Mixed 2007 For John W. Henry's Funds January 29, 2008 The year-to-date numbers are in for John W. Henry & Co. and the results range from pretty to pretty ugly. First, the bad news: The firmâs International Foreign Currency Exchange program lost an estimated 30.89% through December, followed by its Global Diversified Portfolio, which dropped an estimated 15.39%. Performance in programs that placed âa greater weight on currencies posted disappointing results,â wrote Kenneth Webster, in his year-end wrap-up to investors. âMost JWH models were able to capture profits in the liquid euro where the dollar decline was most pronounced, but suffered losses in many of the other world currencies.â Adding salt to the wound, investors have reportedly pulled their capital out of the firmâs flagship Strategic Allocation program, which lost 4.76% last year and managed $67 million as of the end of December, in favor of the firmâs other offerings, HFM Week reports. A call made to Webster was not returned by press time. In addition, Matthew Aptman, a former director in the investor services group at JWH, has joined the ComVest Group in a similar role. He joins the growing list of JWH defectors including Mark Rzepczynski, former chief investment officer, and former vice chairman Mark Mitchell. On the bright side, the firmâs commodities trades were profitable on the strength of the energy and grain markets. The firmâs most diversified program, GlobalAnalytics, gained an estimated 18.68% while its newest program, JWH Diversified Plus, gained 24% in its first nine months of trading. And, of course, firm founder John Henry's Boston Red Sox won baseball's World Series. âA large part of the yearâs gains came from August to December and coincided with the decline in the dollar,â said Webster. âAs the decline in the dollar gathered steam in the fourth quarter, most commodity markets were moving higher and contributing positively to JWH returns.â As of the end of December, the former managed futures behemoth managed $297 million in total assets.
I think they just mean from a 'managed futures' perspective. probably comparing it to cta type shops and not hedgies.
No idea why Henry still gets this much media coverage. It seems Bloomberg discusses their monthly returns each and every month with quotes from their managers. Their funds are insignificant both in size and returns. Their results are in no way representative for the leading managed futures funds such as Winton or AHL.
So you have a bunch of funds, some with opposite correlation, then after suffering stunning losses in most, you can say "yeah, but a couple of our funds were up big..."
Seems like Mr. Henry is heading back in the right direction..... Up 15 % or so in his biggest funds..... Very impressive start to the new year.