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2019 marked the industry's best aggregate returns since 2013, when the industry returned +12.58%.

For the year, Russia-, China- and Brazil-focused funds were performance leaders by a wide margin.

Russia-focused funds returned +26.69% for 2019, China-focused funds returned +23.15% last year and Brazil-focused funds closed out 2019 at +21.68%. However, where there is great reward, there can be great risk: All three of these fund categories were in the red in 2018.

For Russia- and China-focused funds, the losses were substantial, with these funds returning -13.22% and -16.62% respectively in 2018.

Long/Short Equity funds top winners in 2019, returning +14.26% for the year

Among primary strategies tracked by eVestment, Long/Short Equity funds were the big performance winners in 2019, returning +14.26% for the year. They were also near the top for monthly returns in December, bringing in +2.34%. This is quite a turnaround from the -7.01% Long/Short Equity funds returned in 2018.

Event Driven - Activist funds also were top performers among primary strategies last year, returning +2.85% in December and +13.24% for 2019. These funds were also in the red for 2018, returning -10.29% that year.

India-focused funds saw returns of +1.21% in December, but were negative at -2.34% for all of 2019. India-focused funds were the only type of hedge funds eVestment tracks that had negative full-year 2019 returns.