Mast lists HXF at 0.80% with HedgeIndex in the name and no index in the mandate
The Mast HedgeIndex Managed Futures Strategy ETF HXF listed on NYSE Arca on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, at a 0.80% expense ratio; HedgeIndex models are an input the adviser may apply at full discretion.
HedgeIndex is in the brand. It is not in the mandate. The August 18 prospectus for HXF, a long/short futures fund across equities, rates, currencies, and commodities, prices that gap at 0.80%: quantitative models from affiliate HedgeIndex LLC are an input under a licensing agreement, and the adviser keeps full discretion over how they are applied and how assets are allocated.
This is not a blank-sheet launch. After the close on Monday, August 31, the new ETF acquired the assets and liabilities of the Mast Managed Futures Strategy Fund, a mutual fund in the same trust, and adopted that fund’s accounting history. The $63 million book as of Thursday is inherited.
HedgeIndex models, not an index
Manteio Scalable Technologies LLC, which uses the Mast Investments name, is the adviser. Tidal Investments LLC is the sub-adviser. The August 18 prospectus says HXF is an actively managed, non-diversified fund that “seeks to achieve positive absolute returns that have a low correlation to the returns of broad stock and bond markets.”
The method is trend-following and macro trading, long and short, with the adviser able to change asset-class exposure as it sees fit. HedgeIndex has provided alternative indexes, models, and data since 1999. The adviser treats those models as a component, not as the portfolio.
The Simplify DBi CTA Managed Futures Index ETF SDMF charges 0.35% to replicate a basket of large managed-futures hedge funds with a 10-contract, weekly, rules-based book. HXF does not name a contract count, a rebalance calendar, or a public signal. You are paying for the adviser’s hand on the HedgeIndex models, not for a published recipe.
The permitted book is a derivatives stack: equity-index futures and options, equity swaps, interest-rate and fixed-income futures and options, commodity and commodity-index contracts, currency futures and options, swaps, forwards, and linked notes. A wholly owned Cayman Islands subsidiary, capped at 25% of total assets, is the tax wrapper for commodity and crypto-asset exposure. The prospectus warns that options, futures, forwards, and swaps have the economic effect of leverage.
Through that Cayman vehicle, crypto-asset ETPs and crypto-asset futures can reach 10% of net assets. Exchange-traded futures usually get 60/40 treatment, 60% taxed as long-term capital gains and 40% as short-term. Income and gains inside the subsidiary, a controlled foreign corporation, pass through to the fund as ordinary income, and distributions of that income are taxed that way for shareholders. The size cap is not unique: the WisdomTree Managed Futures Strategy Fund WTMF may put 10% of net assets into bitcoin ETPs and bitcoin futures. HXF’s language is broader than bitcoin.
None of that tells you what the fund holds today. Holdings have not been published. The filing describes what is allowed, not the current mix.
The record the conversion brought
The August 18 prospectus attaches the predecessor’s results through December 2025: 0.46% annualized over ten years and -5.22% over one year, with a -12.77% quarter in the three months ended June 30, 2025. Class I shares of the old fund charged 1.30%. Those figures are what a converted 0.80% product has to defend.
HXF’s 0.80% against a 12-fund field
Managed futures is not an empty sleeve. The category we track already has 12 ETFs. Two of them are large and liquid. Several others do the same long/short futures work at a lower stated fee.
HXF prices with the giants, not the 0.35% recipe
A 20-asset futures fund, the Virtus AlphaSimplex Managed Futures ETF ASMF, already charges 0.80% on $30.4 million as of Thursday.
Asset figures are as of Thursday, except DBMF as of August 6. Expense ratios are the funds’ current stated totals.
There is no waiver in the fee table. Management fees are 0.80%, distribution fees are 0.00%, other expenses are 0.00%.
DBMF averaged about 1.7 million shares a day on its latest profile. HXF has no comparable secondary-market activity.
KMLM is narrower: 22 futures across commodities, currencies, and global bonds, and no equity futures. The Simplify Managed Futures Strategy ETF CTA discloses a commodity-futures book of Brent, copper, gasoil, cotton, sugar, cocoa, and corn, sitting on a money-market sleeve. HXF’s prospectus is the broader menu, including equity-index exposure and that 10% crypto sleeve. Breadth in the document is not the same as breadth in the portfolio.
What old holders gained, and what 0.80% still has to show
HXF is the managed-futures sleeve of Mast’s HedgeIndex lineup, after the corporate-arbitrage fund HXA and the adaptive-equities fund HXE listed in August. The commodities sibling is HXC. Same adviser, same model family, different job.
For holders of the old Class I shares, the wrapper cut the fee from 1.30% to a 0.80% unitary charge and put the book on NYSE Arca, with continuous creation and redemption at NAV. What it did not buy is a published recipe. The first holdings file is the test of that 0.80% next to SDMF at 0.35%: equity-index contracts that CTA’s commodity book does not show, a crypto sleeve that is actually funded, a mix a ten-contract weekly index cannot copy. Until that file appears, 0.80% is a price on discretion the adviser has not yet had to show.
Frequently asked
Is HXF a new fund?
No — it took on the assets, liabilities and accounting history of a Mast managed futures mutual fund in the same trust.
What did the conversion do for existing shareholders?
It cut the fee from 1.30% on the old Class I shares to a 0.80% unitary charge and put the book on an exchange with creation and redemption at NAV.
Can the fund hold crypto?
Yes — through a Cayman subsidiary it may put up to 10% of net assets in crypto-asset ETPs and futures, and the language is broader than bitcoin alone.
What does 0.80% buy here?
The adviser's hand on the HedgeIndex models rather than a published recipe — no contract count, rebalance calendar or public signal is named.