Most hedge fund strategies were impacted by reverses in global stock markets in August, according to the latest performance figures for the EDHEC-Risk Alternative Indexes.
Besides Short Selling, the only profitable strategy in August was CTA Global (+0.27%), which, like the commodities market, managed its smallest change over the past fourteen months. The plummeting convertible bonds and shrinking credit spread heavily penalised the Convertible Arbitrage strategy (-2.09%), which recorded a fourth consecutive month of losses and its worst since May 2010. Despite its limited exposure to the stock market, the Equity Market Neutral strategy (-1.64%) took an unusually heavy blow.
Although they outperformed the stock markets this month, the more exposed Event Driven (-3.78%), Long/Short Equity (-4.07%), Distressed Securities (-4.08%) and Emerging Markets (-3.90%) strategies all saw their YTD performances drop into negative territory, and along with the Merger Arbitrage (-1.20%) and Relative Value (-1.86%) strategies, recorded their worst monthly performance since the subprime-induced financial crisis. Conversely, the Fixed-Income Arbitrage strategy (-0.68%) became the best-performing YTD strategy behind Short Selling.
Overall, in August, the Funds of Funds strategy (-2.57%) outperformed the S&P 500 Index, but its YTD performance continued to lag behind.
