market folly

After a brief hiatus, we're back with a cumulative review of recent hedge fund performance. Our last update was our post on 2008 year end performance numbers and now we're back with a cumulative update. After gathering a bunch of data, here's what we've come up with, in no particular order.

Hedge Fund January, February, & YTD Numbers:

1. John Paulson's Paulson & Co saw their Advantage Plus fund up 8.84% through the end of January. They then were -0.77% for February, bringing them to 8% for the year through February. Their Credit Opportunities fund was -0.93% for February and sits at 0.22% for the year. Their Enhanced fund was -1.55% for February and 2.08% for the year as of end of February. Lastly, their International fund was -0.86% for February which brought them to 1.07% on the year at that time. Although Paulson operates in numerous markets, we covered the equities portion of their portfolio here.
2. Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital was -2.3% for February and sits up 4.3% year to date as of the end of February. You can see the entire chart breakdown of their performance here as well as their recent equity holdings here (which represents only a small amount of their assets under management).
   
3. Jim Simons' Renaissance Technologies saw their Institutional Equities Fund -4.61% for February and -8.84% for 2009. We had previously covered Rentec's portfolio just for fun, since they are a quant fund by nature and its near impossible for us to gauge the rhyme or reason behind their picks.
4. Steven Cohen's SAC Capital International fund was up 3.3% for February and sits at 7.12% for 2009. We had previously covered SAC's portfolio just for fun as well, considering their propensity to move in and out of positions quickly.
5. David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital was -1.5% for February and sits at -0.03% for the year at the end of February. We've recently updated their portfolio and have also covered their 13F filing too.
   
6. Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners was up 0.95% for January 2009 and 4.64% for February, leaving them at 5.26% for the year as of the end of February. We haven't covered their Q4 holdings quite yet, but we've noted numerous recent changes to their portfolio.
   
7. Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital saw their Maverick Fund up 1.55% for January 2009 and -2.1% for February, leaving them at -0.62% for the year at that time. We had covered their holdings recently here.
   
8. Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global has been on fire lately, notching a 7.88% gain in their Global Equities III fund through the latter part of February. Their Viking Global Fund was up 3.43% for February and was 8.21% for the year at the end of that month. We recently covered their long equity positions here, so maybe you can see where their gains are coming from.
9. Chris Shumway's Shumway Capital Partners Ocean Fund was up 2.54% for February and 5.75% for the year as of then.
   
10. Ken Griffin's Citadel was up 5% in January, and up another 2.6% for February. These are much better numbers from Citadel, who last year saw their flagship funds get annihilated. And, as such, we've noted that Citadel will be starting new hedge funds.
11. Timothy Barakett's Atticus Capital survived a nightmarish year last year, only to have their pain somewhat continue. Their European fund was -0.8% for February and sits -10% for 2009. We just recently covered their portfolio holdings as well.
12. Louis Bacon's Moore Capital Management sees their Emerging Market fund up 10.83% as of the latter part of February. Their Global Fixed Income fund was up 1.92% for the month of January and their Global Investments fund was up 1.55% in the month of January. We just last week examined their equity holdings as well, noting that they are a true global macro fund and have a smaller allocation to equities than other funds we track.
13. Bruce Kovner's Caxton Associates saw their Alpha Equity fund -9.32% as of February 24th, 2009 and their Global fund was up 3.03% for January. We just recently covered Caxton's equity holdings here.
14. Paul Tudor Jones' Tudor Investment Corp continues their solid relative performance as they saw their flagship BVI Global fund up 2.85% for the month of January and 1.71% for February, leaving them at 4.61% for the year at that time. Their Tensor Fund was 0.52% for February and is now -0.12% as of the end of February.
    
15. Barton Biggs' Traxis Partners saw their Traxis Fund -4.63% for February and -10.42% year to date for 2009. We've covered Barton before on the blog as his book, Hedgehogging, is on one of our recommended reading lists.
16. Highbridge's long/short equity fund was -7.88% for the year, through the beginning days of March. Conversely, their multistrat fund is up 4.5% year to date through the same timeframe.
17. Whitney Tilson's T2 Partners was -10.3% for February and sits -13.5% ytd.
18. Ricky Sandler's Eminence Capital was up 4.96% for January and is now up 8% as of the latter portion of February. We've covered their Q3 holdings but haven't gotten to their Q4 positions quite yet.
19. Childrens Investment Fund saw a January '09 return of -4.58%.
    
20. BlueGold's Global Fund was up 20.2% for February and sits at a 35.6% return for 2009.
21. Avenue International was -0.56% for the month of January.
22. Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group sees their Buccaneer fund sitting up 13.39% as of late February. Additionally, their diversified fund was up 9.87% through the same time period. We had previously looked at some of their holdings here.
    
23. Eric Mindich's Eton Park Capital was up 3% for January 2009. We had previously examined their Q3 holdings and will soon be looking into their Q4 positions.
24. Bluecrest Capital finds themselves up 9.18% as of February 20th.