Margaux Laurent

Margaux Laurent

“The Prospector” · Commodity trend · Geneva

“Real things move in long tides — gold, oil, metals, grain. I ride a commodity while it trends and step aside to cash when it turns.”

Real things move in long tides. She rides them.

Trend-follows a basket of real commodities — holding each only while it’s rising, cash when it turns.

RiskCommodity trendMonthly5 commodity ETFsvs Broad commodities (DBC)

The approach

Comes from the commodity-trading world — Geneva, where metals, energy and grain are traded as a profession.

Margaux trades the long tides in real assets — gold, silver, copper, oil and agriculture. She holds each commodity only while it’s in a clear uptrend and moves it to cash when the trend breaks, spreading across whichever ones are actually rising. Commodities march to their own drum — often when shares and bonds are struggling — so a disciplined trend approach to them adds a genuinely different engine to a portfolio, and a real hedge against inflation.

Strengths

  • A different engine from stocks and bonds
  • An inflation hedge by nature
  • Holds only the commodities actually trending
  • A built-in exit when a trend breaks

Worth knowing

Commodities are volatile and prone to false starts; trend-following them means frequent small whipsaws between trades. She follows price trend only — not the futures-curve carry, which needs data the free feed doesn’t carry.

Built on

Gorton & Rouwenhorst, facts and fantasies about commodity futures

The evidence that commodity futures earn equity-like returns while diversifying stocks and bonds.

Moskowitz, Ooi & Pedersen, time-series momentum

An asset's own past trend predicts its next move — the gate each sleeve obeys.

Keynes on normal backwardation

Why a commodity future can pay a risk premium at all: producers pay speculators to carry their price risk.

The literature

Gorton & Rouwenhorst, “Facts and Fantasies about Commodity Futures”, Financial Analysts Journal (2006)

The case for commodities as a distinct, diversifying asset class.

Moskowitz, Ooi & Pedersen, “Time Series Momentum”, J. Financial Economics (2012)

The published trend rule applied per sleeve.

Keynes, A Treatise on Money (1930)

The original account of the hedging pressure that makes a commodity risk premium possible.

Risk level 4 of 5

Aggressive. Commodities are volatile — oil and silver especially — but a 10-month trend filter moves each sleeve to cash in downtrends and gold anchors the defensive side. Expect real drawdowns and whipsaw; the upside is a genuine, uncorrelated diversifier.

Worst stretch in the 3-year backtest: a US$10,000 allocation would have fallen by US$2,005 (-20.1%) before recovering.

Form guide

Steady

Trades roughly monthly.

2 trading days in the last 306 in the last 90

Counted from the manager’s own decision log. Activity is temperament, not skill — a patient manager isn’t worse than a busy one.

In the book right now: DBO · CPER · DBA — a few examples, without weights; every change they make is logged in plain English below.

Decision scorecard

Graded calls
8
Good calls
75%
Avg edge vs Broad commodities (DBC)
+4.5%

Every buy and sell is graded once, 14 days later, against Broad commodities (DBC) over the same window — a buy scores well if it beat the benchmark, a sell if the symbol then trailed it. 4 buys, 4 sells graded so far. Early days — treat these numbers as forming, not formed.

Grades measure decisions; they never change the rules. Rule changes only happen through the published spec process — see the transparency page.

Hire Margaux to run part of your own brokerage account — $9.99 a month, cancel any time. Every order they propose waits for your approval; the deepest historical loss of this method is shown above before you commit anything.

Hire Margaux →
✓ VerifiedRules published in full·reproducible backtest 3d63827ae1·audited Jul 2026How we stay honest →

Backtest honesty

  • Trend only — no roll-yield carry

    This manager trades trend only. It uses a roll-optimised oil fund (DBO) to limit contango, but it cannot trade the futures-curve 'carry' professional desks use — the free daily feed has no term structure. Commodity funds carry no single-name survivorship bias.

  • Same code, both records

    Backtests and live trading run the same strategy code — there is no separate marketing backtest. Past performance does not predict future results.

  • The live record inherits a portfolio — it doesn't start from cash

    On its first live day (15.06.2026) this manager took over the exact positions its backtest ended holding, rather than buying a fresh book from cash. That keeps the two records one continuous portfolio instead of two disconnected ones — but it means the earliest live weeks are driven by holdings chosen before the live record began, and you will find no purchase entries for them in the decision log below. The first live entries are that portfolio's next scheduled review.

Interview Margaux

Ask about their approach, their recent decisions, what could go wrong — anything. They answer in plain language; the exact rules stay in the engine.

How Margaux invests

A plain-English summary of the approach. Every decision this manager makes is logged below in the same plain language, so you can always see exactly what happened and why.

Spreads across gold, silver, copper, oil and farm goods. Each month she holds whichever are trending upward and moves the rest to cash, with gold as the steady anchor. Reviewed monthly.

Track record

CAGR
+21.5%
Sharpe
0.99
Max drawdown
-20.1%
Worst month
-11.0%

Compounded over the window, US$10,000 would have become US$17,895 — hypothetical, and only for someone who sat through the -20.1% fall above without selling.

Backtest 06.07.2023 – 02.07.2026 · config 3d63827ae13134c0

891562222023-07-062026-07-02
This managerBroad commodities (DBC)
Both lines start at 100 on the same day. Shaded = each line's deepest fall (peak-to-trough): this manager -20.1% · Broad commodities (DBC) -16.5% — note the two happen at different times.

