Emerging manager hedge funds and managed futures funds made small profits in March, according to an estimation based on the data of 234 funds listed in Opalesque Solutions' Emanagers database.

The Emanagers Total Index gained 0.66%, finishing the first quarter of 2013 up 2.51%. Since inception in January 2009, the index returned 68%, compared to 43% for the Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index and 57% for the MSCI World Index.

Both hedge fund and managed futures traders were profitable in March: The Emanagers Hedge Fund Index was up 0.87% (+3.78% YTD), while the Emanagers CTA Index gained 0.34% (+0.33% YTD).

However, new managers performed worse than their established peers once more: The Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index rose 0.95% (+3.21% YTD) and the Newedge CTA Index gained 1.29% (+2.87% YTD).

The global stock market had another strong month, as the MSCI World Index

gained 2.39% in March. For the first quarter, the index is up already 7.87%. All equity trading strategies were able to deliver good results in this environment:

• Event-driven hedge funds performed exceptionally well with average gains of 2.19%. Multi-strategy funds were up 1.67%, followed by relative value (+1.1%) and global macro (+0.85%) strategies. Directional equity traders performed slightly worse (Equity L/S: +0.66%, equity long bias +0.27%).

• Over the first quarter of this year, event-driven hedge funds were able to outperform the MSCI World Index with average gains of 8.71%. Equity long-bias and L/S funds gained +5.61% and +3.82% respectively, followed by multi-strategy (+3.95%), relative value (+3.03%) and global macro hedge funds (+2.15%).......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.