In a Strong Year for Hedge Funds, Asia-Focused, -Domiciled Funds Lead

ATLANTA, Jan. 18, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hedge funds focused on investing in India and China were the strongest overall performers in the hedge fund industry in 2017, and hedge funds overall experienced a positive aggregate return of +8.83% last year, according to the eVestment December 2017 Hedge Fund Performance Report. The report highlights December and year-end-2017 hedge fund industry results globally and across strategies and geographies based on data eVestment collects from hedge fund managers around the world.

Funds focused on investing in India returned +35.01% for the year, compared to +4.53% in 2016 and +3.87% in 2015. Over the past six years, India-focused funds have produced an average annual return of more than +17%.

Funds focused on investing in China came in a close second for the year, returning +34.82% in 2017, up strongly from the negative performance of -5.39% in 2016 and the +9.49% China-focused hedge funds returned in 2015.

From a larger region-of-investment perspective, Asia outperformed the rest of the world in hedge fund returns, with Asia-focused hedge funds overall returning +21.47% in 2017. Africa/Middle-East-focused funds came in second from a regional perspective, returning +16.42% in 2017. North-America-focused and developed-Europe-focused funds both returned almost +8.4%.

For funds domiciled in Asia, there was a similar strong return story driven by their local and regional investment preferences. Asia-domiciled hedge funds returned +18.60% in 2017, compared to +9.34% for hedge funds domiciled in the United Kingdom, +7.87% for hedge funds domiciled in the United States and +7.08% for hedge funds domiciled in continental Europe.

Overall the global hedge fund industry experienced a strong year, returning +8.83%. This is a welcome return to strong performance following the +5.7% hedge funds returned in 2016 and the -0.71% aggregate return the industry delivered in 2015. Across the industry, over 80% of the hedge funds tracked by eVestment delivered positive results in 2017 and 60% of funds improved their performance compared to 2016 results.

For institutional investors, the 2017 hedge fund numbers provided added incentive to consider hedge funds as part of an overall investment mix. And the strong return for Asian hedge funds should increase investor and consultant interest in reviewing hedge fund investment opportunities in this fast-growing financial market.

With eVestment's range of data and analytics solutions and the company's global hedge fund database, which is among the most in-depth and complete in the world, eVestment offers investors and consultants unprecedented ability to review, assess and manage hedge fund investment opportunities locally and around the world.

To receive a full copy of the report, please click here or use this link https://www.evestment.com/project/hedge-fund-performance-report-december-2017/.

About eVestment

eVestment, a Nasdaq company, provides a flexible suite of easy-to-use, cloud-based solutions to help the institutional investing community identify and capitalize on global investment trends, better select and monitor investment managers and more successfully enable asset managers to market their funds worldwide. eVestment's mission is to help make smart money smarter.

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SOURCE eVestment