Stock market investors expressed positive views in March as the S&P 500 index registered a 6.03 per cent gain in a context of decreasing implied volatility (17.59 per cent), which reached its lowest level since June 2007.
According to the report by Edhec Risk, the commodities market confirmed February’s good results and managed a substantial return of 2.45 per cent.
On the fixed income market, performance was mixed as convertible bonds also managed a remarkable gain of 3.27 per cent while regular bonds failed to reach positive territory and fell 0.43 per cent.
The credit spread rose again by 1.07 per cent and reached its highest level since the inception of the indices. The dollar rose slightly by 0.11 per cent.
With yet another significant gain in March of 2.33 per cent, the convertible arbitrage strategy is resolutely a post-crash winner. Since October 2008, it has registered 16 consecutive months of gains and a cumulative profit of 50 per cent.
The CTA Global strategy outperformed its good score of February, rising by 2.50 per cent, to reach its level of March 2009.
The equity-oriented strategies all benefited from the very good performance of the stock market.
The long/short equity strategy recorded a significant profit of 2.94 per cent and came very close to its highest level of October 2007.
Similarly, the event driven strategy scored well, up 2.92 per cent, with a 13th consecutive month of gains, which keeps the strategy at its highest level ever.
The equity market neutral strategy naturally registered a more usual return of 0.95 per cent.
With a comfortable gain in March of 1.73 per cent, the fund of funds strategy took another step on the road to recovery and made up for half the losses from the 2008 crash.
