Equity Long Bias Strategy Tops Hedge Fund Performance in 2019

Hedge funds globally had some $2.3 trillion in assets under management at the end of October in 11,099 funds, according to the November Eurekahedge report, released this week.

North American funds represented 68.9% of total assets, $1.6 trillion in 5,492 funds. Europe, Middle East & Africa followed with 20.4% of assets, $463 billion in 3,781 vehicles.

Asia ex-Japan, Latin America and Japan together had $244 billion under management in 1,826 funds.

The report showed that hedge funds returned 0.4% across all strategies in October, and were up 6.8% for the year to date based on the 83% of funds that had reported October performance by Nov. 28. North American funds lagged all other regions in October, up 0.3%, bringing year-to-date performance to 6.1%.

Asian funds topped regional performance in October with a gain of 1.8%, followed by Latin American funds, up 1.5%, and European funds, up 0.7%.

The best-performing strategy for the year through October is equity long bias, up 11.5%. Other strategies:

• Macro: 7.8%
• Long/short equities: 7.4%
• Fixed income: 6.5%
• Short volatility: 6.4%
• Multi-strategy: 5.9%
• Event-driven: 4.7%
• Arbitrage: 4.3%
• Commodity: 4.3%
• Trend-following: 4.2%
• CTA/Managed futures: 4%
• AI: 4%
• Relative value: 2.8%
• FX: 2.1%
• Distressed debt: 1.1%
• Equity market neutral: 0.8%

Only relative value volatility, tail risk and long volatility strategies reported losses in October: 1.6%, 4.6% and 8.1%.