Sombre month for hedge funds in August
August was a sombre month for hedge funds as all but two strategies performed well under par, according to figures released by Edhec-Risk Institute.
The S&P 500 Index suffered its most severe losses since May 2010, bringing its year-to-date performance to -1.77 per cent.
Distressed securities and emerging markets - the two strategies with annual average return of more than 10 per cent since January 2001 - saw their year-to-date performances drop into negative territory and recorded their worst monthly performance since the subprime-induced financial crisis, the report stated.
Of all hedge fund strategies, distressed securities (-4.08) and long/short equity (-4.07) had shown the worst performance, closely followed by emerging markets and event driven strategies.
However, short selling and CTA Global strategies were the only two who ended August in positive territory, providing performances of 6.97 per cent and 0.27 per cent respectively.
Recommended for you
Global X has painted a worrying picture for active ETFs in Australia, with investor adoption proving uneven and the popularity of its low-cost index counterparts only growing stronger.
Australian equity ETFs attracted record inflows of $3.2 billion in 1Q25, while heightened volatility led to a decline in flows for global equity ETFs, according to Vanguard.
The failure of a clinical trial by biotech firm Opthea has caused shares in its backer Regal Partners to decline 52 per cent year-to-date and hit its funds under management, quarterly flows show.
GQG Partners has revealed its quarterly flows for the first three months of 2025 were up 5.8 per cent, after a difficult final quarter of 2024 as a result of institutional redemptions.
