The Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index rose 0.17 per cent in January.

Overall, fund managers largely escaped the downswings experienced by equity markets during January and the top performing sectors included fixed income arbitrage (2.02 per cent) and event driven (1.42 per cent).

Fixed income arbitrage managers found various profit generating opportunities amid the fall in risky assets while gains in the event driven space were largely driven by profitable credit positions and hedging strategies that mitigated equity losses.

Other positive performances were recorded by convertible arbitrage (0.97 per cent), global macro (1.07 per cent) and multi-strategy (0.56 per cent).

Meanwhile, managed futures managers posted the weakest performance this month, down 3.81 per cent, as many trend followers suffered due to the reversal of longer-term market trends.

Emerging markets fell 0.76 per cent and long/short equity fell 1.50 per cent.