Hedge funds have bounced back significantly from a challenging March, recording their best first-half results in five years. This strong performance was primarily driven by strategic investments in technology and the rally in chip stocks, which saw their best quarter ever recently. Additionally, firms capitalized on index-rebalancing strategies, such as the accelerated inclusion of SpaceX into Nasdaq Inc. and FTSE Russell benchmarks, contributing to substantial gains.
Goldman Sachs reported that hedge fund stock pickers saw returns exceeding 3% in June, bringing their year-to-date performance to over 6%. While systematic hedge funds trading stocks experienced a slight decline of 0.68% in June, they still boast an impressive 11.91% return for the year.
Several large multi-strategy funds reported positive returns. Point72, for instance, returned 3.4% in June, pushing its first-half returns to 14.5%. Millennium was up 10.5% for the first six months of 2026 after a 4.1% gain in June, and Schonfeld posted a 2.5% gain in June, bringing its flagship to 8.4% for the first half of the year. Smaller, specialist hedge funds also demonstrated strong performance, with Qube Research & Technologies' Torus fund returning 18.6% through June.
