“After four profitable months in a row, hedge funds have now gained 11.00% since the beginning of the year,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge.
“It’s the best start since 1999 when the Barclay Hedge Fund Index gained 15.94% in the first six months.”
Overall, 13 of Barclay’s 18 hedge fund indices gained ground in June. The Barclay Convertible Arbitrage Index was up 3.57%, Healthcare & Biotechnology gained 2.77%, Pacific Rim Equities rose 2.21%, Merger Arbitrage was up 1.47%, and the Multi-Strategy Index gained 1.43%.
The Equity Short Bias Index, which led all strategies in 2008 with a 40.91% gain, lost 1.73% in June, and is down 6.26% year-to-date.
“Through month-end in June, 77.6% of the hedge funds and 86.8% of the funds of funds that have reported to us are showing a profit for June,” says Waksman.
The Barclay Fund of Funds Index gained 0.38% in June, and is up 4.44% in 2009.
After just six months in 2009, several hedge fund strategies have made strong recoveries from their 2008 losses.
Convertible Arbitrage has gained 25.48% after losing 27.66% in 2008. Healthcare & Biotechnology is up 15.42% following a 15.03% decline. And Multi Strategy has gained13.29%, coming back from a 17.96% loss in 2008.
“Many of the funds in these top-performing strategies are earning incentive fees again. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if this trend continues for the remainder of 2009,” says Waksman.
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Sol Waksman is an experienced media source, providing perspectives on hedge fund and managed futures trends. For more commentary or background, call 641-472-3456 or email swaksman@barclayhedge.com.
BarclayHedge (formerly The Barclay Group) was founded in 1985 and actively tracks more than 6,000 hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, and managed futures programs. Barclay has created and regularly updates 18 proprietary hedge fund indexes and eight managed futures indexes.
Institutional investors, brokerage firms and private banks worldwide utilize BarclayHedge data as performance benchmarks for the hedge fund and managed futures industries.