Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
August 24, 2004 at 08:00 PM
NEW YORK (HedgeWorld.com)–The market favored short sellers last month, according to return data reported in the CSFB/Tremont* Hedge Fund Index.
While the overall hedge fund index is down a negligible 0.31% last month, dedicated short-bias managers gained 8.12% thanks to ideal positioning as the market moved away from lower quality and distressed companies, said Oliver Schupp, president of Credit Suisse First Boston Tremont Index LLC, in a statement.
Playing into short seller’s hands, July was characterized by lower volumes during the start of the second-quarter earnings seasons, he said. For the year, short sellers remained the best performers with a year-to-date return through July 31 of 7.73%.
For the year, the CSFB/Tremont Hedge Fund Index gained 2.61%, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index is up only 0.02%.
Of the nine hedge fund investment categories and three sub-categories only five posted positive returns in July. Besides dedicated short-bias, the strategies with upbeat performance last month were: global macro, 0.82%; fixed-income arbitrage, 0.70%; distressed, 0.52%; and equity market neutral, 0.31%.
Event driven strategies reported a return of 0.0% for the month, leaving the year-to-date performance in line with most of the other hedge fund strategies at 5.23%.
Other index categories had slightly negative performance in July, with managed futures as the worst performer, losing 1.95%, and posting the bleakest year-to-date performance of negative 5.54%.
