Markets were unsettled in early April by the surprise announcement of steep U.S. tariffs, triggering an equity sell-off, rising U.S. bond yields, and a weaker dollar. By month-end, markets had largely rebounded following a series of concessions and a 90-day pause on tariff implementation. Nordic hedge funds slipped 0.4 percent as a group in April, though performance varied significantly both across and within strategies.
Equity long/short managers, along with long-only equity managers displaying hedge fund-like characteristics, finished the month with positive returns. Amid significant intra-month reversals, systematic trend-following CTAs, macro, and managed futures strategies ended the month in the red, although a few within this group emerged among the industry’s top performers.
Diversified funds – including multi-asset, multi-strategy, and niche approaches – also encountered a challenging April, posting an average loss of 1.2 percent and extending their year-to-date decline to 2.3 percent. Multi-manager funds faced similar headwinds, registering an average monthly decline of 0.8 percent. Meanwhile, fixed-income hedge fund strategies, which remain this year’s best-performing category with a year-to-date gain of 2.9 percent, experienced a modest pullback of 0.4 percent in April.
The performance dispersion between the best- and worst-performing members of the Nordic Hedge Index narrowed to 8.4 percent in April, down from 10 percent in March. During April, the top 20 percent of reporting funds achieved an average gain of 3.8 percent, while the bottom 20 percent incurred an average decline of 4.6 percent. This compares to March, when the top 20 percent posted an average gain of 2.0 percent and the bottom 20 percent experienced an average loss of 8.0 percent. Overall, approximately 44 percent of funds with reported April figures ended the month in positive territory.
10 Best Performing Nordic Hedge Funds in April 2025
Long/short equity hedge funds were the top-performing group in April and consequently dominated the list of the month’s best performers, with two trend-following CTAs occupying the remaining spots in the top ten. Leading the pack was the Bitcoin-focused trend-following Anna Fund, which advanced 16.3 percent in April, returning to positive territory for the year with a 1.6 percent gain following a challenging March.
Coeli Energy Opportunities, a long/short equity fund focused on renewable energy, followed with a 7.4 percent gain in April. Notably, the fund generated positive returns both during the rally in the latter half of the month and throughout the initial sell-off following ‘Liberation Day.’ The fund currently ranks as the second-best performing Nordic hedge fund year-to-date with a return of 16.7 percent (read more).
TIND Discovery Fund, an equity long/short strategy managed by an experienced team with strong ties to Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), also delivered solid results this year, gaining 6.5 percent in April. Co-managed by Chief Investment Officer Harald Hjorthen and portfolio manager Jon Håkon Findreng, the fund currently stands as the best-performing Nordic hedge fund year-to-date, with an 18.1 percent return over the first four months of the year.
Pensum Global Opportunities, an equity-focused opportunistic hedge fund managed by Norwegian veteran Peter Andersland, posted a strong performance for the second consecutive month, gaining 5.8 percent in April and bringing its year-to-date return to 9.3 percent. The fund climbed nearly 11 percent by mid-April before giving back some gains amid a sharp rotation away from gold miners and a rally in its short positions, aligned with the broader market rebound (read more). Rounding out the top five performers in April was Coeli Norhammar Property L/S Fund, which advanced 5.7 percent for the month.
Top Performing Long-Only Equity Funds
In September of 2023, 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).
