Factbox-Hedge funds jump into volatile January to reap returns
#Hedge funds #Market volatility #Venezuela #Federal Reserve #Natural gas futures
📌 Key Takeaways
- Hedge funds posted a 2.2% global performance increase in January 2025 due to market volatility.
- Stock pickers gained 2.7%, multi-strategy funds returned 1.6% to 3.2%, and quantitative funds were down around 1%.
- U.S. military action in Venezuela and a deal to export crude oil contributed to market volatility.
- Investors bet on higher Treasury yields and a steeper yield curve following the appointment of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Chair.
- Natural gas futures surged 140% due to extreme cold, boosting hedge fund trading opportunities.
📖 Full Retelling
🏷️ Themes
Economic Performance, Market Volatility, Geopolitical Impact, Energy Markets
📚 Related People & Topics
Hedge fund
Privately pooled investment fund using diverse strategies to seek high returns
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to aim to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniques are short selling and the use of leverage and deriv...
Volatility (finance)
Degree of variation of a trading price series over time
In finance, volatility (usually denoted by "σ") is the degree of variation of a trading price series over time, usually measured by the standard deviation of logarithmic returns. Historic volatility measures a time series of past market prices. Implied volatility looks forward in time, being derive...
Federal Reserve
Central banking system of the US
The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics (particularly the panic of 1907) led to th...
Venezuela
Country in South America
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and various islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It comprises an area of 912,050 km2 (352,140 sq mi), with a population estimated at 31.8 million ...
🔗 Entity Intersection Graph
Connections for Hedge fund:
- 👤 Boaz Weinstein (1 shared articles)
- 👤 Saba Capital Management (1 shared articles)
- 🌐 Gold mining (1 shared articles)
📄 Original Source Content
Hedge funds posted positive returns in January thanks to ripples of market volatility stemming from U.S. military action in Venezuela, questions around the independence of the Federal Reserve and a cold snap that sent natural gas futures sharply higher. Performance globally rose by 2.2% in January, according to a JPMorgan client note. That compares with returns of 2.5% last year, when hedge funds profited from crowded positions in U.S. equities and managed to avoid getting stung by a hefty selloff sparked by the rise of Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek. Stock pickers trading long and short positions in global equities posted a gain of 2.7%, while hedge funds trading many different strategies under one roof returned between 1.6 and 3.2% and quantitative hedge funds were likely down around 1% in aggregate, the note said. The U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3, after which the two countries reached a deal to export up to $2 billion worth of Venezuelan crude to the United States. Investors have ramped up bets on higher long-dated Treasury yields and a steeper yield curve after incoming Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh was announced as U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the central bank. And separately, natural gas futures soared 140% between January 20 and 28 as extreme cold in the United States boosted heating demand to near-record highs. This gave hedge funds lots to trade. Some of the biggest multi-strategy funds like Balyasny, Citadel and Point72 returned between 1% and 3%. Citadel and Point72 declined to comment on the numbers.