Fueled by a rising dollar and falling oil prices, the average hedge fund gained 1.23 percent last month, according to data from research firm Hedge Fund Research (HFR), but returns still trailed the broader stock market.

November's gains marked the first positive returns for hedge funds since August, but they fell short of the S&P 500's 2.5 percent increase. Hedge funds on average returned 3.73 percent through November, sharply lagging the S&P 500's roughly 12 percent gain.

The best performing funds were so-called global macro funds, which make big currency and interest rates bets and gained 2.6 percent when many had correctly bet that the Japanese yen would fall and the U.S. dollar would rise. So-called trend following funds rose 4.6 percent.

Despite the gains in November, hedge fund returns have largely been lackluster this year, adding pressure on managers to cut their hefty fees and prompting some investors to say they plan to pull money out of underperforming funds. Hedge funds, unlike mutual funds, are not required to release their performance numbers publicly and only report them to industry trackers such as HFR selectively.

Prominent hedge fund Elliott Associates recently told investors that its fund inched up 0.9 percent last month, leaving it up 8.1 percent for the year, an investor who saw the numbers said. Viking Global, another big name, returned 0.8 percent in November and is up 13.3 percent for the year, a second investor said.

Ada Investment Management's Ada Alternatives fund climbed 3.59 percent last month and is up 8.7 percent for the year.

Meanwhile Ray Iwanowski, who had co-managed Goldman Sachs' flagship Global Alpha fund, posted a 6.5 percent gain last month at the small hedge fund he runs at Secor Asset Management. The fund, which has bet against the energy sector just as oil prices were falling and bet on single name equities, is up 22 percent for the year, a person familiar with the fund said.