2015 was a tough year for hedge fund returns, no matter how you look at it. Even the industry’s championing body has difficulty spinning the performance figures.
The Alternative Investment Managers Association (Aima) says hedge funds finished 2015 up 2.42% on a risk-adjusted basis, beating bonds and equities.
Yet even Jack Ingliss, the chief executive of Aima, had to admit that 2015 – which yielded varying reports about hedge fund returns – was not great for the asset class.
“2015 will not be remembered as a vintage year for the industry,” Ingliss said in an Aima report out today, based on analysis of Hedge Fund Intelligence data and covering funds with total assets under management of $1.1 trillion (€1 trillion).
Aima said the analysis is one of the most comprehensive assessments of the global hedge fund industry’s performance last year and is the first measurement of the industry’s risk-adjusted performance in 2015.
The industry body also said risk-adjusted returns are closely watched by institutional investors since they measure both the total return and the volatility of those returns.
Two-thirds of hedge funds reported positive returns, with the best performing strategies being equity market neutral/quant (up 10.44%), long/short equity (up 6.79%) and multi-strategy (up 5.65%).
Ingliss is positive for the year ahead. He said that with market volatility likely to continue, hedge funds will continue to meet their investors’ expectations for competitive, diversified and low-volatility returns.
Preqin, the financial information provider, also reported that hedge funds posted positive returns last year (2.02%), although it added that this was the worst performance of the asset class since 2011.
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