Futures trading advisor
Derivatives trading advisor ( English: commodity trading advisor , short: CTA) is the professional title for the manager of a special investment product (the " managed futures ", a specialized hedge fund asset class) based on futures contracts.
A CTA registration is required if:
- more than 15 people are advised for more than 12 months
- one appears publicly as a CTA or advertises with the corresponding services
- one of further points is fulfilled, by which professional action can be recognized.
The job title is a protected term reserved exclusively for companies or individuals who have been registered with the US regulatory authority Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) under the Commodity Exchange Act with evidence of appropriate qualifications . Membership in the National Futures Organization is mandatory for CTAs. As part of this membership, the identity of the CTA is clarified through an "FBI background check". All approved CTAs are registered via the National Futures Association, where all registered commodity trading advisors can be looked up in the BASIC database.
CTAs are therefore subject to one of the most heavily regulated financial market supervisory regimes.
Web links
- http://www.cftc.gov/ (English)
- http://www.nfa.futures.org/ (English)