Hedge fund strategies outperformed equity markets in the first two months of 2016, according to the performance of IndexIQ’s IQ Hedge family of benchmark hedge fund replication indexes.
“The volatility that characterised 2015 and the start of 2016 continued through the beginning of February but sentiment improved in the second half of the month,” says Adam Patti (pictured), CEO of IndexIQ. “Overall, our family of benchmark hedge fund replication indexes was mostly positive for the month, led by our IQ Merger Arbitrage Index, which returned 2.07 per cent, while only the IQ Hedge Long/Short Index finished February in negative territory.”
Salvatore Bruno, Chief Investment Officer with IndexIQ, also noted that performance of the IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Index, the broadest-based index in the IQ Hedge family, was ahead of the S&P 500 both during February and year-to-date through 29 February. “One of our five main themes for 2016 was our belief that many alternative strategies, including those pursued by a number of hedge funds, could become more attractive this year,” says Bruno. “Performance thus far has borne that out.”
Designed as investable benchmarks that replicate the performance characteristics of sophisticated hedge fund strategies, the IQ Hedge Indexes comprise the first family of investable benchmark indexes covering hedge fund replication/alternative beta strategies.
“M&A activity has lessened somewhat from the record setting pace of 2015, but February saw a number of new deals announced, several of which have been added to the holdings of the MNA strategy,” adds Bruno.
