S&P Reports Gain In Hedge Fund Index For October

by Phillip Morton, Investors Offshore.com

05 November 2004

Standard & Poor’s reported this week that its October hedge fund performance, as measured by the S&P Hedge Fund Index, was up 0.72% for the month driven by strong gains from directional and event-driven managers.

Managed Futures, the top performing strategy last month, saw many managers returning to positive territory after prolonged losses earlier in the year, helped by the strong uptrend in energy prices, a weakening US dollar and declining government bond yields.

The S&P Directional/Tactical Index composed of Equity Long/Short, Managed Futures and Macro managers ended October up 1.45%, whilst the representative S&P Managed Futures Index, composed of 14 managers, returned 5.56%.

Elsewhere, the S&P Arbitrage Index ended the month down 0.13% as returns in the Equity Market Neutral strategy continued to drag, although Fixed Income registered strong returns.

The Convertible Arbitrage sector ended the month down slightly due to low equity volatility and little movement in credit spreads, according to S&P.

The Event Driven Index returned 0.86% for the month as S&P reported that all three of the supporting sectors witnessed gains in October.

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