Our philosophy

Trend Following For Real World Investors.

Trend following has a track record spanning more than four decades and has served as a source of diversification across a wide range of market environmnets. Yet many investors find traditional approaches difficult to understand and stick with over time. We reimagined trend following around identifiable market trends that advisors can explain, clients can understand, and portfolios may benefit from.

The new reality in three simple points

1. U.S. Debt Is Exploding
National debt now exceeds $38.6 trillion (early 2026), growing by billions daily. Interest payments are one of the largest federal expenses and rising.

2. Managing It Can Mean More Dollars Printed -> Debasement
To service this debt without drastic cuts, policymakers rely on borrowing and, when needed, money creation. Result: persistent inflation risk and gradual USD debasement. Your clients' dollars may buy less over time.

3. Bonds Take the Hit
  • After-tax coupons can lose real value to inflation, potentially amounting to negative real returns even at nominal yields.
  • Rising yields from debt/inflation fears can drive bond prices down.
  • Stock-bond correlation breaks: both can fall together (as in 2022 and recent volatile periods), weakening diversification.

Bottom Line for Your Clients
We believe bonds no longer reliably help protect wealth in a high-debt, inflation-prone world. The traditional "conservative" location can quietly erode purchasing power instead of preserving it - especially over long horizons or during retirement drawdowns.

The Opportunity
This is why optimized liquid alternatives matter now more than ever. They target low correlation to both stocks and bonds, seek absolute returns across cycles, and deliver more resilient outcomes with daily liquidity - exactly what today's portfolios can benefit from.

We believe the fiscal math isn't reversing soon. Advisors seeking to adapt may give clients a real edge. Bonds still play a role, but exclusivley depending on them as a portfolio diversifier? That's a risk we can help you reduce.  

The Framework

A Good Alternative Has Three Jobs.
01

Diversify

Move independently - driven by a completely different force than what's already in the portfolio.

02

Contribute

Earn across market cycles - not just a crisis.

03

Be Ownable

Give clients a strategy they can stick with through difficult periods.

The Ownership Challenge

Many Trend Strategies Are Hard to Own.
The Dormancy Challenge

Multi-year flat periods are structural, not anomalous. Advisors defending a flat line year after year test the limits of any client relationship.

The Drawdown Challenge

When macro trends reverse, the strategy can spend years underwater. The duration tests client patience in ways pure equity drawdowns don't - and creates a return opportunity cost that's difficult to justify.

The Conviction Challenge

Performance cycles erode conviction before the strategy recovers. Advisors who can't defend a multi-year drawdown end up abandoning the allocation.

These aren't flaws in trend following itself - they're specific to where many trend strategies look for trends. The category earns its diversification. The problem is holding it long enough to benefit.

The Difference

Same disciplne. Different source of return.

Traditional trend strategies follow macro forces - global monetary policy cycles, inflation regimes, commodity supply shocks, and geopolitical capital flows. These produce genuine diversification, but they're regime-dependent: powerful in specific environments and quiet in between. Longboard applies the same trend-following discipline to a different source entirely - micro trends. Micro trends are the opposite of macro forces: industry disruption, winner-take-most dynamics, and product-level competition playing out at the company level. Micro trends don't wait for macro regimes to shift. The result passes the same diversification test, but with a structurally different return stream and a story advisors can actually defend.

dimension
macro trends (many ctas)
micro trends - longboard

Source of trends

Global monetary policy cycles, inflation and deflation regimes, energy and commodity supply shocks, geopolitical capital flows, and currency realignments - broad macro forces that move entire asset classes
Industry disruption, winner-take-most dynamics, and product-level competition - micro economic trends at the company level

When it activates

Powerfully in specific macro regimes - dormant in between
Designed to remain active across environments – micro trends do not depend on macro regime shifts

Drawdown duration

Multi-year underwater periods when macro regimes reverse - duration, not just depth, is the real challenge
Targets structurally shorter drawdowns – micro trends cycle independently of macro conditions, supporting faster recovery

Investor ownability

Dormancy, multi-year drawdowns, and opaque drivers combine to make this exceptionally difficult for many clients to stay invested through
Designed around the conditions that make a strategy holdable - shorter difficult periods, a consistent story, and historically higher absolute returns have reduced the opportunity cost of owning it

The Proof

See the Performance. All Three Jobs. The Full Data.

Over a decade of results — including periods when many macro trend strategies faced headwinds. Every number, one job at a time.

View Our performance

Longboard has published award-winning research1 on micro-economic trends. If you want to learn more about our process, download our research here.

download our research
Our Approach
Performance
Fund Library
DEFINITIONS

Beta: Measure of the systematic risk of a security or portfolio in comparison to the market as a whole.

Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate Bond Index: The Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate Bond Index, or the Agg, is a broad base, market capitalization-weighted bond market index representing intermediate term investment grade bonds traded in the United States. Investors frequently use the index as a stand-in for measuring the performance of the US bond market.

