| Raymond Dalio, Bridgewater Associates (Bloomberg) |
As performance numbers start to trickle in, it’s looking like February was another rough month for a number of hedge fund firms.
Raymond Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates is one of several hedge fund firms to post large losses last month, with the Westport, Connecticut–based firm showing a sizable decline last month in its main fund. Pure Alpha Fund II fell between 2.9 percent and 6 percent, depending on the share class. For the year, the fund is down between 3.75 percent and 5.2 percent.
All Weather, the firm’s risk parity strategy, rose 0.4 percent last month, trimming its loss for the year to 0.74 percent. All Weather is designed to perform in all investment environments without having to predict the movements of specific markets.
William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management posted a 9.8 percent loss in February, bringing its total loss for the year to nearly 20 percent. This follows its 20.5 percent loss in 2015. As a result, investors have seen their 40 percent gain in 2014 wiped out. This year New York–based Pershing Square has been hurt in part by its large long position in controversial drug giant Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. The stock lost about 34 percent through February.
Meanwhile, Daniel Och’s OZ Master Fund, managed by New York–based Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, lost 2.18 percent last month, bringing the multistrategy fund’s total loss for the year to about 4.1 percent, according to a public filing by the parent company, which is publicly traded. The firm’s OZ Asia Master Fund fell 2.28 percent in February and is now down 5.11 percent for the year, while the OZ Europe Master Fund lost 1.5 percent last month and is off 3.35 percent for the year. As a result of these losses, the parent company reported that the firm’s total assets under management stood at $43 billion as of March 1, down $700 million from the previous month.
Daniel Loeb’s Third Point Offshore posted a 0.5 percent loss last month, which was smaller than those of many other funds. Even so, the fund, managed by New York–based Third Point, is down 4 percent for the year. However, this compares with a 5.1 percent decline for the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index over the first two months.
Third Point Offshore actually posted a 0.8 percent gain last month from its long positions in its long-short book. But this was offset by a 0.4 percent loss on the short side of the strategy. Its credit book suffered a 0.6 percent loss in February. Entering March, Third Point’s long-short book is 51.8 percent net long, slightly higher than the previous month.
One of the better performers last month was BH Macro, the public fund that invests virtually all of its assets in the Brevan Howard Master Fund, run by Jersey, Channel Islands–based Brevan Howard Asset Management. It returned about 0.5 percent last month through February 26, the next-to-last trading day. It had gained between 1.1 percent and 1.2 percent for the year.
