What Do Hedge Funds Invest In? Take a Look at This Report

What do hedge funds invest in? Earlier this week, we took a look at a report sent to Insider Monkey by Eurekahedge, which discussed hedge fund returns for the past month on an aggregate scale. While there were quite a few good points brought up in the recap, there’s even more data to mine through. Here’s a few other tidbits we were able to find (directly quoted from the report by Eurekahedge):

1) Total assets in the hedge fund industry stand at US$1.91 trillion, set to cross the highest level on record by end-2013

2) Assets in long/short equity hedge funds crossed the US$600 billion mark for the first time since 2008

3) Asia ex-Japan hedge funds have outperformed the underlying markets by more than 7% September year-to-date

4) Greater China focused hedge funds witnessed 3 months of positive returns, up 6.22% in the third quarter of 2013

5) Distressed debt investing remains the best performing strategy in 2013, up 11.25% September year-to-date

6) Japanese hedge funds remained ahead of other regions, up 21.25% September year-to-date

The September report also had a couple nice graphics. Here’s information about which hedge fund strategies have done the best year-to-date. Managed futures have done especially poor. As mentioned above, distressed debt is No. 1.

Screen Shot 2013-10-11 at 2.04.23 PM

Additionally, here’s a look at which financial markets around the globe have been the kindest to hedge funds. Asia ex-Japan is No. 1, and emerging markets are second.

Screen Shot 2013-10-11 at 2.04.02 PM

Obviously, the answer to the question of “what do hedge funds invest in” is multi-faceted, but at least in 2013, it appears that the highest-returning fund managers have been in the distressed equity markets, and geographically speaking, they’ve looked to the Far East.