Top 50 hedge funds survey

TOP 50 BEATS THE MARKET BY MORE THAN 23 PERCENTAGE POINTS IN 2022 Bucking virtually all market trends, Global Investment Report’s Top 50 hedge funds gained more than 5 percent last year. With fund selection based on the most consistent historical performance through 2021, more than two thirds of the group delivered positive returns in 2022. Leading the way were global macro, multistrategy, and volatility arbitrage funds. This year-end report includes full-year 2022 returns of each fund in the Top 50, analysis and interviews of leading fund managers, and insights from major hedge fund allocators about what to expect.…

The Top 50's Remarkable Outperformance Spiking volatility fueled by rising interest rates, high energy costs, and sustained inflation sent the market plummeting by nearly 24% through the first three quarters of the year. Russia's increased shelling of critical Ukrainian infrastructure as winter sets in is turning the war even more horrific. This is ratcheting up geopolitical tensions and global economic uncertainty as Europe appears headed for recession that's likely to jump the Atlantic and hit the US in 2023. And growing liquidity concerns threaten to turn this troublesome brew toxic. All this makes the Top 50 hedge funds’ performance even more noteworthy. The group was up nearly 4.5% year-to-date through September, outpacing the market by 28 percentage points. Outperformance continues to be driven by multistrategy, volatility arbitrage, and global macro funds. In addition to extensive data reporting and analysis, this update includes interviews and commentary from Graham Capital Management's Ken Tropin, hedge fund manager Dan Zwirn, economic historian Niall Ferguson, economist and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Desmond Lachman, and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.…

A First Half Of Historic Divergence July brought some relief: a market rally, a soaring jobs report, and inflation numbers that didn’t accelerate as commodity prices continued their decline. This may suggest to some investors we’re past the worst of the bear market. But inflation remains stubbornly high, rising interest rates are threatening recession, food and energy insecurity are growing more acute, and serious supply chain issues remain. Somewhat forgotten: The tragic six-month Russian war against Ukraine shows no signs of letting up, exacerbating macroeconomic and security problems and raising geopolitical tensions. All of this has contributed to one of the market's worst first-half starts since the Great Depression. More remarkable that the Top 50 Hedge Funds ended the first half of 2022 in the black, outpacing the market by 21 percentage points.…

Hedge Fund Investing During a Time of War Like the 2020 edition, this year’s survey collides with a seismic event — a geopolitical shock wrapped around soaring inflation, rising interest rates, and weakened supply chains. Several key takeaways: Over the past five years through 2021, the Top 50 hedge funds collectively generated net annualized returns that trailed a red-hot S&P 500 by just several percentage points, but did so with significantly less risk. The group’s largely uncorrelated returns produced a 5-year Sharpe Ratio that was more than 60 bps higher than the market. Equity, multistrategy, and credit funds led the way, and nearly half of the Top 50 were smaller funds, managing less than $1 billion. As was shown in the 2020 survey, the current Top 50 funds have again preserved capital better than the S&P 500 during the first quarter drawdown. They delivered positive returns, having outpaced a declining market by more than 7 percentage points through March. This year’s survey includes interviews with leading managers and allocators from Citadel, Amundi, Generali, EFG International, NS Partners, along with six hedge fund managers who made this year’s Top 50.…

Fourth Quarter Market and Performance Update The S&P 500 soared nearly 29% in 2021, nearly half of which was generated just in the 4th quarter in spite of clear threats to growth. It was during these last 3 months of the year when the gap between the index and the Top 50 Hedge Funds drastically expanded from nearly 5% to more than 18%. While most of the 50 sustained their historical annualized returns, two basic factors drove last year’s performance gap. One: the 10 largest contributors to the S&P 500’s returns were responsible for more than one-third of the index’s total gains. Two: the reversal in fortunes suffered by a handful of veteran hedged equity and global macro managers who had a long history of consistent solid returns. This report will explore why this occurred. Note: two thirds of the 4th-quarter gains linked to the index's top contributors’ were lost during the first 7 weeks of 2022 —before Russia invaded Ukraine.…

Third quarter volatility ended up sending many trends sideways, leaving the market and the hedge fund industry flat for the period. Meanwhile, hedged equity, macro, and emerging market managers helped the Top 50 funds add nearly two full percentage points during the quarter. This select group outperformed the BarclayHedge average hedge fund return by 2.3% through the first 9 months of 2021, narrowing the amount by which it trails the market.…

The 2021 hedge fund survey published in June, which ranked the 50 top-performing funds over the trailing five years through 2020, found as a group they continued to outperform their peers and kept pace with the market during the first quarter. Through the 2nd quarter, the Top 50 again outperformed the hedge fund industry, led by distressed securities and hedged equity managers. But a relentless bull market surged ahead, ignoring inflation fears, unanticipated rise in 10-year Treasury prices, a flattening yield curve, and a rising dollar--factors that weighed on fixed-income, credit and macro strategy returns.…

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