These Were The Best-Performing Hedge Funds Reporting To One Platform In January

Global hedge funds, as represented by the HFM Global Composite Index, declined 1.2% month over month and year over year, according to data from With Intelligence. However, they did better than the U.S. stock market. The S&P 500 was down 5.3% month over month and 1.4% year over year.

With Intelligence noted that investors became more risk-averse in January due to faster tightening by the Federal Reserve and escalating tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine. The firm listed the best-performing funds that report to its platform.

Best- and worst-performing strategies

According to With Intelligence, the best-performing strategy in January was managed futures, which gained 0.6% and was the only main-line strategy to be in the green. The worst-performing strategy was long/ short equity, which declined 3% month over month, with event-driven funds coming in just barely better with a 2.9% decline. Fixed income and credit funds declined 0.4% in January, followed by macro and multi-strategy funds at -0.7% and relative value and arbitrage at -0.8%.

With Intelligence reports that January was the second straight month in the green for managed futures hedge funds, the first time that has happened since May. Relative value and arbitrage funds ended a five-month run of positive returns, flipping into the red for January. The strategy had posted positive returns since August.

Over the last six months, multi-strategy, macro, and long/ short equity have been moving in step with the HFM Global Composite.

Funds with over $1 billion in assets under management did slightly better than smaller hedge funds, returning -0.8% for January, compared to the -1.5% return posted by smaller funds. Fund of funds also had a difficult January, declining 1.4% amid economic conditions that have been making fund selection challenging.

Style Spreads

Fixed income and credit funds had the narrowest spread of all the hedge funds strategies over the last 12 months. About 80% of funds utilizing this strategy returned between 13% and -3% over the last year.

Long/ short equity funds had the widest spread over the last 12 months, as about 80% of these funds posted returns between 31% and -13%. Managed futures funds had the second-widest spread, with about 80% of them posting returns of between 24% and -8%.

The best-performing hedge fund across all strategies returned 32.1% for January and 290.3% for the last 12 months.

Best-performing hedge funds

With Intelligence listed the top to best-performing hedge funds for January. Odey Asset Management performed exceptionally well last month, as it managed there of the top 10 best-performing funds. The top funds in January were: the e360 Power Flagship Strategy, Haidar Jupiter Fund, Odey O.E.I. MAC Fund, Odey European, The Mulvaney Global Markets Fund, Odey Swan Fund (UCITS) Class I, Farringdon Alpha One, AQR Equity Market Neutral Fund, AIS Futures MAAP (2X-4X) Composite, and Quantitative Global Program.

The e360 Power Flagship Strategy returned 32.1% for January, while the Haidar Jupiter Fund was up 30.6%, followed by Odey’s O.E.I. MAC Fund’s 23.9% return.

The top five funds with over $1 billion in assets under management were the Haidar Jupiter Fund, PIMCO CommoditiesPLUS Strategy Fund, PIMCO CommodityRealReturn Strategy Fund, AQR Managed Futures Strategy Fund Class I, and Aspect Diversified Fund. The gap between the Haidar Jupiter Fund and the second-best fund with over $1 billion was wide. PIMCO’s CommoditiesPLUS Strategy Fund returned 9.4%.

Best-performing long/ short equity hedge funds

The wide performance gap in long/ short equity funds is evident by the wide gap between the second- and third-best funds in that category and the fact that all of the top long/ short funds were in the green. Odey manages the top two long/ short equity funds for January, posting a 23.9% return for its O.E.I. MAC Fund and 23.5% return for its European Fund.

AQR manages the third- and fourth-best long/ short equity funds but lagged significantly far behind Odey’s funds. AWR’s Equity Market Neutral Fund returned 11.1% for January, followed by its Long-Short Equity Fund’s 9.5% return for the month.

However, long/ short equity bucked the overall trend of billion-dollar hedge funds outperforming their smaller peers. The top funds with over $1 billion in assets were the Greenvale Capital (Cayman) Master Fund with its 5% return, followed by the Platinum Asia Fund’s 2.5% return and Lakewood Capital Partners’ 2.1% return for January.