How big hedge funds — including Citadel, Schonfeld, and Marshall Wace — did in July
Stock markets were up in the month, though there was a lot of quant pain.
Read below for Business Insider's monthly performance round-up.
July was another rocky month for multistrategy hedge funds, despite equity markets ticking up.
One of the industry's biggest names handled the chopiness well, though.
Ken Griffin's Citadel gained 1.3% in July in its flagship Wellington fund, people close to the manager said. The Miami-based hedge fund giant, which posted rare losses in February and March, is now up 4% for the year.
The S&P 500 returned 2.2% in July, as markets wrapped up a turbulent-but-resilient month buoyed by strong corporate earnings and optimistic retail investors.
Managers with large quant teams faced a challenging stretch, however. A weekslong drawdown in bread-and-butter systematic strategies stung hedge funds, though a Morgan Stanley note from the end of last week stated that a strong end to July helped quants recover 30% of their losses from the month.
Unlike pure-play quant funds like Renaissance Technologies or Qube Research & Technologies, multistrategy funds are often able to ride out difficult markets thanks to their diversification. For example, $14 billion Schonfeld, which is known for its strong quant teams, was down 0.3% last month in its flagship fund, less than many rivals that only manage computer-run funds are believed to have experienced.
A fund that only includes Schonfeld's fundamental equity teams was up 1.4% last month, a person close to the manager said, helping mitigate losses in quant and other strategies.
At Griffin's firm, stockpickers led the way. The manager was up 2.1% in July in its Tactical Trading fund, which blends human stockpickers and quant strategies, and 3.1% in its Global Equities fund. The strategies are up 8.3% and 6.3% for the year, respectively, the person said.
The managers declined to comment. Additional performance figures will be added once confirmed.
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