Managed Futures: An Asset Class?

Hedgeworld alerted me to an article regarding the question:  Is Managed Futures an Asset Class?  In an earlier post, I had mentioned that it was according to the curriculum for the CAIA program.  The article defines an asset class as "...investment opportunities that behave and are treated in a similar manner."  The four characteristics are:    common regulatory guidelines, large amounts of assets under management, singular performance when compared to other asset classes and common risk/return profile within the asset class.  The first three answers are definitely yes.  The fourth is a maybe.   Even though the performance of managed futures sub-strategies are not correlated,  they all have position level detail, separately managed accounts and liquidity.  The article then goes on to rebut three counterarguments:

• Not all managed futures strategies react to market events in the same way
• Managed futures' underlying assets include stock indices, currencies and bonds and not only commodities
• Performance is not easily replicated within managed futures space