Macro Strategy Hedge Funds Dominate 2011 Top List
Brad is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.
Business Insider ran profiles of the top-25-performing hedge funds of 2011 (through October) earlier this month. The most numerous of the top dogs were Macro Strategy funds; seven of them made the list. The second most common category among the top 25 was Long/Short Equities, with five funds employing that strategy making the list. Quantitative, Fixed Income, and Multi strategies were each used by three funds on the list. And one fund made the list using each of the following strategies: Managed Futures, Mortgage-backed Arbitrage, Commodities, and Tail Risk.
Here is the complete list:
| Fund | Strategy | AUM | ROI |
| Tiger Global | Long/Short | $6.0 | 45.0% |
| Renaissance Institutional Equities | Quantitative | $7.0 | 33.1% |
| Pure Alpha II | Macro | $53.0 | 23.5% |
| Discus Managed Futures Program | Managed Futures | $2.5 | 20.9% |
| Providence MBS | Mortgage-backed arbitrage | $1.3 | 20.5% |
| Oculus | Multistrategy | $7.0 | 19.0% |
| All Weather 12% | Macro | $4.4 | 17.8% |
| Dymon Asia Macro | Macro | $1.6 | 17.8% |
| Citadel | Multistrategy | $11.0 | 17.7% |
| Coatue Capital Management | Long/Short | $4.7 | 16.9% |
| Stratus Multi-Strategy Program | Multistrategy | $3.7 | 16.6% |
| OxAM Quant Fund | Quantitative | $2.0 | 16.4% |
| SPM Core | Fixed Income | $1.0 | 15.7% |
| Pure Alpha I | Macro | $11.0 | 14.9% |
| Autonomy Global Macro | Macro | $2.1 | 13.9% |
| BlackRock Fixed Income Global Alpha | Fixed Income | $1.6 | 13.5% |
| SPM Structured Servicing Holdings | Fixed Income | $1.6 | 13.5% |
| GSA Capital International | Quantitative | $1.0 | 13.0% |
| JAT Capital | Long/Short | $2.5 | 12.7% |
| Brevan Howard Master | Macro | $26.4 | 10.8% |
| MKP Opportunity Offshore | Macro | $1.2 | 10.7% |
| Paulson Gold | Commodities | $1.2 | 9.8% |
| Cerberus International | Distressed | $1.2 | 8.9% |
| Capula Tail Risk | Tailrisk | $2.3 | 8.6% |
| Macquarie Asian Alpha A | Long/Short | $1.6 | 8.6% |
| Tiger Asia | Long/Short | $1.3 | 8.6% |
AUM = Assets under management in billions of US dollars.
ROI = Return-on-investment for the first ten months of 2011
Source = Business Insider
Notably absent from the list were Merger Arbitrage strategy funds—hardly surprising given the lack of action in that arena in 2011—and their close cousins, Event-Driven strategy funds.
The performance of those funds that did make the list is particularly noteworthy in view of the fact that overall, 2011 was a tough year for hedge funds. According to preliminary (full-year) data from Greenwich Alternative Investments, the average hedge fund was down 4% in 2011, significantly underperforming the market, which was flat.
Brad Hessel is a registered investment advisor based in North Carolina; the name of his firm is Intelledgement, LLC. Brad has no funds invested in any hedge fund, although he does own up to attempting to simulate a macro strategy.
