Hedge Funds Are Having Their Most Miserable Start To The Year Since 2008

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Hedge funds are having their worst start to the year since 2008 gaining only 1.23% year-to-date, says a new report by research firm Preqin.

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You'll recall 2008. It was when Wall Street thought the world would end.

Now it's safe to say that the Apocalypse is no longer nigh, but that isn't to say this year has been a treat - especially compared to the stock market's 30% climb in 2013.

In January, emerging markets were dragging the world down. Now it seems like the tech and biotech sectors have investors seeing red everywhere.

According to Preqin's calculations, hedge funds are up 1.23% so far this year (compared to the S&P 500's 1.30%). In 2012 they ended Q1 up 6.07% and in 2013 they ended it up 3.76%.

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"January and March returns were both in the red, with only February's benchmark performance of 1.76% keeping performance for hedge funds in positive territory for the quarter," Preqin writes.

January returned an average of -0.25% and March an average of -0.26%.

Event driven and long/short strategies have proved most successful for investors, returning 4.37% and 4.32% respectively.

Of course, strategy can't save you if you're in the wrong sector. Take long/short fund Coatue Management, for example.

The fund's "Tiger Cub" founder Philippe Laffont announced that he would return $2 billion of its flagship fund's $7 billion AUM to investors after a "gut wrenching" month of March.

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Coatue invests in companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pandora and Yelp - tech stocks. And if you've been paying attention to that sector, you know it's been getting completely crushed.

Be careful out there.