This story was originally published January 6, 2023. It has been updated with additional information.
2022 was a dismal year for the hedge fund industry. Once-flourishing strategies and funds went belly-up as inflation and interest-rate hikes roiled markets, and high-flying tech stocks crashed back to earth.
Investors pulled $110 billion from hedge funds in the first three quarters of the year, according to Preqin data, which are facing their worst performance in over a decade.
But it wasn't all gloom and doom — some of the industry's biggest names navigated the tumult and minted stellar returns for investors. A few industry stalwarts — AQR, Citadel, and Rokos Capital— had record years.
Here's a breakdown of 2022 performance at the flagship strategies for top hedge funds according to several sources familiar with the different managers as well as other media reports:
- Rokos Macro Fund — up 51%
- AQR Absolute Return — up 43.5%
- Citadel Wellington — up 38.1%
- D.E. Shaw Composite Fund — up 24.7%
- Millennium — up 12.4%
- Point72 — up 10.25%
- Balyasny Atlas Enhanced — up 9.7%
- Carlson Capital Double Black Diamond — up 6.8%
- ExodusPoint — up 5.5% to 6%
- Schonfeld Strategic Partners — up 4.5%
- Marshall Wace Eureka — up 4.39%
At both AQR and Citadel, exceptional performance wasn't limited to one strategy. While billionaire Cliff Asness' Absolute Return fund, its longest-running, put up nearly 44%, at least a dozen of his firm's funds had record years, according to Bloomberg.
Ken Griffin's Citadel, which manages $54.5 billion in assets, hit record revenues of $28 billion — up from a record $16.2 billion in 2021 — as performance soared at each of the firm's funds. Its flagship Wellington fund rose 38.1% over the year, Global Fixed Income increased 32.58%, Tactical Trading increased 26.49%, and Equities grew 21.4%, according to a person familiar with the matter.
