Summer is fading. But performance in August was hot at hedge funds including Citadel, D.E. Shaw, Millennium, and Sculptor

• Multi-strategy hedge funds had a strong August, while the broader stock market fell. 
• Most managers posted positive performance, Sculptor and Citadel led the way.
• Millennium (+1.9%) and D.E. Shaw (+1.3%) also had strong performance. 

Multi-strategy fund managers remain as popular as ever. That isn’t necessarily a good thing, according to the industry’s top player. 

“Clearly right now the multi-strategy managers are very much in vogue. When you’re most popular is probably when you’re reaching the top of the cycle,” Citadel CEO and founder Ken Griffin recently told the Financial Times.

Performance in the increasingly crowded space is down in 2023 compared with recent years, but several firms had strong trading performance in August. Most managers were positive for the month, beating the S&P 500, which lost 1.77%. 

Sculptor Capital, the lone publicly traded firm on this list, has made headlines this summer over dueling bids to take the $34 billion in assets fund private. Meanwhile, its $8 billion multi-strategy fund has quietly put up impressive results, gaining 2.8% in August and 12.6% for the year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Griffin’s Citadel, which manages $62 billion, continues its performance hot streak, returning another 2% last month in its flagship Wellington Fund, according to people familiar with the figures. 

Millennium gained 1.9%, and D.E. Shaw was up 1.3% through late August.

Here’s how other top multi-strategy players stacked up after August:

Representatives for the funds declined to comment. 

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