Ken Griffin's Wellington hedge fund at Citadel squeezes out 1% gain in volatile August

Billionaire investor Ken Griffin’s suite of hedge funds at Citadel eked out small gains in what proved a volatile month in August as markets grappled with an emerging growth scare.

Citadel’s multistrategy Wellington fund gained about 1% in August, bringing its year-to-date return to 9.9%, according to a person familiar with the returns, who spoke anonymously because the performance numbers are private. All five strategies used in the flagship fund — commodities, equities, fixed income, credit and quantitative — were positive for the month, the person said.

The Miami-based firm’s tactical trading fund rose 1.5% last month and is up 14.5% on the year. Its equities fund, which uses a long/short strategy, edged up 0.8%, pushing its 2024 returns to 9.3%.

Citadel declined to comment. The hedge fund complex had about $63 billion in assets under management as of August 1.

Volatility made a strong comeback in August as fears of a recession were rekindled by a weak July jobs report. On August 5, the S&P 500 dropped 3%, its worst day since September 2022. Still, the market quickly bounced back, with the equity benchmark ending August up 2.3%. The S&P 500 is now ahead more than 15% in 2024.

Overall, the hedge fund community recently moved into a defensive mode as macroeconomic uncertainty mounted. Hedge funds on net sold global equities for a seventh straight week recently, driven by sales of communication services, financial and consumer staples stocks, according to Goldman Sachs’ prime brokerage data.