Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia: Last year was brutal for hedge funds and December was no exemption. The Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark declined -0.40% last month. This puts full-year performance for 2015 at 2.02%, the lowest yearly return since 2011, when hedge funds posted -1.77%.
In its monthly report, Preqin said that December’s losses mean that hedge funds have posted negative returns in five months of the year, while only three months saw them gain more than 1.00%.
Amy Bensted, head of hedge fund products at Preqin commented, "The hedge fund industry has been exposed to much of the financial turmoil of 2015, from the continuing fall in commodities prices to the loss of confidence in the Chinese stock market. These difficulties have created very difficult conditions for many firms, and left some investors questioning the ability of the industry to properly hedge losses in other markets."
Majority of strategies posted positive returns
The report added that all top level hedge fund strategies experienced losses in the final month of 2015, with equity strategies posting a negative return of -0.64%, and credit strategies returning -0.55%. For the year as a whole, the majority of strategies posted positive returns, but event driven strategies recorded losses of 0.07% while relative value strategies gained 5.03%.
Bensted added, "CTAs in particular have been volatile throughout the ...................... To view our full article Click here
|