• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

As Big Tech showers employees with perks to win the talent war, Nvidia built a nearly $5 trillion company by making people pay for their own lunch

2

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

3

Current price of oil as of July 1, 2026

1

As Big Tech showers employees with perks to win the talent war, Nvidia built a nearly $5 trillion company by making people pay for their own lunch

2

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

3

Current price of oil as of July 1, 2026
Finance

Women-Run Hedge Funds Are Beating the Rest

By
Jen Wieczner
Jen Wieczner
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Jen Wieczner
Jen Wieczner
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 8, 2017, 3:55 PM ET
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

For hedge fund managers this year, it pays to be a woman.

In the first two months of 2017, hedge funds owned or managed by women returned 3.65%, significantly outperforming the overall hedge fund industry, which returned 2.23% over the same period, according to Hedge Fund Research (HFR).

That means that if you had invested $1 million in the typical hedge fund—the vast majority of which are run by men—at the beginning of the year, you’d now be $22,300 richer. But if you’d instead invested the $1 million with a female hedge fund manager, you’d already have made $36,500, or $14,200 more than if you’d gone the traditional route. (There are 49 women-led hedge funds included in HFR’s index, which means the make up barely 2% of the 2,100 funds in the category.)

Unfortunately for hedge funds, you could have made more money still had you just invested in the S&P 500, which returned 5.94% over the past two months (including dividends), outperforming every single hedge fund strategy tracked by HFR.

Still, hedge funds are counting as a win the simple fact that they are making money instead of losing it. The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index, HFR’s proxy for the broader hedge fund industry, rose 5.46% last year after sinking in 2015. But the hedge fund index has lagged behind the S&P 500 every year since the 2008 financial crisis.

Hedge funds’ underperformance, however, is at least helping Warren Buffett win his own “Million-Dollar Bet,” a wager by the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) CEO that a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund would perform better than hedge funds over time. After the first nine years of Buffett’s 10-year bet, his S&P 500 fund has returned 85.4%—far more than its five hedge fund challengers, the best of which has returned only 62.8%.

Even activist hedge funds are off to a mediocre start in 2017, despite the fact that two of this year’s top-performing stocks in the S&P 500 have soared as a result of activist investors’ campaigns. CSX (CSX) stock, for one, rose 33% through February after Paul Hilal’s activist hedge fund Mantle Ridge launched a successful campaign to replace the railroad company’s CEO with Hunter Harrison. And shares of aerospace engineering company Arconic (ARNC) gained more than 46% over the past two months, spurred by activist hedge fund Elliott Management’s efforts to shake it up.

Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, the activist hedge fund manager (and Hilal’s former boss), for his part, was briefly beating the market in mid-February, but by the end of the month had lost his edge, after stocks including Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) and Chipotle (CMG) took nosedives. (There are too few female activist investors to compare activist hedge funds by gender, but you can read about the only woman applying the strategy at U.S. companies, Dianne McKeever of Ides Capital, in Fortune’s profile here.)

There’s mounting evidence that hedge fund investors have lost patience with the asset class: Investors pulled $5.2 billion out of hedge funds in January, the industry’s fifth month of net outflows in a row, according to eVestment. That followed the $106 billion withdrawn in 2016, hedge funds’ worst year of outflows since the financial crisis.

About the Author
By Jen Wieczner
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Finance

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Finance

eggs
LawAntitrust
Egg companies made $1.22 billion in profit off a $6 carton — now they’re buying their way out of a price-fixing case with 53 million donated eggs
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips and The Associated PressJuly 2, 2026
52 seconds ago
Vladimir Putin
EconomyRussia
Russia’s economy is ‘sputtering,’ and Putin’s wartime spending model has pushed the country to an ‘economic, political, and military abyss’
By Tristan BoveJuly 2, 2026
57 minutes ago
t
North AmericaWhite House
‘It’s a very strong deal. Nobody knows what it is’: Trump completes transformation from Master of the Deal to Great Equivocator
By Will Weissert and The Associated PressJuly 2, 2026
1 hour ago
Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo looks to the far right during a conference.
CryptoBlockchain
Securitize is latest crypto company to go public as BlackRock-backed firm sees stock jump 3% on debut
By Camila Grigera NaónJuly 2, 2026
1 hour ago
Chris Hulatt co-founder of Octopus Group
SuccessHow I made my first million
A 2-year taste of the office was enough to make 3 grads quit. Now they run a $13.2 billion investment firm: ‘We didn’t want a traditional job again’
By Orianna Rosa RoyleJuly 2, 2026
2 hours ago
A man shaves wood pieces from a block.
EconomyRetirement
Economists have found an answer to slowing cognitive decline: Avoid retiring early, study finds
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 2, 2026
2 hours ago

Most Popular

As Big Tech showers employees with perks to win the talent war, Nvidia built a nearly $5 trillion company by making people pay for their own lunch
Big Tech
As Big Tech showers employees with perks to win the talent war, Nvidia built a nearly $5 trillion company by making people pay for their own lunch
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJuly 1, 2026
1 day ago
MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year
Success
MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year
By Sydney LakeJune 25, 2026
7 days ago
Current price of oil as of July 1, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of July 1, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJuly 1, 2026
1 day ago
Trump got a $78K pension from the Screen Actors Guild in 2025 because he appeared in Home Alone 2 in 1992
Politics
Trump got a $78K pension from the Screen Actors Guild in 2025 because he appeared in Home Alone 2 in 1992
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 1, 2026
1 day ago
CEO of $248 billion cybersecurity company says workers are about to face a ‘Darwinian moment’ thanks to AI: Evolve or get cut
Success
CEO of $248 billion cybersecurity company says workers are about to face a ‘Darwinian moment’ thanks to AI: Evolve or get cut
By Emma BurleighJuly 1, 2026
1 day ago
Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster
Success
Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster
By Preston ForeJune 27, 2026
5 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.