After four straight months of gains, managed futures lost 1.50% in October according to the Barclay CTA Index compiled by BarclayHedge. Year-to-date, the Index is down 2.30%.

“A revival of animal spirits sparked by an improving economic picture and the appearance of a solution for Euro zone sovereign debt problems spawned trend reversals in many of the major futures sectors,” says Sol Waksman (pictured), founder and president of BarclayHedge.

Six of Barclay’s eight CTA indices had negative returns in October. The Diversified Traders Index lost 2.69%, Systematic Traders were down 2.15%, Financial & Metal Traders lost 0.68%, and Currency Traders slipped 0.03%.

“As sentiment reversed from risk-off in September to risk-on in October, prices for equities and commodities rose while bond prices declined,” says Waksman.

On the positive side, the Barclay Discretionary Traders Index gained 0.66%, and Agricultural Traders were up 0.26%.

“Since discretionary traders are typically not momentum traders, they usually do better than the crowd during market reversals,” says Waksman.