The Haidar Jupiter Fund has fallen back into a big hole.
The macro hedge fund headed by Said Haidar lost 13.15 percent in April. As a result, it is down about 14.38 percent for the year, according to an email communication with investors that was seen by Institutional Investor.
The historically volatile hedge fund had been posting smallish losses or gains in each of the first three months of the year. The April loss, though, more resembled the kinds of performance swings to which investors in the heavily leveraged fund have become accustomed.
In 2023, the fund posted four monthly losses that exceeded last month’s decline and finished the year down 43.4 percent. The year before, however, Haidar was perhaps the top performer, surging about 193 percent to cap a torrid four-year run. In 2021, the fund was up about 70 percent after gaining approximately 27 percent in 2020 and 31 percent in 2019.
It is not known what exactly accounted for the sharp April loss.
Haidar had gained 4 percent in March, with its performance driven primarily by strength in global equities and certain commodities, according to the March monthly report sent to clients in late April and obtained by II. Entering April, 41 percent of its capital was invested in fixed income, 29 percent in equities, 17 percent in commodities, and 11 percent in foreign exchange, says the report.
“As U.S. growth and inflation continue to surprise positively while disinflationary trends persist elsewhere around the world, Fed officials are now finally acknowledging this as more than just a bump in the road and are resetting monetary policy expectations towards fewer and more delayed rate cuts,” Haidar told clients in the letter. “This has seemingly caused investors to price out rate cuts by other developed-market central banks, despite significant differences in growth and inflation data. Assuming U.S. growth continues to surprise positively, U.S. inflation is likely to remain elevated such that there may be no Fed rate cuts in 2024.”
Haidar added that as inflation continues to ease in other parts of the world and more central banks begin cutting rates despite the Fed’s delaying its own easing cycle, it anticipates that “other bond markets should begin to perform better and follow-through weakness from Treasuries to other bond markets should gradually dissipate.”
Haidar is not the only macro fund in the red this year. After dropping 1.16 percent in April, BH Macro was down 3.21 percent through the first four months. In the first quarter, losses were driven by interest rates trading, equities, and foreign exchange, according to its March monthly report, seen by II.
Nonetheless, Rokos Capital Management is up 20 percent for the year after gaining 6 percent in April, says someone who has seen the results.
