MSCI Hedge Index Ahead in March

The composite, which had a 3.41% year to date performance, bested the MSCI World Equity Index, which fell back by 0.66% over the month (2.62% YTD).  The composite lagged the World Sovereign Debt Index, which had a comparatively strong 1.42% return (1.95% YTD).

The highest March return came from the Security Selection Index, those who combine long positions and short sales with the aim of benefiting from their ability in selecting investments while offsetting systematic market risks. The Security Selection Index showed a 0.52% advance (3.67% YTD).

Meanwhile, the Multi-Process Group Index, an index containing funds that use strategies in which a single investment process does not account for more than 80% of their risk capital, was the second best returning index with a 0.50% advance (3.89% YTD) while the Directional Trading Index, which reported an increase of 0.32% (4.83%), came in third.  Directional Trading focuses on strategies based upon speculating on the direction of market prices of currencies, commodities, equities, and bonds in the futures and cash markets.

Rounding out the remaining components for March, the Relative Value Index was up 0.31% (1.62% YTD).  Relative Value is the index focused on spread relationships between pricing components of financial assets or commodities. Finally, the Specialist Credit Index, those funds that seek to lend to credit-sensitive issuers, reported a 0.23% advance (3.32% YTD).

The MSCI Hedge Fund Indices are composed of more than 190 indices and the MSCI Hedge Fund Indices now includes over 1,700 hedge funds.