Commodity Hedge Funds’ Positive Performance Brought To A Halt - Newedge Commodity Trading Index Enters Negative Territory For July, But Is Still Positive YTD

Newedge, a global leader in multi-asset brokerage and clearing, today announced the performance for its suite of hedge fund indices for the month of July. 

Commodity funds on the whole, as represented by the Newedge Commodity Trading Index, suffered slightly negative performance during the month of July, posting a -0.65% return compared to the 0.63% return in June. The Newedge Commodity Trading Index remains in positive territory for the year so far, with returns of 2.79% YTD.

The Commodity Equity sub-index was hit with losses of -2.31%, bringing the strong performance seen so far this year to a halt. The year-to-date performance continues to be positive (+2.27%), but is substantially lower than the 4.85% returns figure seen during the first half of 2014.

The Newedge Macro Trading Index exhibited slightly positive performance in July, bringing year-to-date losses to -0.94%. The Macro Discretionary sub-index leads the positive performance of the index, with a return of 0.93% in July. The Quantitative sub-index experienced a slight decline during the month of July (-0.81%), but still stands in positive figures at 2.47% for 2014 to date.

The Volatility Trading Index was flat for the month of July, with a decline of -0.07%, bringing YTD performance down slightly to -1.57%.

Newedge also announced that as of 1 July 2014, Malachite Capital Partners LP has been added as a constituent of the Newedge Volatility Trading Index, which brings the total number of constituents to 11.

The Newedge Macro Trading Index includes global macro managers who typically employ top-down fundamental research to forecast the effect of global macroeconomic and political events on the valuation of financial instruments. These strategies may be either discretionary or systematic, and are frequently focused on a diversified basket of instruments.

The Newedge Commodity Trading Index includes funds that utilize a variety of investment strategies to profit from price moves in commodity markets. Managers may typically use either (i) a trading orientated approach, typically involving the trading of physical commodity products and/or of commodity derivative instruments in either directional or relative value strategies; or (ii) Long short equity strategies focused on commodity related stocks.

The Newedge Volatility Trading Index is a performance measure for the volatility trading and arbitrage style within the hedge fund universe.

Newedge’s Alternative Investment Solutions Group, part of Newedge’s Prime Clearing Services, is an innovator in providing investors with benchmarking tools representing key hedge fund strategy styles.