Red Rock Capital Advisors

Thomas Rollinger, the firm's founder, serves as Chief Investment Officer and is responsible for all investment decisions. The strategy is fully systematic, meaning the portfolio construction rules and risk filters are codified in algorithms with no discretionary override; Rollinger's role centers on the research, design, and ongoing refinement of those systems rather than day-to-day trading calls.

Red Rock runs a long/flat momentum program — it can go long or move flat, but never short — whereas most CTAs run long/short. The portfolio is also built bottom-up: each futures contract is evaluated on its own risk characteristics and either included or excluded individually, rather than the firm setting top-down allocation targets for broad sectors like '20% energy.' This creates a return stream that historically shows lower correlation to standard CTA benchmarks (per firm materials).

The program can allocate across approximately 60 global futures markets spanning energies (crude oil, natural gas, gasoline), base metals (copper, aluminum), precious metals (gold, silver), grains and oilseeds (corn, wheat, soybeans), soft commodities (sugar, coffee, cotton), livestock, currencies, and fixed income. The bottom-up construction process means the portfolio is concentrated in contracts that pass the firm's individual risk screens, not in a preset market mix.

Because the strategy is long-only with a flat option, it is explicitly designed to avoid losing capital in sustained commodity downtrends — when momentum signals turn negative, the program moves to a flat position in that contract rather than attempting to profit from the decline. This asymmetric structure means the strategy will not capture downside trends, but it also avoids the whipsaw losses that can occur when long/short CTAs get caught switching direction in choppy markets.

Red Rock has historically offered its strategy through separately managed accounts, which provide institutional allocators with full transparency into holdings, daily liquidity, and the ability to set custom risk parameters. This structure is common for institutional commodity allocations where investors want control over leverage and do not want to commingle capital in a pooled fund vehicle (public record).

Red Rock does not publicly disclose its minimum investment requirements. Like many managed-account CTAs serving institutional investors, minimums are negotiated bilaterally and typically depend on the client's total asset base, the desired notional funding level, and any customizations to the standard program. Interested allocators should contact the firm directly.

Thomas Rollinger has been involved in systematic commodity and managed futures strategies for over two decades, founding Red Rock Capital Advisors after earlier experience in quantitative research and portfolio management roles in the managed futures industry. He has presented at industry conferences including CTA Expo and other managed-futures forums, typically discussing contract-level risk assessment and momentum signal construction (per industry event records).