A slew of AQR Capital Administration LLC methods returned greater than 10% within the first quarter, driving sturdy cross-asset traits and bets on firms with secure earnings.

Greenwich, Connecticut-based AQR’s Managed Futures Full Volatility Technique — a trend-following technique with $1.1 billion — rose 17.4% within the three months, in line with an individual accustomed to the matter who requested to not be recognized discussing personal particulars. The $1.2 billion AQR Delphi Lengthy Brief Fairness Technique, which buys less-risky companies with regular money flows whereas betting in opposition to the other, returned 13%. AQR’s Apex Technique, with $780 million, gained 11%, lifted by directional macro bets and inventory choice.

Following just a few troublesome years culminating within the pandemic market disruption, the $108 billion agency co-founded by Cliff Asness has loved a stretch of sturdy efficiency. AQR’s Absolute Return technique returned 18.5% in 2023 following a file 43.5% the earlier yr and has scored extra features this yr.

The agency’s Full Volatility Technique — which primarily bets on traits in shares, bonds, uncooked supplies and currencies — acquired a lift from sturdy traits in equities as international markets rallied, in addition to conventional commodities momentum bets benefiting from surging cocoa costs. Extra broadly, trend-following quants have posted their third-best quarterly efficiency previously decade, in line with Societe Generale.

The Delphi Lengthy Brief Fairness Technique notched its greatest quarterly efficiency since 2021, pushed by the outperformance of low-risk, high-quality shares over riskier companies year-to-date.

The AQR Apex Technique — a mixture of fairness, macro and arbitrage buying and selling — had its greatest quarter since its April 2020 inception. Sub-strategies together with directional macro bets, inventory choice and relative worth macro boosted the efficiency. Standard variations of momentum investing, which buys latest stock-market winners and bets in opposition to losers, notched its greatest quarter since 2002, a boon for AQR, which makes use of the consider a number of methods.

This text was supplied by Bloomberg Information.