Hedge Funds Return 0.6% in November, Beating Japan stocks as lead managers

Hedge funds gained 0.6 percent in November, led by Japanese businessmen, and outperformed the global capital markets that fell during the month, said Eurekahedge Pte.

Hedge funds posted positive results for the fifth consecutive month, the Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index, which tracks over 2,500 funds worldwide, increasing by 7.9 percent in the first 11 months, the data provider with headquarters in Singapore, said in a report by email. About $ 5 million for industry last month, Eurekahedge said, based on data from 32 percent of the funds so far have reported their November performances.

Managers who invest in Japan and the strategies that equity issues led gains in the month, helped by a rise in Japanese stocks, the preliminary report showed. The MSCI World Index fell 2.4 percent in November.

Monitoring the extent of funds from Japan and focused won 2.4 percent, the best performance among seven regional indices as the benchmark Topix index rose 6.2 percent during the month. The Eurekahedge Eastern Europe and Russia followed Hedge Fund Index, increased 1.7 percent, while index tracking funds in North America has added 1 percent, he said.

Among the seven regional indices, only the Eurekahedge Emerging Markets Hedge Fund Index declined, the report said.

For the strategy, event-driven funds, which invest in companies in transaction processing, such as mergers or divisions, were the best performers, returning 1.4 percent, helped by increased business this year, Eurekahedge said . By contrast, the index tracking funds bond coverage declined by 0.8 percent, the worst performance.

The research firm plans to release a full report later this month.

Hedge funds are mostly private pools of capital whose managers participate substantially in profits from their speculation on whether the asset price increases or decreases.