R. G. Niederhoffer Capital finally posts a gain after the very troubled performance its funds showed in 2012. The flagship Diversified Program, with assets of $472 million, was up 8.4 percent in January, which is big break from the loss of 22.4 percent last year. R. G. Niederhoffer’s funds are Commodity Trading Advisors, a strategy that lagged in 2012. On average, a CTA lost 3.6 percent in 2012, accroding to BAML’s hedge fund monitor, however, CTAs were up 1.44 percent till the end of January. EurekaHedge reported a 1.69 percent gain in the CTA/managed futures strategy in January.
R. G. Niederhoffer Capital’s Negative Correlation Program was up 4.9 percent in January with an AUM of $5 million, while Optimal Alpha Program, which manages $6 million, gained as high as 13 percent in a single month. TrendHedge (AUM $13 million) was down 0.6 percent and iHedge Program (AUM $5 million) was up 10.3 percent in Jan.
Although only a month has passed in the running year and there is no guarantee of how the funds will perform in the coming period, R. G. Niederhoffer’s funds overlarge gains and detractions in a single month and yearly seem pretty common. Last year, despite a huge underperformance, the fund posted a return of 13 percent in June 2012. The Diversfied fund was down 16 percent in 2011 and was up 50 percent in 2008. Diversified Program is the oldest fund of Niederhoffer, lanuced in 1993, while iHedge Program is the yooungest, lauched in 2011.
Overall, hedge funds gained 1.98 percent, according to EurekaHedge, and 1.74 percent, according to BAML’s calculations. During the same period S&P 500 index rose by 5.04 percent.
