Hedge funds worldwide suffered significant falls January, the Eurakahedge Hedge Fund Index has shown.
The Singapore-based hedge fund research company's index dropped 3.3 per cent during the month.
This was the largest decline recorded for the 2,467 funds worldwide monitored by Eurekahedge since it began collating the data in January 2000.
During December the index had climbed 0.8 per cent, the Bloomberg news agency reports.
Eurekahedges' report attributed January's drop to a 7.7 per cent slide in the MSCI World Index which had prompted investors in hedge funds to cut borrowing on margin and cut their positions.
Hiromichi Tsuyukubo, a manager at Tokyo-based hedge fund Myojo Asset Management Japan, said: "The fear heightened in January as to what sort of magnitude this whole US subprime problem actually is. That prompted the selling in all directions.''
Fund managers which performed best during January were those that trade futures, while those bet on rising and falling stock prices performed least well.
