Managed futures funds lost ground for the second successive month in April, declining by an average of 0.27 per cent according to the Barclay CTA Index compiled by Fairfield, Iowa-based index provider BarclayHedge.

'Several profitable trends of the past few months reversed in April,' says BarclayHedge founder and president Sol Waksman. 'Growing confidence that the worst of the credit crisis may be behind us spurred a decline in prices for fixed-income instruments as interest rate markets shifted their attention to inflationary concerns.'

Diversified traders lost 0.74 per cent over the month, systematic traders were down 0.59 per cent, and financial and metals traders slid 0.56 per cent. 'Although prices for precious metals declined sharply after mid-month, energy prices continued their advance,' Waksman says.

Agricultural traders gained 1.14 per cent, discretionary traders were up 0.20 per cent, and currency traders rose 0.08 per cent. 'The US dollar, which has been in a five-year decline, staged a recovery in April,' he adds. 'The rally was fuelled by the belief that rate cuts by the Fed may be at an end.'

The Barclay BTOP50 Index, which monitors performance of the largest traders, declined by 1.31 per cent in April, but remains up 4.67 per cent for the first four months of 2008.

Founded as the Barclay Group in 1985, BarclayHedge tracks more than 6,800 hedge funds, funds of hedge funds and managed futures programmes and maintains 18 proprietary hedge fund and eight managed futures indices, providing data to clients including institutional investors, brokerage firms and private banks.