Just like last year, when it was the turn of Europe-focused crushed and battered hedge funds to generate outsized returns due to some brief ECB-inspired euphoria, if only for a brief period, and then promptly fall back into obscurity, so now it is the time of the "Japan" strat. As the latest HSBC hedge fund performance report confirms, the best YTD returns are, as expected, those for Japan-focused funds at least until the already fading Abenomics euphoria reverts them back to the mean.
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So how are the legacy titans of the hedge fund world doing? The answer is in the table below: of the vast majority of hedge funds, only a handful are outperforming the market year to date. This is becoming a major concern for an industry that has underperformed the S&P for the fifth year in a row [8], and which has to fight tooth and nail to justify its exorbitant fees in a world in which there is no need to hedge any risk any more: after all, Ben Bernanke has everyone covered. One fund that has nothing to worry about is Dan Loeb's Third Point as it continues its juggernaut of crushing both returns and competition without pause.
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Full HSBC report: