| Ken Griffin, Citadel (Bloomberg) |
Ken Griffin’s Citadel enjoyed another month of strong performance in October. As a result, the Chicago-based multistrategy specialist, which got off to a very rough start this year, is now solidly in the black with just two months remaining.
What’s more, the strong October performance enabled Citadel’s last remaining losing fund to move back into positive territory for the year.
Specifically, Citadel’s flagship multistrategy fund, Wellington, returned 1.85 percent in October, extending its gain for the year to 4.45 percent. This follows a 7.3 percent surge in the third quarter.
Wellington’s strong showing last month is especially impressive given that the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index declined by about 1.9 percent for the same period. The fund’s October performance was led by equities, both its global equities division and its Surveyor Capital unit. The fund also enjoyed positive contributions from its fixed-income, credit, commodities, and quantitative strategies.
Altogether, equities account for about half of the risk allocation of Citadel’s multistrategy funds; fixed income accounts for about 20 percent; and commodities, credit, and quantitative trading round out the remaining 30 percent of the risk.
Meanwhile, Citadel’s Global Equities Fund returned to positive territory last month after gaining 2.07 percent. It is now up 1.87 percent for the year. All four of Citadel’s equities businesses run a long-short, market-neutral strategy, with an emphasis on stock selection.
Citadel’s Global Fixed Income Fund, the firm’s best performer this year, rose another 0.56 percent last month and is now up 8.07 percent for the year. Citadel Tactical Trading, which specializes in equities and employs some statistical arbitrage trading, gained 2.05 percent last month and is now up 3.95 percent for the year. Its gains were driven by global equities and Surveyor, and it also got a boost from quantitative strategies. That fund was down as much as 9.5 percent in early March.
The strong surge since earlier in the year has placed Wellington in the middle of the pack of the multi-strategy crowd. We earlier reported that Elliott Associates, run by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp., is up 8.4 percent through October.
Paloma International, run by S. Donald Sussman’s Paloma Partners, climbed about 0.50 percent last month and is up 3.4 percent for the year. Paloma deploys more of a low-volatility, hedged strategy, specializing in statistical arbitrage, relative-value credit, and volatility trading. It engages in almost no long-short trading.
Israel Englander’s Millennium International, managed by his firm, Millennium Management, returned 40 basis points last month, boosting its gain for the year to 2.3 percent. It has about 195 different trading teams managing its assets across several broad strategy areas: relative value, fundamental equity, statistical arbitrage and quantitative, merger arbitrage and event driven, fixed income, and commodities.
Hutchin Hill Capital Master Fund, a multistrategy fund run by quant specialist Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital Management, added 0.76 percent in October and is up 2.60 percent for the year.
One multistrategy fund that is in the red for the year is Dan Gold’s QVT Offshore, managed by QVT Financial. It is down 4.80 percent for the year even after gaining 2 percent last month.
