Cliff Asness’s AQR multi-strategy hedge fund returns 9% within the first quarter throughout robust circumstances

AQR Capital Administration’s multistrategy hedge fund beat the market with a 9% rally within the first quarter as Wall Road grappled with excessive volatility amid President Donald Trump’s unsure tariff coverage.

The Apex technique from Cliff Asness’ agency, which mixes shares, macro and arbitrage trades and has $3 billion in property below administration, gained 3.4% in March, boosting its first-quarter efficiency, in accordance with an individual conversant in AQR’s returns who requested to be nameless as the knowledge is personal.

AQR’s Delphi Lengthy-Brief Fairness Technique gained 9.7% within the first quarter, whereas its different trend-following providing Helix returned 3%, the individual stated.

AQR, whose property below administration reached $128 billion on the finish of March, declined to remark.

The inventory market simply wrapped up a tumultuous quarter as Trump’s aggressive tariffs raised issues about an extreme financial slowdown and a re-acceleration of inflation. The S&P 500 dipped into correction territory in March after hitting a document in February.

For the quarter, the fairness benchmark was down 4.6%, snapping a five-quarter win streak. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite misplaced 10.4% within the quarter, which might mark its largest quarterly pullback since a 22.4% plunge within the second quarter of 2022.