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November 9, 2007
Tech and emerging markets hedge funds lead in Oct
All hedge fund strategies with the exception of short sellers posted gains in October, with emerging markets and technology showing gains of more than 5 percent last month, industry figures released on Wednesday showed.
Hedge funds that invest in emerging markets in aggregate showed gains of 5.17 percent in October, with those investing in Asia in particular posting gains of 6.16 percent, according to Hedge Fund Research (HFR), which aggregates data from thousands of hedge funds.
Funds specializing in technology investment posted the second-best performance of 5.86 percent in October, HFR said.
Short sellers, however, were down 0.03 percent that month, HFR said in its monthly statistics.
While the 9,000 or so hedge funds trade myriad strategies in all securities, a large proportion of them tend to be long equities, hedged by smaller short positions. Overall, the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.SPX> was down only slightly for October, with emerging markets indices posting generally strong gains.
The robust performance for emerging markets and technology strategies in October is setting them up for solid double-digit gains for 2007. Year-to-date through October, emerging markets hedge funds were up 26.6 percent, with Asian emerging markets funds up 39.5 percent for the period, HFR said.
Similarly, hedge fund technology funds logged gains of 19.7 percent year-to-date through October, while short-sellers were down 1.75 percent in the same period, HFR said.
HFR's weighted composite hedge fund index, which aggregates performance for nearly three-dozen strategies, was up 3.21 percent in October and up 12.27 percent in the year-to-date. (Reporting by Dane Hamilton; Editing by Braden Reddall)
-Reuters-
Posted by su at November 9, 2007 10:30 AM