Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – The Nordic hedge fund industry, as indicated by the Nordic Hedge Index, has kicked off the year with its strongest performance in almost 15 years, recording a 4.5 percent advance in the first quarter. While all strategy categories performed strongly during the quarter, systematic trend-following, systematic macro, and equity strategies dominate the list of top performers.

Nordic systematic trend-following CTAs, macro, and managed futures vehicles started 2024 on a strong note with an average advance of 13.9 percent in the first quarter, following a gain of 4.7 percent in March alone. Long/short equity strategies saw a 3.2 percent increase in March, contributing to a first-quarter advance of 5.3 percent. Fixed-income strategies recorded a 4.2 percent advance for the first quarter, marking a ten-month consecutive streak of positive performance.

Multi-manager hedge funds and diversified funds, formerly known as multi-strategy, ended the first quarter of 2024 in positive territory at 4.0 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively. Long-only equity managers with hedge fund-like characteristics, a category outside of the Nordic Hedge Index, also demonstrated solid performance with a 9.8 percent increase in the first three months of the year.

As is customary, there was significant dispersion between the best- and worst-performing members of the Nordic Hedge Index. In the first quarter, the top 20 percent of Nordic hedge funds achieved an average gain of 11.7 percent, while the bottom 20 percent experienced an average loss of 1.6 percent on average. Notably, nearly 90 percent of the universe concluded the first quarter with positive returns.

Top Performers in Q1 of 2024

Anna Fund, a Norwegian fund that employs a momentum strategy on Bitcoin futures, leads the performance charts with a surge of 82 percent in the first three months of 2024. Founded by three Norwegian friends in mid-2023, Anna Fund uses inverse perpetual Bitcoin futures to execute its momentum strategy, focusing on capitalizing on Bitcoin’s fluctuations using price and volume data. Starting with assets just under NOK 50 million before the turn of the year, Anna Fund now manages NOK 117 million as of the end of March.

Lynx Asset Management’s Lynx Systematic Macro Program ranks as the second-best performing vehicle in the Nordic Hedge Index this year, having gained 19.4 percent in the first quarter. Lynx Systematic Macro, which relies on fundamental macroeconomic principles to invest across currencies, fixed income, equity indices, and commodities, gained 6.9 percent in January, 4.4 percent in February, and 7.0 percent in March.

TIND Discovery Fund, a newly launched long-biased equity fund by former CARN Capital co-founder Christer Bjørndal and his team at TIND Asset Management, has enjoyed a strong journey since launching in early November last year. The fund, which manages a concentrated long-biased portfolio of small- and mid-cap investments, achieved a gain of 16.2 percent in the first three months of 2024 and has delivered a cumulative return of 24 percent since its launch.

Othania Globale Aktier, the pure equity fund managed by Danish boutique asset manager Othania, also stands among the top five best performers in the Nordic Hedge Index for the first quarter with an advance of 15.8 percent. Relying on Othania’s proprietary “Tiger” investment model that evaluates equity market risk on a monthly basis, Othania Globale Aktier is designed to navigate market conditions by shifting exposure between “offensive” equity exchange-traded funds (ETFs) during risk-on environments and more “defensive” equity ETFs during periods of heightened equity market risk.

Impega, an equity fund employing a global, diversified strategy with a bias towards long positions in high-quality shares, rounded up the list of top five performers in the Nordic Hedge Index with an advance of 15.5 percent in the first quarter. Managed by Petter Kvamme Jensen, Impega has delivered a cumulative return of 29 percent since its launch in May 2023.

Top Performing Long-Only Equity Funds

In September, HedgeNordic introduced a new sub-strategy category to the Nordic Hedge Index: Equity Long-Only (ELO). This category is home to funds that would fall short of qualifying as a hedge fund due to their long-only trading approach but exhibit habitual characteristics of a hedge fund strategy (e.g., leverage and derivatives usage, portfolio concentration, fee structure, a spin-off of a long/short strategy, and absolute return objectives, among others).

After topping the charts in 2023 with a return of 63.8 percent, Asilo Argo is leading the pack again with an advance of 26.7 percent in the first quarter. Asilo Argo maintains a concentrated portfolio of approximately 12 current or potential future “superstar” companies. Following closely is HCP Focus, under the umbrella of Helsinki Capital Partners, with an advance of 20 percent in the first three months of the year. Coeli European, Protean Small Cap, Stolt Explorer, and Origo SELEQT also enjoyed a solid performance in the first quarter.