Five of the six hedge fund benchmarks covered by Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes posted gains for the month of May 2005. The merger arbitrage, equity long/short (U.S.) and event driven strategies gained 1.06%, 0.93% and 0.53%, respectively. The equity market neutral and distressed securities strategies gained 0.40% and 0.21%. The convertible arbitrage strategy posted a loss -2.50% for the month.
On a year-to-date basis, four of the six indexes were up – merger arbitrage (1.34%), distressed securities (0.43%), equity market neutral (0.29%) and event driven (0.25%). The convertible arbitrage and equity long/short (U.S.) strategies were down -9.18% and -2.57%, respectively.
On a float-adjusted basis, the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 posted a return of 3.79% (3.90% on a full-cap basis) for the month of May 2005 reducing the YTD losses of the broad equity markets to -0.76% for 2005 (-0.87% on a full-cap basis).
The Dow Jones Corporate Bond Index was up 1.66% for the month and up 1.47% for the year. The world equity markets as measured by the Dow Jones World Total Market Index gained 2.06% in May reducing its cumulative loss to -1.21% for the year.