(Daily Alts)Liquid alternatives struggled in 2015, but few asset classes didn’t. Excluding the “FANG” stocks – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google – even the S&P 500 lost ground last year, and while most liquid alts categories posted losses, every strategy “peer group” outperformed or at least performed similarly to its hedge-fund counterpart.
These are the key findings of Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s (“GSAM”) recently released Year-End 2015 Liquid Alternative MAPS report. Other highlights include: Performance among liquid alts funds was widely dispersed, and within each strategy, certain sub-strategies, funds, and managers profited while others lost. Due to this wide dispersion, and the difficulty of predicting which strategies will outperform in a given year, diversification “across and within” liquid alts proved important.
GSAM looks at a universe of 337 “hedge fund-like” mutual funds, culled from the 677 funds categorized as “liquid alternatives” by Morningstar.
