The Best And Worst Hedge Funds Of 2012 Are

We have more information on the winners and losers among hedge funds for the year 2012. According to Lyxor, the highest profiting funds of the year includes JANA Partners Ltd with 21.8 percent and Andromeda Global Credit Fund with a return of 21.5 percent, the fund gained 10 percent in December which propped it up on the list of the best funds of the year. Odyssey Value Fund gained 18 percent through the year while GAM Global Rates Hedge Fund returned 17 percent. In the top funds category, these names don’t beat the top 10 gainers followed by HSBC’s Hedge Weekly.

In the losers, we have some new names. The highest detraction experienced by Sprott Offshore Fund beats the losses of all other funds, even those mentioned in our last update. Sprott lost more than 37 percent in the year so far, the Offshore Fund uses a L/S Equity strategy. An oft-seen name in the bottom list is John Paulson’s funds. Paulson Gold Fund has lost -33 YTD. The third in the losers list is Island Drive Offshore with -24 percent, another Long/Short equity fund.

Combining all the sources, here is the summary of Top and Bottom 5 hedge funds of 2012:

Top

BTG Pactual Distressed Fund: 39.91 percent (Oct 30)

Tilden Park Offshore Investment Fund: 34.89 percent (Nov 30)

Odey Absolute Return: 33.3 percent (Nov 30)

Brookfield Global Real Estates Securities: 33.2 percent (Oct 30)

Pine River Fixed Income: 32.7 percent (Dec 7)

Bottom

Sprott Offshore Fund: -37.73 percent

Paulson Gold Fund Ltd: -33.07 percent

Conquest Macro Fund Ltd: -31.29 percent (Dec 12)

RAB Special Situation: -27.52 percent (Nov 30)

Island Drive Offshore: -24.52 percent

Moving on to the year to date returns of the big and actively followed funds, CQS Fund Ltd gained 8.2 percent, the fund applies a Convertible and Volatility Arbitrage strategy. Brevan Howard’s Systematic Trading Fund, a Commodity Trading Advisor, lost 6.5 percent in the year while Caxton Hawk managed a +1.07 percent return. Paul Tudor’s Tudor Momentum, another CTA fund, lost -4.6 percent while Winton Capital Management, the fourth largest hedge fund in Europe (AUM $28.5 billion), also lost 4 percent.

Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Fund, a global macro fund, managed to return 3.5 percent. In Long/Short Credit Arbitrage, BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) European Credit Strategies was up 6.7 percent, while Henderson Credit Fund of Henderson Global, another large European hedge fund, gained 6.9 percent. Whereas Henderson AlphaGen Octanis Fund, a L/S Equity Fund returned 1.95 percent.

GLG Partners L/S Equity funds, GLG Emerging Equity lost 3.7 percent, while GLG European Opportunity gained 6.9 percent. Marshall Wace Tops European gained 11.47 percent.

In the Event Driven strategy, GLG Credit Opportunity has gained 14 percent, Marathon Distressed Opportunities gained 10 percent, while James Dinan’s York Fund is up 6.9 percent for the year so far.

The returns in this article are YTD through 24th December, unless mentioned otherwise.