Hedge Funds Lag S&P 500 to Kick off 2012

Hedge funds may have turned in a decent start to 2012 last month, but they're still lagging the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

The investable HF index climbed 1.81 percent for the year to date through Feb. 1, but was outpaced substantially by the S&P 500, which turned in a gain of 5.29 percent over the same period, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Hedge Fund Monitor Report.

The report noted that event-driven and equity long/short hedge funds were the best performers to kick off the year, with respective gains of 3.28 and 2.62 percent during the one-month period ending Feb 1. Advanced Trading reported last month that experts predicted those two strategies would be among the top performers this year. Sources also told Advanced Trading they were seeing investor assets flowing heavily into equity long/short and event-driven hedge funds for the first quarter.

Meanwhile macro funds were the worst performers to start the year, gaining a mere 0.07 percent, the report said. As the Senior Editor of Advanced Trading, Justin Grant plays a key role in steering the magazine's coverage of the latest issues affecting the buy-side trading community. Since joining Advanced Trading in 2010, Grant's news analysis has touched on everything from the latest ... View Full Bio