Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Nordic hedge funds posted their best first half of a year since 2009, following broad-based gains for all strategy categories in June. Nordic hedge funds, as expressed by the Nordic Hedge Index, gained 1 percent on average last month (87 percent reported), taking the performance for the first half of 2019 to 3.7 percent.
All five strategy categories in the Nordic Hedge Index posted gains for June, with CTAs delivering the strongest performance as a group. Nordic CTAs were up 1.9 percent last month, which brought their average performance for the first half of 2019 to 2.4 percent. Multi-strategy funds gained 1.5 percent last month and were up 4.5 percent in the first half of the year. On a year-to-date basis, fund performance was led by multi-strategy and equity hedge funds.
Equity-oriented vehicles advanced 4.2 percent during the first six months of 2019 after gaining 0.8 percent in June. Fixed income hedge funds and funds of funds were up 0.3 percent last month. Fixed income strategies in the Nordic Hedge Index booked an average gain of 3.5 percent for the first half of 2019, whereas funds of funds ended the first half of the year flat to marginally positive at 0.1 percent.
The dispersion between last month’s best and worst performing members of the Nordic Hedge Index contracted compared to the previous month. In June, the top 20 percent of hedge funds gained 4.9 percent on average, whereas the bottom 20 percent lost 1.7 percent on average. In the previous month, the top 20 percent was up 2.4 percent on average, and the bottom 20 percent lost 6.2 percent. Two in every three members of the Nordic Hedge Index posted gains for June.
Rhenman Healthcare Equity L/S, a long-biased hedge fund focused on the healthcare sector, was last month’s best performing member of the Nordic Hedge Index with a monthly gain of 10.1 percent. The fund was up 18.8 percent in the first half of 2019. Estlander & Partners Alpha Trend II, a higher leverage version of systematic trend-following fund Estlander & Partners Alpha Trend, was the best performing member of the NHX CTA for a second consecutive month. The fund gained 9.1 percent in June, taking its performance for the first six months of the year to 9.4 percent.
Nykredit EVIRA Hedge Fund and Asgard Credit Fund, two Danish fixed income hedge funds, were up 7.5 percent and 7.3 percent last month, respectively. Pacific Precious, a multi-strategy fund focused on precious metals, achieved its best monthly performance on record after booking a gain of 7.2 percent in June.
The Month in Review for June can be downloaded below:
Photo by Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash
