Portland, Ore.-based J.E. Moody & Co. is planning to reopen its JEM CRV Program, a statistical-arbitrage commodity strategy, with the launch of a new master/feeder fund on March 31.

The firm soft-closed the $172 million program in June to work on adding new markets, models, and continue its research on execution, liquidity, capacity and risk management. The program returned an estimated 2.27% in December and 12.46% for 2008.

“The CRV strategy has fared well during the recent collapses in commodity prices and the global equity markets, with limited downside in August/September ‘08 and positive returns in October/November ‘08,” the firm said. “It has avoided the significant volatility experienced by many hedge fund and investment strategies during the past year, and continues to have very low correlation to hedge fund indices and to major asset classes like commodity indices, bonds and stocks.”

J.E. Moody was founded by John Moody, who previously consulted for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and financial institutions.