"LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - To make money from the sharp fall in oil prices this year, it helped if you weren't human. While a handful of big name traders have profited from some of oil's 35 percent plunge, it has been computer-based or "systematic" funds which have captured much of the spoils. These black box funds use programs to follow various asset classes and look to latch on to market trends. So after crude lost 46 percent in 2014, they were already betting strongly at the start of this year that the trend would continue, largely through oil futures and other energy derivatives markets. Apart from a modest recovery early this year, crude prices have mostly been a one-way bet and now languish 66 percent below their levels around $115 a barrel 18 months ago. "The main beneficiaries have been the systematic, or trend-following guys," said Anthony Lawler, head of portfolio management at investor GAM. "The stronger the trend, the bigger the position ... Since the middle of 2014, oil's been trending lower, so that's quite a long trend. As a result, they have meaningful exposure in energy." By the laws of economics, the oil market will turn back up at some point and trend-following funds may struggle then. But in the meantime, some are producing impressive returns. Millburn Commodity Program, for instance, was up 25.3 percent in the year to Dec. 15, performance data seen by Reuters showed. "Discretionary" funds - those where a living person pushes the trading button - can come into their own when the market turns. But Lawler said they typically cut their negative bets when crude fell below $40 a barrel this month, believing the market had hit its floor. Instead it kept falling to around $36 on Tuesday, showing how hard it is for flesh-and-blood traders to get their timing right in a rumor-fueled market. The fall has hit funds of all stripes holding energy stocks and debt, and buoyed those which invest in firms that are large consumers of energy and have therefore benefited through lower costs. Energy-focused discretionary funds have been the purest play on the move, and their performances vary considerably. Taylor Woods Capital, for example, rode the oil market down for a third straight year of double-digit percentage gains and its best since 2013. However, oil trader Andy Hall's Astenbeck Capital Management stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars from his so far failed bet on a crude price recovery. On average, energy-focused hedge funds have risen 3.6 percent in the year to November, trumping their commodity peers which have fallen 2.4 percent, HFR data showed. The average fund of any strategy, meanwhile, is up 0.3 percent...." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/black-box-hedge-funds-lead-155511217.html