Five of the six hedge fund strategies covered by Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes posted net-of-fees gains in February 2006, though all six are upon a YTD basis.
With net-of-fees returns of dropping 1.27% in February, the equity long/short strategy was the worst performer among the strategies covered, but continued to lead on a YTD basis with a gain of 3.48%.
The best performer in February was merger arbitrage, which was up 0.95%. This was followed by equity market neutral, which gained 0.63%. However, with a YTD return of 1.04%, it is the weakest performer for the year.
Distressed securities was up 0.51% while convertible arbitrage posted again of 0.50% in February (convertible arbitrage posted a gain of 1.83%in January). Event driven was up 0.21% for the month and 2.61% for theyear.
On a float-adjusted basis, the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, a broad measureof the domestic equity markets, lost -0.03% in February, bringing itsYTD performance marginally down to 3.53% (on a full-cap basis, it lost-0.05% bringing its YTD performance down to 3.52%).
The fixed income asset class, as measured by the Dow Jones CorporateBond Index, returned 0.68% this month and with a return of 0.54%, theindex is in positive territory for the year.
The world equity markets, as measured by the Dow Jones World TotalMarket Index, recorded a loss of -0.20% in February. It is up 4.85% forthe year.