(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 January 2026 update, which we’re calling “Managed Futures are Here to Stay,” on the iM Global Partner DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF– ticker: DBMF.

Regarding the title, it refers to a recent Morningstar Q&A write-up on managed futures and DBMF that Andrew did which is linked to the email that accompanied delivery of the video update. It’s one of the best quick-hit pieces we’ve seen on the space and the strategy in a long time, so I hope you’ll check it out.

Well, what a January – actually, what a 2026 so far – not sure we’ve seen this kind of across the board macro-volatility to kick off a year in a while – but I’ll leave that commentary to Andrew –

Before I hand it off, I’d like to give folks who watch our monthly update videos a sneak peek of some content we’ll be releasing soon in a new 5-minute animated video tentatively titled “The Essential Alternative,” which makes the case that if you’re allocating to alternatives, managed futures is a cornerstone must-have component of any truly alternative alternatives allocation – it’s a drum we’re going to keep on beating because we believe it needs to be heard –

(Mike) Slides 5-5a:

So what you’re looking at here is a simple scatter plot showing correlation to US equities on the X-axis and alpha-generation on the Y-axis. The dots are all of the Morningstar liquid alternatives category averages. You’ll see, with the exception of equity precious metals, most of these quote “alternatives” unquote are highly correlated to stocks – not delivering much diversification benefit at all. And  most display negative performance traits in terms of alpha-generation as well. So while adding alternatives to portfolios sounds good in theory, it can be very difficult to pull off effectively.

Now take a look where managed futures, as represented by the SG CTA on this chart. Low correlation, and high-alpha generation compared to all of these various alternatives. Managed futures delivering both absolute and relative performance coupled with real diversifying benefits.

The video will dive deeper – comparing managed futures to all major asset classes in terms of historical performance, alpha-generation, drawdowns, Sharpe, etc., and I think you’re going to find it makes a very strong case.

Okay that’s it for the intro, let’s get over to you Andrew for your take on January and other thoughts –

(Andrew) Slide 6:

Thanks, Mike.

On the macro front, big changes are afoot.  The signs of a rotation out of US assets are hard to ignore.  Developed and emerging international markets outperformed US equities by a lot in January after roughly doubling the performance of the S&P 500 last year.  The Euro is up 15% against the dollar over the past year.  And gold soared another 12% in January after soaring more than 60% last year.  These global shifts are generating powerful trends across asset classes, as we have seen in DBMF with the 25% jump since the post-Liberation Day of April 2nd 2025 lows last year.

In January, DBMF rose approximately 4%, nearly matching the performance of the SocGen CTA Index, which rose 4.7% — a month that ranks in the top decile over the past twenty five plus years.  The Morningstar Systematic Trend Category did even better, at over 5%, continuing a trend – pun intended – of mutual funds and ETFs awkwardly outperforming higher cost hedge funds.  Let’s hope the start of 2026 is a sign of a very trendy year.

(Andrew) Slide 7:

Here’s our performance since launch of DBMF in 2019.  Over more than six and a half years, we’ve added more than 350 bps of returns per annum relative to the SocGen CTA Index with more than double the Sharpe ratio and a correlation of nearly 0.9.  Outperformance relative to the Morningstar category is even higher.  The live strategy track record back to July 2016 shows similar results.  What we believe the data shows is that Commodity Trading Advisors, more commonly known as 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.

A rational allocator should take a step back and think about what this means.  The logical conclusion is that replication should serve as the core of the CTA allocation – efficient beta, so to speak.  It should be the “easy” part of the allocation.  Then allocators and fund selectors can concentrate energies on “satellite” single managers that are not beta-adjacent, but rather offer differentiated returns.  If interested in discussing this live, please do not hesitate to reach out.

(Andrew) Slide 8:

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 January, and the red dots are positioning at the end of December.

Moving from left to right, in commodities we continue to be long gold – the de-dollarization trade is in full swing – and have shifted to long crude oil – perhaps a nice hedge if the Middle East tinderbox reignites.  We’re long the Euro – albeit dialed back the position — and still meaningfully short the yen – more an idiosyncratic bet on the unwind of Japan’s three decade financial experiment than bullish view on the dollar.  We have minimal risk on the rates front, likely a reflection of the lack of clear direction in those markets.  And lastly, we significantly increased exposure to EAFE and EM, with a hedge by shorting the S&P – pressing the bet on the ongoing rotation from US equities.

(Andrew) Slide 9:

And finally, here’s overall contributions to performance.   Not surprisingly, gold and non-US equities drove performance, and we gave back some late 2025 profits as the yen bounced a bit.

And, with that, I’ll pass the baton back to Mike.

(Mike) Slide 10:

Thanks Andrew –

Let’s wrap up here with long-term performance numbers for DBMF –– annualized return since inception including the year that was 2025 is now 8.79%, ahead of the Soc Gen CTA index by over 360 basis points annualized, and ahead of the Morningstar Systematic Trend Category Average by over 465 basis points.

And long-term outperformance against the traditional diversifier for equities – that being bonds as represented by the Bloomberg AGG – remains well intact – DBMF outperforming by over 715 basis points annualized.

(Mike) Slide 11-12:

Thanks everyone for checking out our monthly videos – if you have any suggestions in terms of things you’d like to see, 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]