Investors pull $9.9 billion from hedge funds in March – Nasdaq eVestment

By Nell Mackenzie

LONDON (Reuters) – Investors withdrew an estimated net $9.9 billion from hedge funds in March, up from $780 million in February and the 22nd consecutive month where industry outflows totalled more than inflows, a report from Nasdaq eVestment said on Monday.

While the scale of the March outflows was not historically high, money coming in from investors remained “consistently low” because of a “reluctance” to make meaningful new allocations, the report said.

The outflows came even as hedge funds posted positive performances across every strategy tracked by the data firm.

Alternative risk premia, a hedge fund strategy that trades stocks and derivatives in order to remain neutral to markets, had an almost 12% return for the quarter, said Nasdaq eVestment.

Managed futures, the next most successful trading strategy returned about 4% in March and were up about 9% for the year to March 31.

However, only four out of the 10 different kinds of trading strategies saw inflows including two kinds of bond trading hedge funds, making directional bets and trading between the relative prices of different bonds.

Multi-strategy hedge funds, which include some of the largest hedge funds in the world, saw the largest outflows in March of $2.7 billion, said Nasdaq eVestment.

However, estimated assets overseen by multi-strategy funds surpassed $700 billion in March to reach an all-time high.

This number includes leverage and performance as well as client inflows.

(Reporting by Nell Mackenzie, editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Kirsten Donovan)