Primary Business
Operating under a “Service Bureau” business model, Interconti provides Marketing, Research and Consulting services to the investment industry, specializing in, but not limited to, futures and managed futures products.
As we don’t operate in a brokerage capacity, we don’t deal with end-users, preferring to operate on a strictly “B2B” basis. We view our primary market as smaller retail FCMs and IBs who desire to offer managed futures product/exposure to their clients but to do so without undertaking the potentially substantial capital allocation normally required, searching out appropriate internal department-head talent and suffering the almost inevitable reticence of IIBs and GIBs alike to share their hard-won client information, not to mention commission income, with representatives of the parent or clearing entity. A more complete description of methodology, practices & services can be found here: http://www.intercontilimited.com/interconti_services.pdf
By whom, and how was the firm started?
Interconti was originally founded by Tim Merryman as a CTA and Leverage Transaction Merchant but over time morphed into a Stocks & Commodities newsletter publisher of the Interconti Daily Report and Interconti Weekend Ramblings. Newsletters further matured into Website(s) thence Blogs whilst retaining consultancy services throughout.
During the near economic Armageddon of 2008, 09, Managed Futures performance was exemplary and for the first time actually brought the genre’ into the focus it has deserved all along. Performance in the interim has admittedly been less exciting, yet levels of public interest have remained high… (see live Google Trends chart on our Managed Futures page).
This increased interest has fomented a proliferation of ETF/ETNs as the Securities Industry recognized the demand and rose to meet the challenge. More recently, regulators have come to express a level of concern over periodic divergences between NAV and share prices as well as performance variations resultant from any number of factors prevalent in closed-end funds.
Thus, conventional Managed Futures remain our prime choice in the panoply of products, and our promotion thereof has more than once been characterized as a “Messianic MISSION”...
Does the firm provide services in addition to the primary business?
Interconti maintains four distinct web pages and one unique blog dedicated to various aspects of futures trading and macro/micro economics. http://www.intercontilimited.com.
Through our strategic partners at TraderSource we also offer the ability to monitor and guard against Style Drift – long considered an Achilles Heel of passive investing in Managed Futures.
How has the futures and options industry evolved since the firm began?
Just as many other profiled N.I.B.A. members have ably pointed out, the biggest changes lie in the huge increase in commodities and futures participation resulting from the general recognition of portfolio diversification benefits within the last half-decade, not to mention the accessibility brought about by the advent of the Internet itself and subsequent development of electronic trading.
What are the biggest challenges your customers face today, and what do you do to help them?
We view our prime directive in this arena as aiding our customers in assisting their clients to maintain strategic focus while resisting the temptation to think solely tactically based upon the most recent headline crisis mania (see “trends we are most worried about” below).
What do you think are the keys to the firm’s success?
Longevity, Experience, Historical Perspective, Persistence.
What trends are the firm most excited about?
The growing recognition of commodities & futures as an asset class unto itself including the oft-unrecognized characterization that this asset class offers every bit of the complexity inherent in other classes along with the multi-tiered opportunities such complexity presents. Commodity Futures are no longer solely an inflation hedge.
What trends are the firm most worried about?
Changing market trends represent every bit as much an opportunity as a risk. Sadly, such changes layered over an indecisive and overly-politicized legislative and regulatory environment, not to mention the MF Global debacle currently playing out in televised Congressional Hearings, militate towards either a tendency to inaction on the part of end-users or loss of focus on longer term less unpredictable trends.
Why are you a NIBA supporter?
In times of crisis as well as critical junctures in any given industry’s history, such entities as N.I.B.A. become INDISPENSIBLE assets to that industry’s interests. In this regard, N.I.B.A. is unique in that it represents the best qualities of Professional Trade Associations, Artisan’s Guilds (in the classical sense), Legislative Representatives (lobbyists) and even Trade Unions. Furthermore N.I.B.A. has managed the almost impossible task of doing so without succumbing to the negative tendencies of some of the entities mentioned. In our humble opinion, participants who have chosen this profession for their livelihood simply cannot afford NOT to participate in the process of having a say in their own destiny. N.I.B.A. represents the most effective means we’ve found to do so.
CONTACT
Tim Merryman
intercon@intercontilimited.com
+1.312.933.0408
