After turning positive for the year in March, aggregate hedge fund performance jumped in April to the highest level in more than nine years, according to HedgeFund.net.
After turning positive for the year in March, aggregate hedge fund performance jumped in April to the highest level in more than nine years, according to HedgeFund.net.
With 1,633 fund products reporting April performance, the HFN Hedge Fund Aggregate Average shows +4.3 per cent for the month and +4.5 per cent for 2009 compared to -2.5 per cent for the S&P 500 Total Return Index.
Estimated hedge fund assets increased slightly in April, +0.29 per cent to USD1.697trn. Performance gains added USD40.0bn and net investor redemptions/liquidations accounted for an outflow of USD35.1bn.
The outflow of USD35.1bn compares with an outflow of USD51.7bn in March, USD37.5bn in February and USD166.4bn in January. As a percentage of prior month assets, April outflows represented a 2.1 per cent reduction – an improvement from March and January, but slightly worse than February.
The overall increase in total fund assets of USD5.0bn was the first monthly rise in assets since Q2 2008.
Since redemptions/liquidations began to outpace allocations/launches in Q3 2008, there have been net investor outflows of USD815.3bn from the hedge fund industry. During that time, performance reduced assets an additional USD425.0bn. Industry assets have fallen an estimated 42.2 per cent from the peak in Q2 2008 and 12.2 per cent in 2009.
The rate of redemptions from fixed income strategies outpaced equity strategies for the second month in a row. Redemptions from equity strategies have slowed for the fourth straight month while redemptions from fixed income strategies have increased for three straight months.
According to HedgeFund.net, April performance was again primarily driven by surging global equity markets, but was not hindered by major mid-month commodity and rate market reversals as occurred in March. Mixed commodity prices did appear to impact CTA/managed futures products which, along with short biased funds, are the only fund types reporting negative average performance for the month.
Smaller funds appeared to have taken greater advantage of April’s positive environment compared to larger funds. A large sample of funds reporting performance and assets showed asset weighted performance was closer to +2.4 per cent.
