Preqin: Hedge Funds Take a Dip in June
The last month in Q2 ends rocky, but the YTD and one-year returns are still OK.
Hedge funds tripped again in June, recording the asset class’ third negative month, as gauged by the 2018 Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark.
June saw a 0.5% loss for the benchmark, giving the standard its worst start to a year in more than a decade. That benchmark is barely positive, at 0.82% year-to-date.
Emerging market, Asia Pacific hedge funds, and equity strategies were the worst-performing sectors for the month, returning -1.92%, -1.91%, and -1.01%, respectively. The first two strategies are down nearly 2% apiece for the year-to-date, at -1.71% and -1.90%.
Discretionary (-0.05%), volatility (-0.16%), systemic (-0.27%), and activist hedge funds (-0.61%) also saw poor returns. The downward trend additionally hit Europe (-0.25%) and developed markets (-0.90%), as well as large (-0.57%), small (-0.76%), medium (-0.97%), and emerging hedge funds (-0.64%).
Currency hedges also took a beating from bets tied to the dollar (-0.48%), as Japanese yen (-0.67%), Brazilian real (-0.75%), and euro (-0.78%) funds underperformed. Japanese yen is down 2.5% for the year-to-date, while the euro is off by 0.09% for the same period.
Things were not all bad for hedge funds in June, as macro, event-driven, and credit strategies were up. Macro strategies rose by 0.60%, and event-driven strategies increased by 0.40%. Credit strategies gained 0.17%, making June the 28th-consecutive positive return for that subset.
North American hedge funds and hedges linked to the pound were also barely in the black, earning 0.17% and 0.08% in June, respectively.
Preqin’s hedge fund benchmark has returned 0.82% year-to-date, and is up 7.22% over the past 12 months.