Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – As the year approaches its end, the Nordic hedge fund industry is on track for its third-best performance on record and its strongest year since 2009. The industry recovered from October’s minor setback by gaining 0.7 percent in November, bringing the year-to-date performance to 10.7 percent.
Four out of the five strategy categories within the Nordic Hedge Index delivered positive performance in November, with only long/short equity managers being the only group to post losses for the month. This largest strategy category in the industry edged down 0.2 percent on average in November, trimming the year-to-date advance to 8.7 percent. Meanwhile, long-only equity managers with hedge fund-like characteristics, tracked separately from the main Nordic Hedge Index, recorded a strong 4.2 percent average gain in November, expanding their year-to-date advance to 23.2 percent.
Nordic systematic trend-following CTAs, macro and managed futures vehicles rebounded in November after a challenging October, gaining 1.0 percent on average. This brought their year-to-date performance to 12.6 percent, driven significantly by the standout 163 percent surge of Anna Fund, a bitcoin-focused trend-follower. Diversified funds, which include multi-asset, multi-strategy and niche strategies, enjoyed a strong month, advancing 2.0 percent in November and bringing their year-to-date return to 10.7 percent. Multi-manager funds also delivered solid performance, adding 1.7 percent in November and extending their year-to-date advance to 9.9 percent. Fixed-income hedge funds edged up 0.2 percent in November, taking their year-to-date performance to 12.7 percent. This marks 2024 as their best year in over a decade.
Performance dispersion between the best- and worst-performing members of the Nordic Hedge Index decreased month-over-month. The top 20 percent of Nordic hedge funds achieved an average gain of 4.6 percent in November, while the bottom 20 percent experienced an average loss of 2.8 percent, resulting in a top-to-bottom dispersion of 7.3 percent versus 8.0 percent in October. By comparison, in October, the top 20 percent achieved an average gain of 2.9 percent, and the bottom 20 percent suffered an average loss of 5.1 percent. About two-thirds of the funds reporting figures for November posted gains for the month.
Best Performers in November and Year-to-Date
Discretionary macro fund Brobacke Global Allokering emerged as the top performer among the Nordic Hedge Index constituents in November, delivering a return of 13.8 percent. Last month’s advance brought its year-to-date performance back into positive territory at 7.6 percent. Looking at the broader universe that includes long-only equity funds, concentrated equity fund Asilo Argo took the spotlight with a surge of 18.4 percent. This performance pushed Asilo Argo’s year-to-date gains to approximately 75 percent, following a return of 64 percent in 2023, marking a significant recovery from the challenging 52.6 percent loss during the difficult market conditions of 2022.
Multi-strategy vehicle Visio Allocator Fund emerged as the second-best performer in the Nordic Hedge Index in November with a gain of 8.6 percent. The fund’s best-performing investments included Snowflake, Tesla and Amazon. This monthly advance doubled the fund’s year-to-date gains to 16.9 percent. Avanto Right Tail, a long-biased fund with concentrated positions in liquid investments tied to various themes such as digital assets, cannabis, uranium, green materials, and tankers, followed suit with a gain of 8.2 percent. This brings the fund’s advance for the year to 33.2 percent.
The next three spots in last month’s top performers list were claimed by Danish fund boutique Othania. All five Othania funds recorded their best monthly performance of the year in November. The three funds utilizing the TIGER model posted gains ranging from 6.2 percent to 7.2 percent, benefiting from their long positions in global equities ahead of November and the U.S. elections. “The TIGER model kept full risk-on throughout November, and since global equities did really well – so did we,” explains chief investment officer Vincent Dilling-Larsen (read more).
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).
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