Hedge Fund Index in Negative Territory for June

Dow Jones Indexes and Credit Suisse announced Friday, July 9, that its early estimates suggested that hedge funds posted negative returns in June 2010, as did most other major market indexes. The Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index ended the month down 0.88%, bringing year-to-date performance to only a positive 0.59%. Even so, those returns were markedly better than global equity markets in June and so far in 2010, the companies pointed out in a release, reporting that the MSCI World index returned -3.56% in June and -10.88% in the first half of the year.

The strategies that performed in positive territory for the month was dedicated short bias, up 4.84% for June but down 3.33% for the year to date, and macro managers, which was up 0.53% in June and 4.54% for 2010. In written commentary by the companies on the reasons for macro’s outperformance, they said macro managers “have largely avoided market volatility due to their bearish outlooks and low equity market exposures,” and that the “majority of gains in the space were generated by currency investments.”

The highest performing strategy year to date is fixed-income arbitrage, which is up 5.49% for the year; that strategy had a positive 0.91% return for June.