, not hundreds of idiosyncratic bets. That’s why we built DBMF with a concentrated, efficient portfolio of ten major markets futures contracts.

(Andrew) Slide 9:

Here’s our performance since launch of DBMF in 2019. Over more than six and a half years, we’ve now added more than 400 bps of returns per annum relative to the SocGen CTA Index. Outperformance relative to the Morningstar category is even higher. The live strategy track record back to July 2016 shows similar results. To repeat what I said last month, what we believe the data shows is that CTAs, generate a very valuable signal – sometimes early and contrarian information about big shifts in the macro landscape – but that high implementation costs significant erode performance. On virtually every statistical measure, investors would have been better off replicating hedge fund returns over the past decade rather than investing in hedge funds or, for that matter, mutual funds.

What’s also interesting is that outperformance has risen dramatically over the past three years: 482 bps in 2024, 1401 bps in 2025 and 377 bps in just two months this year. We believe this is due to a rapid expansion of complexity in many models – more markets, more risk controls, more short term signals – that have, in aggregate, cost performance. Hedge funds argue that this is a temporary phenomenon, but the fact that replication is outperforming even during a period when many idiosyncratic trades are working tends to undermine this argument. In any event, we’ll continue to watch this closely.

(Andrew) Slide 10:

Here’s our slide on volatility-adjusted positioning. The green bars are the volatility adjusted exposure of our ten futures contracts at the end of February, and the red dots are positioning at the end of January.

Moving from left to right, in commodities we dialed up the long crude oil position, which could be prescient given recent events, and continue to be long gold. We’re dialed back a bit the long the Euro – short the yen spread trade. Interestingly, we added to a long position in 30 year Treasuries – probably a good hedge if, for whatever reason, economic growth grinds to a halt. And lastly, we dialed back somewhat our long positions in EAFE and EM — essentially the bet on the ongoing rotation from US equities – but still have ample exposure.

(Andrew) Slide 11:

And finally, here’s year to date contributions to performance. As discussed in the beginning, CTAs were early into both gold, non-US developed and emerging markets stocks and, not surprisingly, those drove performance. Anticipation of war in the Middle East drove up crude oil prices, which added a bit to performance as well. On the currency and rates front, it’s been a bit choppy, but hopefully those markets will add to performance this year as macro events play out.

And, with that, back to you. Mike.

(Mike) Slide 12:

Thanks Andrew –

Let’s wrap up here with long-term performance numbers for DBMF –– annualized return since inception including the month that was February 2026 is now 9.89%, ahead of the Soc Gen CTA index by over 435 basis points annualized, and ahead of the Morningstar Systematic Trend Category Average by over 520 basis points.

And long-term outperformance against the traditional diversifier for equities – that being bonds as represented by the Bloomberg AGG – remains well intact with DBMF outperforming by over 800 basis points annualized.

(Mike) Slide 13-14:

Thanks everyone for checking out our monthly videos – if you have any suggestions in terms of things you’d like to see added, changes, feedback or inputs please let us know —

Otherwise if you have more questions about the strategy, would like further information or a call with us please don’t hesitate to reach out – just send us an email at: [email protected]