market folly

Came across interesting lists of the best and worst performing hedge funds thus far in 2009 over on Dealscape and thought we would post some of them up. Firstly, let's touch on where hedge funds overall stand this year. After a tepid June for the markets, July ramped up with a 7.56% gain in the S&P 500. Turning to hedge fund strategies, we see the following performance figures for the month of July:

Convertible Arbitrage: +6.56% (now up 36.6% for the year)
Distressed Securities: +3.39%
CTA Global: -0.19%
Emerging Market: +4.39% (now up 25.8% over the past 5 months)
Equity Market Neutral: +0.27%
Event Driven: +3.39%
Long/Short Equity: +2.85%
Fund of Funds: +1.51%

Now that the recent month's metrics are out of the way, let's turn our focus to the best and worst performing funds out there in hedge fund land. Here are some of the worst performing hedge funds of 2009:

Horseman Global : -21.92%
Ursa Offshore: -17.42%
Man AHL Diversified: -12.64%
Cantillon World (Class A): -10.87% (we covered the fact that Cantillon is closing down/turning into a long only shop)
Renaissance Technologies' RIEF LP B: -10.01% (Jim Simons & Rentec's underperformance has been well documented nicely by Dealbreaker here. Also, for those of you looking for insight from the notoriously private manager, check out this lengthy interview here).
Winton Evolution Fund: -9.52%


And here are some of the best performing hedge funds of 2009:

Turnberry Capital: 92.31% (Thanks to a reader for pointing out that Turnberry recently announced they would be shutting down due to heavy redemption requests and have already sold off 70% of their credit derivative portfolio).
Henderson European ABS Return: 78.94%
Palamino Fund (Class B): 66.9%
Pentwater Event Fund (Class A): 59.64%
Pharo Master Fund: 50.60%
Redwood Capital: 45.16%


Make sure to check out the full list of the best performing funds here and the worst performing funds here courtesy of Dealscape.