Absolute Returns

The Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark posted returns of 7.40% in 2016, marking the best performance year for the industry since 2013 and more than tripling the gains made through 2015 (+2.03%). Despite a volatile start to the year which caused some performance difficulties, hedge funds rebounded to post positive returns in nine of the final 10 months of the year.

H2O Barry Active Value and H2O Barry Short, both Irish UCITS, are the first funds specifically designed to address the problems associated with the current scarcity of liquidity in the marketplace following the regulatory crackdown on financial institutions.

An uneventful week for hedge funds. Amid reduced trading volumes and a pause in the Reflation trade, most Lyxor indices were about flat. CTAs and Macro funds stood out, in symmetry. The former lost on US yields and equities, the latter gained on their long US bonds and short Euro bonds. In this piece, we present our 2017 outlook for hedge funds.

It would be an understatement to say that active investing has been challenged in 2016. Political risks loomed large and the switch from deflation fears to reflation hopes in H2 led to sizeable trend reversals across the board. This took most investors by surprise.

Preqin’s latest on asset flows in the hedge fund industry finds that across the first three quarters of 2016 assets held by hedge fund managers increased by 2.9%, taking total industry AUM to $3.24tn. Across most strategies, strong returns have been the central driver of asset growth, with the industry posting gains of 5.44% through Q1-Q3 2016.