Live paper-trading record

Live since 15.06.2026: a US$10,000 allocation would now be US$10,363 — up US$363 (+3.6%) over 58 trading days.

Marked at the last completed close, 04.09.2026 · NAV 160.18.

891021142026-06-152026-09-04
This managerBroad commodities (DBC)
Both lines start at 100 on the same day. Shaded = each line's deepest fall (peak-to-trough): this manager -9.0% · Broad commodities (DBC) -7.2% — note the two happen at different times.

Crisis stress test — the 2008 financial crisis

How this exact strategy would have navigated 02.09.2008 – 31.08.2011 — the Lehman collapse, a −46% market crash and the slow recovery. A hypothetical backtest on real market data, run on the same strategy code as the live engine.

The market fell -46.0%. This manager's worst drawdown was -18.0% — about 2.6× shallower than the market. Over the window it returned +21.1%/yr (the market: +0.6%/yr).
CAGR
+21.1%
Max drawdown
-18.0%
Worst month
-9.9%
531211892008-09-022011-08-31
This managerS&P 500
Both lines start at 100 on the same day. Shaded = each line's deepest fall (peak-to-trough): this manager -18.0% · S&P 500 -46.0% — note the two happen at different times.

Shown only for managers whose instruments existed at the time. Hypothetical; past performance does not predict future results.

Crisis stress test — the 2020 COVID crash

How this exact strategy would have navigated 02.01.2020 – 30.06.2021 — the fastest deep crash in history — barely a month — then a V-shaped recovery. A hypothetical backtest on real market data, run on the same strategy code as the live engine.

The market fell -33.7%. This manager's worst drawdown was -16.8% — about 2.0× shallower than the market. Over the window it returned +33.6%/yr (the market: +22.3%/yr).
CAGR
+33.6%
Max drawdown
-16.8%
Worst month
-5.5%
681151632020-01-022021-06-30
This managerS&P 500
Both lines start at 100 on the same day. Shaded = each line's deepest fall (peak-to-trough): this manager -16.8% · S&P 500 -33.7% — note the two happen at different times.

Shown only for managers whose instruments existed at the time. Hypothetical; past performance does not predict future results.

Decision log

Every action — and every deliberate non-action — in plain language, straight from the engine. Days the market was shut are listed separately, so they never bury a trade.

Running· last traded 1 Sept 2026· reassesses monthly, next at the end of SeptemberA gap between trades is the strategy, not a fault — this manager only changes what it holds on its own schedule. Your own account is checked against it every night.
  1. buyDBA

    agriculture (DBA) closed at 29.32, above its 10-month average (26.88) — in an uptrend, held at 33%.

  2. buyCPER

    copper (CPER) closed at 40.00, above its 10-month average (36.77) — in an uptrend, held at 33%.

  3. sellDBO

    Trimming an overweight position back to its target weight — oil (DBO) closed at 22.01, above its 10-month average (17.76) — in an uptrend, held at 33%.

  4. rebalance

    Monthly commodity-trend check: 3 of 5 commodities closed above their 10-month average and are held equal-weight (33% each); 2 in cash.

  5. pause

    Engine paused before trading: GLD: missing or non-positive prices in series — no orders were placed; the admin has been flagged.

  6. buyCPER✗ +2.8% after 2wks

    copper (CPER) closed at 39.56, above its 10-month average (35.92) — in an uptrend, held at 33%.

  7. buyDBO✓ +7.4% after 2wks

    oil (DBO) closed at 21.53, above its 10-month average (16.83) — in an uptrend, held at 33%.

  8. buyDBA✗ +2.2% after 2wks

    agriculture (DBA) closed at 27.51, above its 10-month average (26.49) — in an uptrend, held at 33%.

  9. rebalance

    Monthly commodity-trend check: 3 of 5 commodities closed above their 10-month average and are held equal-weight (33% each); 2 in cash.

  10. pause

    Engine paused before trading: GLD: missing or non-positive prices in series — no orders were placed; the admin has been flagged.

  11. sellCPER✓ +3.9% after 2wks

    copper (CPER) closed at 37.73, above its 10-month average (34.96) — in an uptrend, held at 20%.

  12. buyDBO✓ +16.0% after 2wks

    oil (DBO) closed at 17.65, above its 10-month average (15.98) — in an uptrend, held at 20%.

  13. sellGLD✓ +0.4% after 2wks

    gold (GLD) closed at 368.38, below its 10-month average (407.59) — moved to cash.

  14. sellSLV✓ -2.0% after 2wks

    silver (SLV) closed at 53.47, below its 10-month average (61.90) — moved to cash.

  15. sellDBA✓ +4.7% after 2wks

    agriculture (DBA) closed at 26.67, above its 10-month average (26.33) — in an uptrend, held at 20%.

  16. rebalance

    Monthly commodity-trend check: 3 of 5 commodities closed above their 10-month average and are held equal-weight (20% each); 2 in cash.

Your money stays in your own brokerage account — Alfred never holds it, and every order requires your explicit approval. Nothing on this page is investment advice or a recommendation. Past performance does not predict future results.Allocations on Alfred use virtual US dollars at the manager's daily NAV.

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