More than 70% of global hedge funds saw positive returns for the third consecutive month in February, led by activist hedge funds.
Activists returned 2.53%, bringing their year-to-date returns to 3.03%.
Emerging market funds, which have raised large inflows recently, returned 2.05% in February, bringing their year-to-date returns to 4.65%, according to eVestment’s Hedge Fund Industry Performance Report for February.
Hedge funds focussed on developed markets returned 1.01% in February and 2.30% for the year-to-date.
Funds focussed on India and Brazil were among the best performing country-focussed funds – though funds investing in Russia lost money, but were still 1.03% up year-to-date.
The report’s author, Peter Laurelli, research vice-president of eVestment, wrote that, following investor redemptions of $106 billion (€100 billion) in 2016, 2017 “is starting off on a very positive note for the industry”.
The report also found managed futures funds, which saw a barely positive 0.58% return in 2016, were among the strongest performers during the month, enjoying returns of 1.32%.
Commodity funds were the only major-category to decline in February, lost 0.50%, bringing year-to-date returns to 0.07%.
©2017 funds europe
