Hedge fund and fund-of-funds returns continued to outperform major equity market indexes for reporting periods ended Sept. 30, although they badly trailed fixed-income returns, according to index performance numbers that Hedge Fund Research and Eurekahedge released today.
The HFRI Hedge Fund Weighted Composite index returned -4.68% in September and -9.41% year-to-date Sept. 30. The estimated performance of the Eurekahedge Hedge Fund index was -2.99% in September and -6.21% year to date.
HFR reported that September represented the fourth consecutive month of negative returns for hedge funds. Spokesman Chris Sullivan noted that September losses created the second worst monthly return on record since HFR began tracking performance in 1990, bested only by the -8.7% drop of the HFRI Fund Composite index in August 1998.
Hedge funds of funds returned -4.95% for September, according to the HFRI Fund of Funds Composite index, and -11.03% for the first nine months of 2008. The Eurekahedge Fund of Funds index returned an estimated -4.12% in September and -10.07% year to date.
By comparison, the S&P 500 index returned -9.08% for the month and -20.57% year-to-date and the MSCI World index return was -9.26% in September and -32.47% for the nine months. Performance of the Lehman Brothers U.S. Aggregate Bond index was negative, but much less than equity and hedge fund indexes with a -1.64% return in September and -0.02% for the nine months ended Sept. 30.
