NEW YORK (HedgeWorld.com)–Hedge funds returned a strong 2% in April, boosted by a rebound in the performance of long/short equity managers, according to preliminary data collected for the MSCI Hedge Fund Composite Index.
April's performance follows a relatively lukewarm first quarter of the year, when returns were 1.69% for the composite index and were -0.47% in March (the preliminary March return was 0.4%). Year-to-date through April, the MSCI Composite returned 3.7%.
The MSCI World Equity Index returned 8.6% in April and was up 2.7% year-to-date, while the S&P 500 stock index returned 8.1% and 4.22% in the same respective periods. The MSCI World Sovereign Debt Index returned 1.2% and 4.4% in the same respective periods.
MSCI's Security Selection Index–which contains long/short equity, long-only, market neutral equity and short funds–returned 3.1% in April, bringing its year-to-date return through April into positive territory, at 3%. In March, the Security Selection Index returned 0.1% (preliminary returns were 0.2%).
The MSCI Specialist Credit Index also produced solid results in April, with preliminary monthly returns of 1.7% and year-to-date returns of 5.4%. March returns were revised slightly to 0.8% from a preliminary 0.7%. This grouping contains distressed securities funds, long/short credit funds and private placement funds.