Correlation: Correlation in finance measures how two assets or variables move in relation to one another. Expressed numerically by a coefficient between -1.0 and +1.0, it is the foundation of portfolio diversification. Assets with low or negative correlations are combined to reduce total investment risk without sacrificing expected returns.

Maximum Drawdown: The maximum loss from a peak to a trough of an investment or portfolio, before a new peak is attained.

Russell 2000 Small-Cap Index: A small-cap stock market index of the smallest 2,000 stocks in the Russell 3000 Index.

S&P 500 TR Index: A capitalization-weighted index of 500 stocks. The index is designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of 500 stocks representing all major industries.

S&P GSCI: Serves as a benchmark for investment in the commoditymarkets and as a measure of commodity performance over time.

S&P GSCI Gold Index: A widely recognized benchmark that tracks the performance of gold prices in the global market. It reflects the value of a hypothetical portfolio of gold futures contracts traded on leading exchanges, providing a comprehensive view of the gold market’s movement. The index is designed to be a reliable and transparent measure of gold’s performance, excluding any influence from other factors like interest rates or currency fluctuations.

SG Trend Index: A leading benchmark for tracking the performance of a pool of the largest managed futures trend following based hedge fund managers that are open to new investment. The SG Trend Index is equal-weighted and reconstituted annually. The SG Trend Index is formerly known as the Newedge Trend Index.

Sharpe Ratio: Risk-adjusted evaluation of return on an investment, which indicates how well an equity investment is performing compared to a risk-free investment, taking into consideration the additional risk level involved with holding the equity instrument.

Sortino Ratio: Risk-adjusted evaluation of return on an investment that is a variation of the Sharpe Ratio, in that it only factors in downside risk. It is used more to evaluate high-volatility portfolios.

Standard Deviation: A measure of an investment’s volatility. Standard Deviation measures how much the investment returns deviate from the mean of the probability distribution of investments (how much the investment will deviate from its expected return). Investors use this metric to help determine an investment or portfolio’s annual return by considering its historical volatility.

GENERAL DISCLOSURES

Longboard Asset Management, LP (LAM) is registered as an investment advisor with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and only transacts business in states where it is properly registered, or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Commission, nor does it indicate that the advisor has attained a particular level of skill or ability. This website is limited to the dissemination of general information pertaining to its advisory services, together with access to additional investment-related information, publications and links. The information on this site does not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice. You should consult a professional advisor before using any of the information, pursuing any of the investment ideas or implementing any of the strategies presented. We believe the information we present is factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy and you should not regard it as a complete and exhaustive analysis of the subjects we discuss. Our opinions reflect our judgment as of the date of publication and are subject to change. Prospective clients can view the firm’s Form ADV and Part 2A Disclosure Brochure as filed with the SEC at https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/Default.aspx or contact us for a copy. The content of this website is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or tax advice. Always consult an attorney or tax professional regarding your specific legal or tax situation. Longboard Asset Management, LP does not provide legal, tax, accounting, actuarial or pension consulting advice or services. Images and photographs are included for the sole purpose of visually enhancing the site. None of them are photographs of current or former clients. They should not be construed as an endorsement or testimonial from any of the persons in the photographs. Please see our online privacy policy.‍

PAST RESULTS ARE NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT ANY INVESTMENT WILL ACHIEVE ITS GOALS AND GENERATE PROFITS OR AVOID LOSSES
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Important Risk Information

ADDITIONAL DISCLOSURES

Longboard Asset Management, LP (LAM) is registered as an investment advisor with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and only transacts business in states where it is properly registered, or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Commission, nor does it indicate that the advisor has attained a particular level of skill or ability.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT AN INDICATION OF FUTURE PERFORMANCE.

The information set forth herein has been obtained or derived from sources believed by Longboard Asset Management to be reliable. However, Longboard does not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the information’s accuracy or completeness, nor does Longboard recommend that the attached information serve as the basis of any investment decision. Longboard hereby disclaims any duty to provide any updates or changes to the analysis contained in this document. Market analysis, returns, estimates and similar information, including statements of opinion/belief contained herein are subject to a number of assumptions and inherent uncertainties. There can be no assurance that targets, projects, or estimates of future performance will be realized.

Correlation statisticsare based on historical data and may not persist in the future.

Expense ratios and feesare described in the fund’s prospectus.

Media appearances arefor educational purposes only and should not be construed as endorsements.

1 “Does Trend FollowingStill Work on Stocks?”, of which Cole Wilcox was a co-author, received the “Best Quantitative Finance” research paper award by Diaman Partners. Criteria included practical applicability, methodological rigor & innovation, focus on quantitative strategies, clarity and transparency, and high-quality original work. No compensation was provided in connection with the award.

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