Hedge Funds Rise In November, But Not Enough

Another month, another hedge-fund beating at the hands of the Standard & Poor�s 500.

According to Hedge Fund Research's HFRX global and strategy indices, hedge funds didn't lose by much: The HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index returned 1.54% in November, the S&P500 1.65%. But on the year, it's no contest and hedge funds will need a Christmas miracle to reach double-digits this year, as the HFRX Global index sits at 7.56% year-to-date. The broad-market S&P500, on the other hand, is up 12.2% YTD.

On the bright side, only one of the eight strategies tracked by HFR was in the red last month: equity-market neutral, which dipped 0.53% and has returned only 3.82% YTD. Of the others, equity hedge (up 1.89% in November, 7.62% YTD) and event-driven (up 1.85% last month, 9.39% YTD) were the best performers. Also besting the overall HFRX Global index YTD are merger arbitrage (up 1% in November, 9.86% YTD), relative-value arbitrage (up 1.15% last month, 8.81% YTD) and convertible arbitrage (up 0.6% in November, 8.13% YTD).

The real money this month and YTD is in the HFRX Market Directional Index, which returned 2.4% on the month to reach 9.3% on the year. Absolute return funds were not so lucky: the HFRX Absolute Return Index rose just .49% last month, and sits at 6.09% YTD.