Hedge fund asset flows are ‘slightly negative’, with investors pulling $1.59 billion from the industry during the month, eVestment’s May hedge fund asset flows report revealed.
The overall year-to-date fund flows are still positive, at +$12.51 billion, with overall industry assets under management (AUM) sitting at $3.319 trillion.
Despite the negativity, there are still many products gaining assets but for each gainer, there was another losing a little bit more, the report found.
According to the report, among hedge fund types, equity-focused funds pulled in +$3 billion in May and commodities funds pulled in $470 million.
Meanwhile, fixed-income/credit funds saw AUM fall -$2.38 billion and multi-asset funds saw AUM fall -$2.63 billion.
Among primary strategies, multi-strategy funds saw AUM increase +$2.23 billion, however, year-to-date (YTD) 2018 flows are still negative at -$2.74 billion, following up the negative full year 2017 where multi-strategy fund AUM dropped -$4.22 billion.
Other key findings found that market neutral equity funds are having a strong year among primary strategies, with inflows of +$1.76 billion in May and YTD AUM up to +$5.89 billion.
Managed futures fund redemption pressures continued in May, with these funds seeing -$3.92 billion inflows.
Approximately 63 percent of reporting managed futures products experienced redemptions in May, bringing the proportion losing assets YTD up to 60 percent.
The report also found that half of emerging markets funds saw positive flows in May, with segment AUM up +$570 million, and more than half are positive YTD, bringing YTD emerging markets fund flows to +$2.22 billion and overall emerging markets fund AUM to $308.46 billion.
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