The separately managed account.

That is the account. The other way to receive a CTA’s strategy is a commodity pool: a vehicle in which participants’ capital is combined and traded as one account. The two structures answer the basic questions differently: who owns the account, who receives the money, who gets the FCM’s records, and how you leave.

The reporting row is written into CFTC rules: Rule 1.33 lets an FCM furnish a pool’s trade confirmations to the pool operator alone, while an SMA client receives the FCM’s record for the account it owns. Neither structure is universally better; a pool can suit smaller allocations, broader diversification, and investors who prefer vehicle-level administration with liability generally limited to the investment.

Behind the scenes, a CTA directing client accounts files quarterly performance reports with NFA (Form PR) and maintains records open to regulator inspection. When a program trades many accounts, orders may be placed as a single bunched order and allocated post-execution under a written methodology that CFTC rules require to be fair, objective, and independently verifiable; no account may consistently receive favorable or unfavorable treatment. Allocation is proportional by design, but accounts are not clones: rounding, partial fills, account restrictions, cash flows, and margin differences can produce some dispersion between accounts trading the same program.

You may revoke the trading authority at any time on written notice, instruct liquidation, and withdraw your cash. Ending the authority is your right, not a request the advisor grants: it takes effect when received, with no minimum notice period. Cash is typically available within a few business days once positions are flat, margin is released, and accrued fees are settled. The practical caveats are real: open positions close at prevailing market prices, stressed markets can make exits slower or more expensive, and the FCM’s own processing times apply. Depending on the FCM and the account documents, positions may be liquidated or, in some cases, retained or transferred to a successor manager or another broker; a transfer is not automatic. What the structure removes is a fund redemption calendar between you and your own account; a fund’s exit runs on its documents, which may impose valuation dates, notice periods, lockups, or gates.

Because the FCM holds client funds, the choice of FCM is the most consequential structural decision an advisor makes on a client’s behalf. Saratoga clears client accounts at StoneX. The selection criteria: scale, operating history, and publicly audited financials in the firm that holds the money.

The FCM can be verified independently, the same way as the advisor: StoneX’s FCM entity is CFTC-registered and an NFA member, and the CFTC publishes every FCM’s customer-segregated-funds data monthly on cftc.gov; the firm holding the money can be monitored, every month, from a government website. StoneX is not affiliated with Saratoga; account terms are established directly between the client and the FCM.