Investors pulled $11.57 billion out of hedge funds in April, marking the sector’s biggest month of fund outflows of the year, according to Nasdaq eVestment.
The exodus was concentrated in equity hedged funds, where $8.94 billion of funds were removed in April, adding to the sector’s $19.4 billion of outflows so far in 2023.
“Probably the most interesting point about this April’s aggregate flow data is that it was another month where redemptions were not concentrated among few, but
relatively spread across many,” the eVestment report said.
“To put it simply, April’s data indicated elevated and broad-based redemptions.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.19%
was lower Thursday as investors focused on U.S. debt-ceiling talks in Congress coming down the the wire on the need to raise the government’s borrowing limit, or risk completely draining its coffers, potentially as early as June 1. It was off 1.2% for the year, according to FactSet.
The S&P 500 index
SPX,
+0.79%
has been largely stuck in a holding pattern below 4,200 for weeks, but still was up 8.2% on the year through Thursday. Optimism around AI technologies were giving a 1.8% boost to the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
+1.62%
on Thursday, with shares of Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
+25.16%
surging 26% Thursday. The Nasdaq was up 21.3% on the year.
Bucking the outflow trend, hedge funds focused on fixed-income and credit strategies collectively saw $1.7 billion of inflows in April, boosting their flows this year by $5 billion so far, according to eVestment.
The Federal Reserve’s rapid pace of rate hikes over roughly the past 12 months has led to tighter credit and higher bond yields
TMUBMUSD10Y,
3.804%.
Hedge-fund assets under management were pegged at $3.42 trillion, according to eVestment.
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