October losses hit hedge funds across strategies

Multi-strategy firms Millennium Management and Balyasny Asset Management lost money during the month. On the equity side, Walleye Capital and Engineers Gate cut senior leaders, including Anil Gondi and Mike Daylamani, respectively, as well as other staff. Balyasny’s Corbets unit shed investors in October, Business Insider reported. Major technology stocks including Meta and Intel sold off amid market volatility.

Macro managers faced rising interest rates, war-driven swings in oil prices and an electoral surprise in Brazil. Kirkoswald Capital, run by Greg Coffey, recorded its worst month on record, falling more than 6%, though its year-to-date gains remained above 16%, a person close to the manager told Business Insider. ExodusPoint saw two portfolio managers leave its Dubai office less than a year after joining and recently cut currency-trading veteran Jim Leitner, a person close to the manager said.

Credit teams also saw losses and departures. Arini Capital founder Hamza Lemssouguer sold hundreds of millions of dollars in positions during a drawdown, an attendee at a Bank of America industry conference in Miami said. Lemssouguer, who is based in London, met investors in Florida and spoke onstage about his market views. Arini declined to comment. Millennium’s Manav Gupta, who joined earlier this year, has since left the fund. Brevan Howard cut five credit portfolio managers as credit-trading head Andy Silver moves into an advisory role. Its two largest funds, Alpha Strategies and its Master fund, were roughly flat for the year.

The staffing churn reflects an industry where multi-strategy funds replace an average of 20% of their portfolio managers annually. Elliott Management founder Paul Singer wrote in a late-January investor letter that the talent war had been “exaggerated” by “the non-stop bull market,” adding that a serious bear market could prompt a broad reassessment of how investors judge performance. One longtime portfolio manager described the current environment to Business Insider as “adult swim now,” saying they had survived “for now.”