The average Alternative UCITS fund is continuing to have a difficult time in terms of performance in 2018, with the LuxHedge Global Alternative UCITS Index posting a loss of 0.59 per cent in November, bringing YTD results down to -3.64 per cent.
Dispersion in this space remains very large with the best performing fund returning 35 per cent this year and the worst performer down -28 per cent. A bit less than 20 per cent of funds in our index universe are able to still show positive YTD results.
Assets under Management in the overall universe have declined 2.5 per cent since last month. Equity Hedge strategies in particular suffered from outflows with both Equity Long/Short and Equity Market Neutral funds seeing their assets under management decrease with respectively -4.1 per cent and -5.5 per cent during the month of November. Within Fixed Income Alternatives, allocations were mainly reduced on Absolute Return Bonds (AUM -3.3 per cent) and Credit Long/Short funds (AUM -3.8 per cent). Discretionary Macro managers still experience inflows with assets under management rising more than 3 per cent last month. As we have noticed already a few times in the past, some investors try to time short vol funds when volatility picks up: assets under management for volatility trading UCITS increased with +1.2 per cent in November. Even with the disappointing YTD results on Alternative Risk Premia UCITS, these funds continued to attract inflows of 1 per cent last month.
Most Equity Hedge strategies declined in November with the LuxHedge Equity Long/Short UCITS index losing -0.53 per cent and the LuxHedge Equity Market Neutral Index losing -1.25 per cent. Overall, one out of four Market Neutral UCITS managers is able to generate positive results so far in 2018. After a long string of losing months, managers focusing on AP had a very good month of November on average with the LuxHedge Equity Long/Short AP Index advancing +1.31 per cent.
Within the macro space, Discretionary Macro managers performed relatively flat in November: LuxHedge Discretionary Macro UCITS Index +0.14 per cent. CTA & Managed Futures UCITS keep having a very difficult 2018 with the index declining 1.12 per cent in October, bringing YTD down to -7.73 per cent.
Alternative Risk Premia UCITS are increasingly popular with investors, but have on average not been able to provide positive results this year. The Alternative Risk Premia UCITS Index declined with -0.61 per cent in November, only one 1 of the 36 index constituents posted a positive result so far in 2018. Also Fund of Funds are having a tough year on average with the index down 4.11 per cent and only 2 out of the 73 index constituents in positive territory year-to-date.
