(Bloomberg) -- The world’s biggest hedge funds made the most of trading opportunities sparked by Donald Trump’s reelection last month, keeping the industry on track to post its strongest returns in at least four years.
Balyasny Asset Management’s hedge fund made 3.9% during the month, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That helped turn what had been a modest year up until October into gains of 11.6%, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing non-public information.
Schonfeld Strategic Advisors’ Fundamental Equity money pool and Citadel’s Tactical Trading fund also gained last month, which boosted their gains for 2024 to 18.6% and 20%, respectively, the people said. That makes them two of the best-performing multistrategy hedge funds so far this year.
Trump’s election win last month caused Treasury bonds to tumble while it pushed up US stocks, the dollar and Bitcoin. Those moves — which have become known across markets as the “Trump Trade” — signal investors believe his second administration will bring a stream of policies focused on tax cuts, deregulation and tariffs that will simultaneously stoke economic growth, corporate profits and inflation.
The sudden moves across asset classes provided fresh volatility for the biggest macro traders on Wall Street, bolstering profits across the industry. It was an added boon in a year that had already kept these traders busy — one benchmark index from PivotalPath that tracks 70 multistrategy hedge funds had already been on track to notch its best year since 2020.
Indeed, at Balyasny and Schonfeld results were bolstered by macro trading as well as both funds’ stock bets, the people familiar with the matter said.
Chris Rokos made about $1 billion soon after it became clear that Trump was set to win, Bloomberg previously reported. His hedge fund extended those gains through Nov. 22 and is now up about 28.5% year-to-date, according to one of the people.
Brevan Howard’s main Master Fund, meanwhile, soared during that same period in November to help it turn a flat year through October into gains of 9% for the year so far, an investor letter seen by Bloomberg shows. Rob Citrone’s Discovery Capital Management’s macro hedge fund soared 14.5% in November, boosting gains for the year to 46.5%, a separate person familiar with the matter said.
Representatives for the investment firms declined to comment.
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