(Bloomberg) — The biggest hedge funds are off to one of their best starts to a year, aided by stocks and quantitative investing, while those focused on macro trading are lagging behind their peers.
While tech-focused equity hedge funds Light Street Capital Management and Whale Rock Capital Management lead the pack, large multimanager funds such as Citadel, Schonfeld Strategic Advisors and Point72 Asset Management posted gains of up to 13.7 per cent, according to people with knowledge of the matter, well ahead of the risk-free rate. A PivotalPath index tracking multistrategy funds was up almost six per cent during the first half of the year, the second-best for the period in 15 years.
“Overall, 2024 looks like it could be a good vintage for hedge funds overall after a strong start to the year across almost all hedge fund strategies, except for risk arbitrage and macro relative value,” said Caron Bastianpillai, who allocates money to hedge funds at Switzerland-based NS Partners.
Stocks from technology firms including Nvidia Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. aided hedge fund returns. Macro hedge funds, including the multistrategy firms tilted toward macro trading such as Brevan Howard Asset Management and Eisler Capital, posted losses amid volatility in the U.S. interest-rates market. Some funds, such as Rokos Capital Management, Bridgewater Associates and D.E. Shaw & Co. produced double-digit gains in their macro hedge funds.
Credit- and deals-focused traders also faced challenges, with several of them forced to exit their positions in response to losses.
With assistance from David Ramli and Bei Hu.
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