LONDON (HedgeWorld.com)–Hedge funds in Europe had a rough October, with most strategies posting negative numbers, according to two leading indexes.
The FTSE Hedge Index was down 1.5% last month and is up just 1.5% for the year through Oct. 31. Meanwhile, all the strategies in the Edhec Investable Hedge Fund Indexes reported losses except convertible arbitrage, which has had a less than stellar year overall, with a drop of 3.1% so far in 2005.
The best performance in the FTSE index came in the non-directional arena, where fixed-income relative value managers gained 0.6% in October and are up 2.9% for the 12 months ending Oct. 31. Rising interest rates, inflation and tough talk from the U.S. Federal Reserve contributed to the woes of directional and event-driven managers, FTSE indexers said in their monthly report.
Equity hedge funds were down 3.5% last month and were hit hard due to their long bias to equity markets. Commodity trading advisers (down 0.2%) and global macro managers (negative 0.4%) also were hit hard by long positions in equities, bonds and energy, according to FTSE.
