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Hedge fund inflows hit two-year high of USD18.5bn in May

July 12, 2013 at 4:02 pm

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Hedge funds took in a net USD18.5bn (1.0 per cent of assets) in May, more than a 40-fold increase from April’s USD430m inflow, according to figures released by TrimTabs and BarclayHedge.

The results are based on data from 3,368 funds.

“In May, the hedge fund industry saw its strongest net inflows in more than two years,” says Sol Waksman, president and founder of BarclayHedge. “In the first five months of this year, the industry took in USD35.7bn, compared with just USD484m in the same period last year."

The TrimTabs/BarclayHedge Hedge Fund Flow Report noted that equity long bias funds delivered a return of 2.6 per cent in May, edging past the S&P 500’s 2.3 per cent gain.

“This outperformance flies in the face of the trend in the past 12 months, when these funds earned 16.6 per cent as the S&P 500 gained 27.3 per cent,” says Waksman.

Funds of hedge funds took in a net USD428m (0.1 per cent of assets) in May, reversing a USD4.2bn outflow in April and breaking a 14-month streak of net outflows. Funds of funds underperformed the hedge fund industry by 67 basis points in May.

The TrimTabs/BarclayHedge Survey of Hedge Fund Managers found that managers grew more bearish on the S&P 500 in June, but opinions were pretty evenly split in July.