Most hedge fund and hedge fund-of-funds strategies saw negative returns in November, although they were much improved over September and October and continued to strongly outperform major equity markets indexes for the month and year-to-date Nov. 30.
The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite index was down 1.41% in November, compared to -6.4% in October and -6.11% in September. The index, managed by Hedge Fund Research, was down 17.7% year-to-date Nov. 30. The HFRI Fund of Funds Composite index return was -1.62% in November, -5.99% in October, -6.45% in September and -19.08% year-to-date Nov. 30.
Five HFRI strategy indexes were positive in November: Equity Market Neutral index, 0.57%; Short Bias index, 5.48%; Private Issue/Regulation D index, 0.53%; HFRI Macro (Total) index, 1.67%; and the HFRI Macro: Systematic Diversified index, 2.85%. On a year-to-date basis, the HFRI Short Bias index trounced all comers with a 31.54% return while the HFRI Macro: Systematic Diversified index returned 16.81% for the same period.
Credit Suisse/Tremont reported a preliminary hedge fund index return of -0.71% in November and -16.14% year-to-date Nov. 30, based on 69% of the hedge funds in its universe reporting performance. The Hennessee Hedge Fund index was -2.69% in November and -18.44% for the first 11 months of 2008.
The S&P 500 index returned -7.48% in November and -38.97% year-to-date Nov. 30, while the MSCI World index was down 6.72% for the month and -43.8% for the 11-month period. The Barclays Aggregate Bond index was positive for both time periods at 3.3% in November and 1.5% year-to-date.
