Boothbay Positive In May As Multistrat Fund Increase Allocations To Top PMs

Boothbay Absolute Return Strategies (BBARS) returned 0.47% net for the first quarter, while the BBARS Enhanced Class returned 0.35% net. Boothbay Diversified Alpha Master Fund (BDAF) returned -1.01% for Q1, while BDAF Enhanced Class generated a net return of -1.67%.

The S&P 500 was off 4.27% for the first quarter, while the HFRX Equity Market Neutral Index gained 2.02%. The HFRX Absolute Return Index gained 1.13% for the quarter, and the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index rose 0.53%.

Through the first quarter, BBARS has an annualized return of 9.25% since inception, compared to 12.3% for the S&P 500. BDAF’s annualized return since inception stands at 9.88%.

For May, BDAF returned 2.1%, while BDAF Enhanced generated a return of 2.73%. BBARS posted a return of 2.18% for May, while BBARS Enhanced returned 3.06% for the month.

As of April 1, BBARS had $1.75 billion in assets under management, while BDAF had $427 million, totaling $2.18 billion for all of Boothbay Fund Management.

BDAF leaders and detractors

In his first-quarter letter to BDAF investors, which was obtained by Hedge Fund Alpha, Ari Glass of Boothbay Fund Management reported that their capital markets managers led the way in Q1, with 80% of them generating positive returns, followed by commodity and currency arbitrage at 70%. The worst-performing strategy was event driven and arbitrage, where just 25% of managers were in the green for the first quarter.