Hedge Funds Up 0.68% in February

March 17, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Hedge funds continued to outperform the broader markets, recording an average return of 0.68% in February.

Now up 1.96% year-to-date, hedge funds outperformed the February losses of 1.70% in the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index and 2.02% in the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average. Comparatively, hedge funds delivered an average gain of 3.04% last year, according to data released by the CSFB Tremont Index.

Leading February’s charge were trend-following managed futures funds, which utilize computer programs to bet on the future price of commodities or the direction of equity indices, interest rates or currencies, up 6.43% for the month; followed by global macro funds, 1.87% higher in February.  

Other gains for the month were seen in:

  • Convertible Arbitrage:  1.39%
  • Emerging Markets:     1.02%
  • Fixed Income Arbitrage:  0.99%
  • Event Driven Distressed: 0.89%
  • Event Driven: 0.63%
  • Event Driven Multi-Strategy: 0.63%
  • Multi-Strategy: 0.11%

On the other end were hedge fund strategies that lost money in February, led by short-sellers at minus 1.73%, risk arbitrage lower by 0.71% and long/short equity down 0.21%.

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