TORONTO (Reuters) -Hedge funds ended a volatile January with widely diverging returns after markets went on a roller-coaster ride due to geopolitical turmoil and fears of looming rising interest rates.
Stock-picking hedge funds lost 6.22% in January, according to a note from Goldman Sachs seen by Reuters, a steeper decline than 5.23% loss on Wall Street’s S&P 500 benchmark, while health care and technology focussed strategies slid more than 10%. Goldman confirmed the figures in the note.
Billionaire investor William Ackman’s Pershing Square Holdings lost 8.2% in January, tumbling early in the month and then clawing back returns in the last week.
Ackman’s Pershing Square Holdings portfolio ended the first three weeks of January down 13.8%, the worst performance to start a year for Ackman in years.
However, Pershing Square Holdings lost 1.3% in both January 2021 and January 2020 after making gains of 18.3% in the first month of 2019.
Balyasny Asset Management, which manages $14 billion in assets, gained 2.4% over the same period, an investor told Reuters.
A spokesperson for Balyasny declined to comment.
Computer-based hedge funds landed in positive territory in the first month of the year, posting returns of 5.3%, said the note from Goldman.
Among computer-based firms, multi-billion-dollar AQR’s alternative risk premia fund ended January up 7.14%, according to its website.
(Reporting by Maiya Keidan and Svea Herbst-Bayliss, additional reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by David Gregorio)
