Are hedge funds worth your money? Hedge funds have developed from investment funds that were designed to lower the risk of your portfolio to a multitude of different investment styles with different goals. Their heyday was probably during the 90s and early 2000s when several star hedge fund managers rose to prominence and their assets under management grew significantly. However, since then hedge funds have been under scrutiny as their investment returns have been lacking and their ability to function as a diversification to a traditional stock and bond portfolio was put into question. As hedge funds have their own set of leverage and investment rules it is no wonder they have been accused of being greedy, unsuccessful and secretive. However, with this dataset you can make your own analysis.

Content This dataset covers monthly hedge fund returns starting from 1997. The date column refers to the last day of the month - the end date of the return period, if I understand correctly. There are 12 different hedge fund strategies covered and the return index series are formed as an aggregate of other hedge fund index providers.

The strategy explanations are in EDHEC website:

Convertible Arbitrage - https://risk.edhec.edu/conv-arb/ CTA Global - https://risk.edhec.edu/cta-global/ Distressed Securities - https://risk.edhec.edu/dist-sec/ Emerging Markets - https://risk.edhec.edu/emg-mkts/ Equity Market Neutral - https://risk.edhec.edu/equity-market-neutral/ Event Driven - https://risk.edhec.edu/event-driven/ Fixed Income Arbitrage - https://risk.edhec.edu/fix-inc-arb/ Global Macro - https://risk.edhec.edu/global-macro/ Long/Short Equity - https://risk.edhec.edu/ls-equity/ Merger Arbitrage - https://risk.edhec.edu/merger-arb/ Relative Value - https://risk.edhec.edu/relative-value/ Short Selling - https://risk.edhec.edu/short-selling/ Funds of Funds - https://risk.edhec.edu/fof/ Acknowledgements All credit for the maintenance and upload of the data goes to EDHEC. You should check their website for additional resources:

https://risk.edhec.edu/all-downloads-hedge-funds-indices

Inspiration The EDHEC hedge fund data is the data used in examples/vignettes of PortfolioAnalytics - a package for optimizing, testing and analyzing portfolio returns. You should be easily able to expand the analysis from the vignettes just by using the larger dataset available here:

https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/PortfolioAnalytics/index.html

Are hedge funds worth your money?

Hedge funds have developed from investment funds that were designed to lower the risk of your portfolio to a multitude of different investment styles with different goals. Their heyday was probably during the 90s and early 2000s when several star hedge fund managers rose to prominence and their assets under management grew significantly. However, since then hedge funds have been under scrutiny as their investment returns have been lacking and their ability to function as a diversification to a traditional stock and bond portfolio was put into question. As hedge funds have their own set of leverage and investment rules it is no wonder they have been accused of being greedy, unsuccessful and secretive. However, with this dataset you can make your own analysis.

Content

This dataset covers monthly hedge fund returns starting from 1997. The date column refers to the last day of the month - the end date of the return period, if I understand correctly. There are 12 different hedge fund strategies covered and the return index series are formed as an aggregate of other hedge fund index providers.

The strategy explanations are in EDHEC website:

• Convertible Arbitrage - https://risk.edhec.edu/conv-arb/
• CTA Global - https://risk.edhec.edu/cta-global/
• Distressed Securities - https://risk.edhec.edu/dist-sec/
• Emerging Markets - https://risk.edhec.edu/emg-mkts/
• Equity Market Neutral - https://risk.edhec.edu/equity-market-neutral/
• Event Driven - https://risk.edhec.edu/event-driven/
• Fixed Income Arbitrage - https://risk.edhec.edu/fix-inc-arb/
• Global Macro - https://risk.edhec.edu/global-macro/
• Long/Short Equity - https://risk.edhec.edu/ls-equity/
• Merger Arbitrage - https://risk.edhec.edu/merger-arb/
• Relative Value - https://risk.edhec.edu/relative-value/
• Short Selling - https://risk.edhec.edu/short-selling/
• Funds of Funds - https://risk.edhec.edu/fof/

