According to data collected by research company Parker Global Managers, the firm’s performance-based benchmark Parker FX, is showing positive returns for several global foreign exchange fund managers during the month of July.

Aside from reported FX fund managers’ performance, the index analyzes unleveraged (or risk-adjusted) performance, hence calculating pure currency alpha.

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The returns for July are reported at +0.82% with thirty-two of the thirty-six programs in the Index reporting. Nineteen show positive results and thirteen incurred losses. The risk-adjusted performance is slimmer, reported up by +0.36% in July with the median return totaling +0.24%.

Among the peers, performance ranged widely – from as high as +7.32% to the lower band at -2.50%. A sub-benchmark named the Parker Systematic Index, is tracking the performance of FX fund managers who are using a rule-based decision process. Those registered gains of +0.54% in July.

The sub-index tracking the performance of discretionary managers, named Discretionary Index, registered higher gains marking +1.10%. The risk-adjusted components of the benchmark show +0.20% for the Parker Systematic Index and +0.83% for the Parker Discretionary Index.

The constituent programs occupying the top three spots for the month of July returned +7.32%, +5.71% and +4.93% on a reported basis, and +3.05%, +2.42% and +2.09% on a risk-adjusted basis.

During the month of July, increasing geopolitical risks coupled with diverging courses for monetary policy across the Atlantic have contributed to a slowly improving environment for foreign exchange traders.

In August, the US dollar clearly broke out from multi-month ranges against its major peers and hit 11-month highs against the euro. With the approaching end of the FED’s quantitative easing program and the prospects for more monetary easing by the European Central Bank, this might be only the first of more positive months for FX fund managers.