Nordic hedge funds wrapped up the first half of the year on a solid note, delivering an average gain of 1.4 percent in June. Following a standout 2024 with a full-year return of 10.5 percent – one of their strongest years on record – this year’s 2.8 percent advance slightly exceeds the industry’s average half-year return of 2.4 percent since 2005.
All strategy categories within the Nordic Hedge Index ended June in positive territory, with equity and fixed income strategies leading the gains. Equity long/short managers advanced by an average of 1.5 percent during the month, bringing their year-to-date performance to 4.6 percent. Long-only equity managers – tracked separately from the Nordic Hedge Index – delivered an even stronger result, gaining 2.9 percent in June and 5.6 percent for the first half of the year. Diversified strategies, encompassing multi-asset, multi-strategy, and niche approaches, also fared well with a 1.8 percent monthly gain, lifting their 2025 performance into positive territory at 1.7 percent.
Fixed-income hedge fund strategies – the top-performing category within the Nordic Hedge Index so far this year – gained 1.3 percent in June, bringing their first-half return to a solid 5.4 percent. Multi-manager funds also ended the month in positive territory, rising 0.7 percent and nudging their year-to-date performance just back into the black at 0.1 percent. Meanwhile, systematic trend-following CTAs, macro, and managed futures strategies broke a streak of consecutive monthly losses with a 1.0 percent gain in June, trimming their year-to-date decline to 6.3 percent.
Performance dispersion among Nordic Hedge Index constituents narrowed in June, with the spread between the top and bottom performers shrinking to 5.5 percent, down from 8.1 percent in May. Both gains and losses among the best and weakest performers were more moderate compared to the previous month. The top 20 percent of reporting funds posted an average return of 4.5 percent in June, while the bottom 20 percent recorded an average decline of 1.0 percent. This compares to a 5.7 percent gain and a 2.4 percent loss, respectively, in May. Four out of five funds that reported results for June ended the month in positive territory, and around 70 percent of the index constituents were in the black for the first half of the year.
Best Performing Nordic Hedge Funds in June and Year-to-Date
Discretionary macro fund Brobacke Global Allokering ranked among the top performers for the second consecutive month, gaining 9.7 percent in June and fully recovering earlier losses to end the first half of the year up 3.0 percent. Following closely, the multi-strategy, multi-asset VISIO Allocator Fund advanced 8.5 percent in June. After suffering its worst monthly loss in March, the fund rebounded sharply in May and posted an even stronger gain in June. With continued momentum into July, VISIO Allocator has now returned to positive territory for the year.
Following a 54 percent return in 2024 – the second-highest in the Nordic hedge fund industry – the long-biased equity fund Impega currently leads the pack in 2025. A 7.4 percent gain in June pushed the fund’s year-to-date return to 32.8 percent. Thematic, high-conviction fund Avanto Right Tail and tech-focused, market-neutral Thyra Hedge also posted strong results in June, advancing 6.9 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.
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).
