QIM Hedge Fund Soars 56% in Year as Coatue, Renaissance Jump Too

(Bloomberg) -- The tactical hedge fund at Quantitative Investment Management, the $3.4 billion firm run by Jaffray Woodriff, surged an estimated 56 percent this year through August, according to an investor document seen by Bloomberg News.

The firm’s systematic long-short equity Tactical Aggressive Fund rose an estimated 14 percent in August, after falling 7.4 percent in July. This marks the $1.2 billion fund’s third monthly gain of more than 10 percent this year, the letter from the Charlottesville, Virginia-based firm showed.

Equity hedge fund strategies were the best performers in August, gaining 1.6 percent on an asset-weighted basis, according to Hedge Fund Research Inc. The funds on average jumped 8.6 percent this year through last month, lagging behind the S&P 500 Index.

"Hedge fund gains were led by equity and trend-following exposures in August, as intra-month volatility increased as a result of escalating tensions regarding North Korea and the energy and commodity-centric impact of Hurricane Harvey," HFR President Kenneth J. Heinz said in a statement.

Funds at Renaissance Technologies, which manages about $50 billion, have also seen double-digit gains this year. The Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund rose 1.7 percent in August and 11 percent year-to-date, according to a person familiar with the matter. Its Renaissance Institutional Diversified Global Equities Fund gained 2.5 percent in August and almost 13 percent this year.

Viking Global Investors’s flagship fund rose 10 percent in the first eight months of the year, said a person familiar with the matter. Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management has also extended gains this year, jumping 27 percent through August, according to a performance document seen by Bloomberg News. Coatue’s long-short technology, media and telecom strategy rose 3.6 rise last month, according to the document.

Spokesmen for the funds declined to comment.

--With assistance from Simone Foxman

To contact the reporters on this story: Melissa Karsh in New York at mkarsh@bloomberg.net, Hema Parmar in New York at hparmar6@bloomberg.net, Katia Porzecanski in New York at kporzecansk1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Vincent Bielski