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Two of three Dow Jones hedge fund strategy benchmarks negative in February

March 12, 2009 at 4:00 pm

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Two of the three hedge fund strategies published by Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes posted negative returns for the month of February, although relative to the US and global securities marPARA_BREAK_SENTINEL_9f8e7d6c

Two of the three hedge fund strategies published by Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes posted negative returns for the month of February, although relative to the US and global securities market hedge funds performed fairly well for the month.

While other broad measurements of the market fell, event-driven finished February with a gain of 0.26 per cent and increased its YTD performance to 1.50 per cent.

Merger arbitrage was down slightly with a return of -0.50 per cent, but remains in positive territory for the year with a YTD gain of 1.11 per cent. Distressed securities continued to decline for the year, losing 1.54 per cent and bringing its YTD loss to 5.15 per cent.

Equity long/short, equity market neutral and convertible arbitrage remained suspended through the month of February.

On a float-adjusted basis, the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, the only broad measure of the domestic equity market, returned -10.40 per cent (-10.04 per cent on a full-cap basis) in February and lowered its YTD performance to -17.72 per cent (-17.36 per cent on a full-cap basis).

The fixed income asset class, as measured by the Dow Jones Corporate Bond Index returned -2.09 per cent this month and its cumulative return for 2009 stands at
-1.29 per cent.

Finally, the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Index, the broadest measure of global equity markets, posted a return of -9.66 per cent in the second month of 2009 and has a year-to-date loss of -17.20 per cent.