Only 3 Hedge Funds outperformed the S&P500 in 2021. Thoughts on the future of the industry?

Only 3 Hedge Funds outperformed the S&P500 in 2021. Thoughts on the future of the industry? Interested to hear how people think Hedge Funds can deliver value going forward. 

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1. This question gets asked literally every year. Go read.

2. There were definitely more than 3 funds. You're just using that chart I've seen floating around with like 30 funds on it. There's are literally 10s of thousands of hedge funds.

3. Not all hedge funds are generalist US equity long/short funds. They're not all designed to best the S&P.

4. Risk adjusted returns and correlation baby. That's the name of the game in hedge funds.

 

When the only thing that you have seen in your life is markets going up, it is normal to think that stonks only go up, and that investing in ETFs is the smartest way to go (especially if they are 3x levered). It is also normal to think that it doesn't make sense to invest in hedge funds. At the end of the day, what do you need to hedge for, if stonks only go up?

 

You need to think of hedge funds and other asset classes/funds as products that offer specific mixes of benefits. Think of who is buying into funds...it's institutional allocators with billions to deploy. They aren't solving solely for returns, but also need to solve for liquidity needs, etc... 

On that note, hedge funds are usually not just solving for raw returns...so it's a silly way to measure their performance. If I am a waffle house and you come in complaining about how much you hate waffles...well...don't come to the waffle house. 

 

D1 didn't finish the year up 17%, that was only through November. They lost ~12% in December and finished the year up around low to mid single digits. Also that flagship fund can have up to ~35% invested in privates so their public only performance was prob even worse than mid single digits (likely finished the year flat or even red in publics alone). 

 

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