Hedge Funds Beating S&P for First Two Months of 2005

March 17, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Two months into 2005, hedge funds have outperformed the S&P 500, according to industry-watcher HedgeFund.net.

Hedge funds were up 1.7% in February, according to the universe tracked by the company; from January 1, hedge funds are 1.37%. By comparison, the S&P 500 is up 0.69% on the year.

Emerging market strategies performed the best in the month of February, posting average gains of almost 4%; convertible arbitrage performed the worst, posting 0.55% losses on the month. Across the board, however, most hedge fund strategies were in the black for February, while most were in the red the month before.

Get more!  Sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters.

Year-to-date, emerging market strategies are up 6.1%. Managed futures are the worst year-to-date performers, losing an average of 3.16%.

Gains were spread wide across hedge funds, however: the top 25% of hedge funds posted 2.31% gains on the month, while the bottom 25% posted gains of only 0.19%.

The HedgeFund.net-PerTrac Universe is comprised of those funds that are featured on PerTrac Online – a tool used by hedge funds that are registered with the Web site. It has roughly 4,300 hedge funds in the universe.

«