Acknowledgements

All credit for the maintenance and upload of the data goes to EDHEC. You should check their website for additional resources:

https://risk.edhec.edu/all-downloads-hedge-funds-indices

Inspiration

The EDHEC hedge fund data is the data used in examples/vignettes of PortfolioAnalytics - a package for optimizing, testing and analyzing portfolio returns. You should be easily able to expand the analysis from the vignettes just by using the larger dataset available here:

https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/PortfolioAnalytics/index.html

Hedge funds are private, unregulated investment funds that use sophisticated instruments or strategies, such as derivative securities, short positions or leveraging, to generate alpha. Hedge funds cover a wide range of strategies with different risk and return profiles.

About This Dataset

Data Date: 1997/1 - 2021/6 Columns : 13 Different Investing Style Index Value : Monthly Return

Description

Convertible Arbitrage : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/conv_arb.pdf CTA Global : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/cta.pdf Distressed Securities : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/distressed.pdf Emerging Markets : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/emerging.pdf Equity Market Neutral : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/market_ntl.pdf Event Driven : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/event_driven.pdf Fixed Income Arbitrage : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/fix_inc.pdf Global Macro : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/global_macro.pdf Long/Short Equity : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/long_short.pdf Merger Arbitrage : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/merger.pdf Relative Value : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/value.pdf Short Selling : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/short.pdf Funds of Funds : https://risk.edhec.edu/sites/risk/files/indices/Indices/Edhec%20Alternative%20Indices/Web/report/fof.pdf

Credit To

Data Source :EDHEC-Risk Institute Since 2003, EDHEC-Risk Institute has been publishing the EDHEC-Risk Alternative Indices, which aggregate and synthesise information from different index providers, so as to provide investors with representative benchmarks. These indices are computed for thirteen investment styles that represent typical hedge fund strategies. https://risk.edhec.edu/all-downloads-hedge-funds-indices

Context

A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as short selling, leverage, and derivatives. Financial regulators generally restrict hedge fund marketing to institutional investors, high net worth individuals and o and others who are considered sufficiently sophisticated.

Content

Below is a list of the top 100 largest hedge funds in the world, ranked by assets under management (AUM) for 2020.

Nearly 75% of the largest hedge fund companies by AUM are based in the United States. The UK is also home to a significant number of top hedge fund managers.

As of Q3, 2020 the world’s biggest hedge fund management company is AQR Capital Management, with nearly $250 billion USD in assets under management as of September 1, 2020. Global macro hedge funds are the most highly represented strategy among the world’s 100 largest hedge funds.

Acknowledgements

This dataset is scarped from hedgelists.com, I would like to thank their team for providing us with such great data.

Inspiration

I am working on this data to analyze how the assets under management(AUM) changed last year from the third quarter of 2020 for the world's top 100 hedge funds.

Also, the strategies adopted by the world's top hedge funds ### Context

A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as short selling, leverage, and derivatives. Financial regulators generally restrict hedge fund marketing to institutional investors, high net worth individuals and o and others who are considered sufficiently sophisticated.

Content

Below is a list of the top 100 largest hedge funds in the world, ranked by assets under management (AUM) for 2020.

Nearly 75% of the largest hedge fund companies by AUM are based in the United States. The UK is also home to a significant number of top hedge fund managers.

As of Q3, 2020 the world’s biggest hedge fund management company is AQR Capital Management, with nearly $250 billion USD in assets under management as of September 1, 2020. Global macro hedge funds are the most highly represented strategy among the world’s 100 largest hedge funds.

Acknowledgements

This dataset is scarped from hedgelists.com, I would like to thank their team for providing us with such great data.

Inspiration

I am working on this data to analyze how the assets under management(AUM) changed last year from the third quarter of 2020 for the world's top 100 hedge funds.

Also, the strategies adopted by the world's top hedge funds provided them with returns even in one of the most bizarre times in the world, i.e. covid pandemic.