Down October Shaping Up For Hedge Funds

Even before Hurricane Sandy slammed the nation's financial and hedge fund center, October was shaping up to be a forgettable month for the hedge fund industry.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch said that hedge funds were down 0.45% on the month through Oct. 25, just one trading day before the markets closed in advance of Sandy's arrival. On the bright side, that makes October one of the very few months to see hedge funds top the broader markets; the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, which is up significantly more than the average hedge fund on the year, lost more than 2% in the first three weeks of October.

Long/short strategies are doing best this month, up 0.28%. Commodity trading advisors are the worst, down 3.28%.