- Haidar Capital Management gained roughly 158% year to date at the end of May in its Jupiter Fund.Â
- e360’s Power Fund, a commodity-based hedge fund in Austin, Texas, saw a 139% increase year to date.
- Odey’s OEI European Fund saw a 109.7% increase year to date, while its OEI MAC Fund jumped 110.2%.
Some hedge funds are having a tough first half of the year, but others are winning in a tumultuous market environment.Â
New York-based global macro hedge fund Haidar Capital Management, e360’s Power Fund, a commodity-based hedge fund in Austin, Texas, and investor Crispin Odey’s eponymous hedge fund have topped the charts for their performance over the five months ending in May, according to a report by Societe Generale’s prime services business.
The average hedge fund lost 3% for the five months ending in May, according to Hedge Fund Research. Tech-stock-heavy hedge funds in particular have experienced devastating blows over the last few months. Chase Coleman’s $80 billion Tiger Global was beaten down by more than 50%, and Philippe Laffont’s $59 billion Coatue Management lost 17%, amid the massive tech sell-off.Â
The market dropped significantly over the past few weeks, the worst it’s been since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. US stocks bounced back this week, with the S&P 500 trading 2.2% higher Friday morning, after dropping 5.8% last week.Â
Haidar Capital ManagementÂ
Haidar Capital Management’s Jupiter fund gained roughly 158% year to date at the end of May, despite a drop of roughly 8.3% for the month.
The global macro hedge fund was founded in 1997 by Said Haidar and has since seen strong performance: his fund grew by 25.7% in February alone. In 2021 the fund was up nearly 70% in Haidar’s best year since 1999, according to Bloomberg. Haidar did not respond to a request for comment.Â
e360 Power
 e360’s Power Fund, a commodity-based hedge fund in Austin, Texas, has returned 139% year to date.
The firm, which was founded by former power traders Juan Penelas and James Shrewsberry in 2009, was up 10.5% for the month of May. The firm had $480 million in assets at the beginning of June, said Samit Patel, director of operations at e360 Power.
e360 Power trades futures and options on futures, so the markets that they trade are actually the wholesale electricity price of different regions across the country. The fund’s performance can be attributed to the closures of coal-fired power plants and the fact that renewable wind and solar are not dominating the energy space just yet.Â
“The wholesale electricity space has outpaced gas due to retirement of coal-fired power plants and also coupled with the fact that the replacement electricity through ESG initiatives like renewable wind and solar have been delayed,” Patel told Insider in a phone interview. “So at a high level, we’ve witnessed increased inelasticity in the relationship between power and natural gas as a result because of this transition towards renewables that just hasn’t met its appropriate schedule.”Â
Over the past 12 months ending in May, commodity strategies appear to be the bigger winners in terms of returns, according to the Societe Generale report. Commodity funds gained 1.2% at the end of May, according to Hedge Fund Research.Â
Odey Asset ManagementÂ
Odey Asset Management’s OEI European Fund, an opportunistic equity hedge fund, returned 109.7% year to date, while its OEI MAC Fund jumped 110.2%, confirmed James Kostoris, a partner at Odey.Â
The European and OEI MAC funds were up 14.3% and 16.5% during the month of May, respectively, according to the Societe Generale report. Odey had $4.5 billion in assets at the end of May, Kostoris told Insider.Â
Other top-performing hedge funds
The following funds returned over 50% for the year to date ending in May, according to Societe Generale’s report:
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