April 2017 was an exceptional month for the alternative UCITS market in terms of capital inflow, according to the latest LuxHedge Alternative UCITS Overview report.

Total assets under management grew by EUR15 billion (+3.5 per cent), which represents the second largest absolute value growth ever recorded at LuxHedge.
 
Investors most notably increased their exposures towards fixed income arbitrage (+EUR7.2 billion), multi strategy (+EUR5.4 billion) and global macro funds (+EUR1.4 billion).
 
LuxHedge writes: “During the month of April, we added 20 new alternative UCITS funds to our database and liquidated 15. In line with the trend of the past months, we see a steady increase in new fund launches following a global macro strategy.
 
“Looking at average performance of the funds, it was a very moderate month with the LuxHedge Global Alternative UCITS Index advancing +0.15 per cent during April. Continuing the trend of the previous months and in line with the broader hedge fund market, April performance was led by event driven strategies: +0.51 per cent (+3.42 per cent YTD). Also other equity hedge styles continued their upward path with the Long/Short Index being up 0.45 per cent for the month (3.14 per cent YTD) and Equity Market Neutral posting a narrow gain of 0.23 per cent (1.39 per cent YTD).”
 
Extending the negative trend that characterised the past months, the relatively smaller universe of currency arbitrage funds declined 0.63 per cent during April, adding up to a total loss of 2.92 per cent YTD and making this the weakest performing strategy since the start of 2017.
 
Funds with a CTA/managed futures focus continued their downward movement with -0.65 per cent during April, accumulating to -1.87 per cent YTD.