The new monthly report, by Aureliano Gentilini, Lipper's global head of hedge fund research, says that in 2008 were up 18.33 per cent in USD terms according to the Credit Suisse/Tremont hedge fund index.

Sixty per dent of the performance for the whole year was posted in the last quarter of 2008.

However, in January 2009 managed futures managers posted a negative 1.89 per cent return on average in USD terms.

Managed futures managers with assets in excess of USD45m returned a slightly better average reading in January at a negative 1.16 per cent month-on-month.

The report says managed futures strategies slipped in January due to the lack of a directional bias across most of the asset classes, as they did not benefit from any prevailing trends existing in markets.

Only discretionary traders were able to benefit from a limited number of trading opportunities in January based on opportunistic strategies drawing on fundamental analysis.

The report lists performance for CTA programmes, single manager futures and currency funds with assets in excess of USD45m under management, actively reporting into the Lipper TASS database.