Hedge fund returns sank for a second straight month in March, the first back-to-back loss since the first two months of 2016, as trade wars, tech-sector woes and a Fed rate hike dragged down the S&P 500 from its mid-month highs and hedge funds into the red for the year.

Hedge Funds fell 0.56 percent in the first quarter, compared with a 1.42% gain for the three months ended Feb. 28, according to data compiled in the Bloomberg Hedge Fund Database. Funds also finished the month of March down 0.75 percent, paring losses from February when they fell 2.19 percent.

Both types of Fixed Income strategies fell 0.10 percent in March, but ended the quarter in the black. Fixed Income Directional ended the first quarter up 0.75 percent, while Fixed Income Relative Value rose 1.03 percent.

Funds styles in the red topped those in the black by 19 to 7 in March, with Short Biased-style funds leading the table at 2.64 percent on the upside. Currency strategies, a subset of CTA/Managed Futures, finished March at the bottom, plunging 6.33 percent. That helped push Currency strategies down 14.7 percent, the biggest drop in the quarter.

Activist-style funds posted the biggest gains in the quarter at 3.67 percent, despite falling 1.66 percent in March. Long-Short funds outpaced the S&P 500 by 174 basis points, finishing the month down 0.80 percent. For the first quarter, Long-Short funds were up 0.30 percent, easily outpacing the S&P 500, which fell 1.58 percent on a total-return basis.


Overall, Commodity Trading Advisors/Managed Futures strategies had the largest monthly swing in either direction from results in February at nearly 550 basis points, ending March down 0.27 percent, compared with down 5.75 percent in February.

Health Care-focused funds rose 0.04 percent for the month, ending the quarter up 4.66 percent, the highest among industry-focused funds. Technology-focused funds were down the most in March, falling 1.05 percent, though it wasn’t enough to push them into the red after gains the prior two months. They finished the quarter up 2.82 percent. Real Estate funds ended the quarter the lowest ranked among industry-focused funds, down 1.93 percent, despite finishing March up 0.30 percent.


Note: All data are total return including reinvested dividends; March data are the most recent available; April numbers become available around 5/15/2018 NOTE: "Equity Hedge" refers to a Bloomberg-created term for strategies where the largest subset of funds is L/S Equity and Long Biased hedge funds RELATED: Here are how some hedge funds performed last month March 23, More Hedge Funds Closed Than Opened in ’17 as Returns Lagged March 15, Och-Ziff to Shut European Hedge Fund as New CEO Shifts Focus HFS <GO> lets you screen for different hedge funds