The global hedge fund industry saw an average return of +0.55 per cent in October, bringing year to data (YTD) average industry returns to +7.09 per cent, according to the October 2019 eVestment hedge fund performance data.
Managed Futures funds, which saw returns at -1.73 per cent in October, were the primary reason aggregate returns were not more positive last month.
YTD 83 per cent of funds tracked by eVestment have produced positive results, with average gains among positive performers of +11.25 per cent for the year.
Among primary strategies, Origination & Financing funds were the big performance winners in October, producing returns of +1.75 per cent. With YTD returns at +7.26 per cent, Origination & Financing funds are among the top performing primary strategies for the year as well.
Even Driven – Activist and Long/Short Equity funds were also strong performers in October with returns of +1.43 per cent and +1.17 per cent respectively. With YTD performance well north of 9 per cent for both types of funds, Event Driven – Activist and Long/Short Equity funds are the strongest performing funds among the primary fund strategies eVestment tracks.
In addition to Managed Futures, Distressed funds (-0.54 per cent), Macro funds (-0.25 per cent) and Multi-Strategy funds (-0.11 per cent) were the other primary strategies that produced negative results in October. However, all primary hedge funds strategies tracked by eVestment are in the green for performance YTD.
China-focused hedge funds were the overall hedge fund performance winners in October, returning +3.75 per cent for the month, which brought YTD performance to +18.26 per cent.
India-focused funds had a strong October, returning +3.57 per cent, but those returns weren’t enough to erase the red from an overall challenging year for these funds, which stand at -1.30 per cent performance YTD.
Russia- and Brazil-focused funds are also seeing strong returns, with October performance at +2.57 per cent for Russia-focused funds and +1.20 per cent for Brazil-focused funds, bringing YTD returns for these funds to +18.80 per cent and 13.04 per cent respectively.
