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- Big-name hedge funds have suffered losses since the US and Israel bombed Iran at the end of February.
- Macro hedge funds and commodity traders have been vulnerable to market turbulence.
- Brevan Howard lost money in its two biggest funds at the start of March.
Last year, it was President Donald Trump's widespread tariffs that caused headache-inducing whiplash and performance losses for big-name hedge funds.
This time, it's war.
The strikes on Iran by the US and Israel have sent global markets reeling, with asset classes such as stocks, bonds, and commodities ricocheting up and down after every White House update and tweet.
Many funds and traders focused on macro and commodities opportunities, two of the industry's most in-demand areas coming into the year, have so far been unable to avoid losses.
Brevan Howard's two largest funds — its Master and Alpha Strategies offerings — were down 2.4% and 1.7% for the month through last Friday, though both are still positive for the year. Diego Megia's Taula Capital, which manages $7 billion, was down more than 3% to start March. Chris Rokos' $22 billion firm lost 0.2% in the first week of the month. And PIMCO's Commodity Alpha Fund, a relative-value strategy launched more than a decade ago, is down more than 20% to start the year after significant losses to start March.
The firms declined to comment.
At the industry's more diversified firms, the omnipresent multistrategy giants that have hoovered up assets and talent in recent years, losses from macro and commodity traders dragged down the overall business.
Ken Griffin's Citadel shed roughly $1 billion from its fixed-income and macro trading business and saw its flagship Wellington fund down 2% at the start of the month. The fund is still positive for the year.
Balyasny cut a pair of senior energy portfolio managers, Toby Sheppard and Max Iakovlev, and lost 3.5% through the first week of March. ExodusPoint, known for its fixed-income prowess, lost all its year-to-date gains last week.
Fellow multistrategy giants Millennium and Point72 were down last week as well. Bloomberg first reported the multistrategy funds' losses. Millennium, Citadel, and Balyasny declined to comment, while Point72 did not immediately respond.
There were pockets of outperformance, though. Legendary commodities investor Pierre Andurand was up 6% to start March, according to Bloomberg. Andurand did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
And embattled new launch Jain Global, which had lost money in the first two months of 2026, was slightly up to start March, beating its larger multistrategy peers. The firm declined to comment.
