Tumultuous month sees UCITS HFS Index down 1, 08% in May 2010

Date: Monday, June 7, 2010
Author: CHW

After two positive months the UCITS HFS Index lost 1,08% in May 2010 after a challenging month for the financial industry. The loss of 0,27% in week one was followed by a slight win in week two of 0,14%, before the broad index took a hit in week three losing 1,26%, the biggest downward movement this year so far. The last week of trading mitigated the damage done by winning back 0,31%, mainly due to a strong month end performance of Credit, Currency and Market Neutral. While Strategies like L/S equity, CTA and Event Driven could record at least gains in the last week of trading, Convertible lost another 1,37% in the mean time and managed to turn negative on a year to date basis after a catastrophic performance in May 2010 of -5,58%.

May turned out to be very inhomogeneous from a sub-strategy perspective: out of the four positive performing strategies Credit and Currency were the most profitable ones with notable gains of 6,51% and 3,53% respectively, although Currency made all the profits in the first half of the month. Out of the seven strategies in the red five lost more than two percent, with Convertible (-5,58%), Global Macro (-3,91%) and CTA (-3,59%) taking the biggest hits. The latter at least enjoyed a good last week in May, none the less keeps the title of the worst performing strategy year to date with a loss of 2,53% so far. The biggest sub strategy L/S Equity finished with a loss of 2,32%, due to weak performance in week one and three and recovering slightly in week two and four. This results in a year to date performance of -0,40%, while the broad UCITS HFS Index stands at 2,04% in comparison.

About the UCITS HFS Index

The UCITS HFS Index Series is the first index family that tracks all UCITS funds using hedge fund strategies. The UCITS HFS Index Series includes all UCITS III funds that apply absolute return strategies, have more than 10 Mio. € of assets under management, offer at least weekly liquidity and have reported numbers for more than one month. Index tracking funds, long-only and 130/30 strategies are excluded. The indices are calculated on every 5th, 10th and 15th business day and at the end of each month by the index calculator Structured Solutions AG. The results are published by the index advisor on the website http://www.ucitsindex.com and via the usual vendors.