The big winners of 2026 oil prices — and why they’re shifting focus

The surge in oil prices and ongoing volatility have netted major gains in a corner of the market that rarely captures headlines: quantitative trend-following hedge funds.

Quantitative trend-followers — also known as commodity trading advisors (CTAs) or managed futures funds — use complex machine-learning algorithms, statistical analysis and factor-based modelling to identify price trends across futures markets, including equities, bonds, commodities and currencies.

The spike in commodity prices caused by the war in the Middle East has handed them one of their richest trading environments in years.

By trading on both rising and falling markets, with investment decisions made by computer-based systems driven by data and signals rather than human judgment or emotion, CTAs can often provide uncorrelated returns and so-called “crisis alpha” to investment portfolios during market turbulence.

Societe Generale’s main SG CTA Index — the sector’s main benchmark and the key barometer for trend-following strategies’ overall performance —  is up more than 12.2% year-to-date to June 3. The SG Trend Index, a daily performance tracker of the 10 biggest trend-following hedge funds, has risen 12.3% over the same period.

Energy commodities have been a standout contributor to CTAs’ gains since the start of the Middle East conflict on Feb. 28.

But the splintering narrative around the conflict and the increasingly uncertain direction of U.S.-Iran peace negotiations are now pushing such strategies to scale back their oil bets.

Helen Doody, head of Abbey Capital U.S., said many funds established long energy positions early in the first quarter as the price of crude oil rose.

“They were positioned to capture the sharp rally that occurred in late February and early March due to events in Iran,” Doody told CNBC via email. “CTA strategies also typically participated in the up moves in distillate contracts like gasoline and diesel.”

Nicolas Gaussel, CEO and CIO of Paris-based CTA Metori Capital Management, which trades both commodities and financial contracts, said roughly a third of his firm’s performance this year has come from energy trades.