John Paulson’s Hedge Fund Had A Horrible Quarter; This Is How Everyone Else Did

Several days ago, following the latest M&A deal to blow up and rock the hedge fund world when the US Treasury ended the Pfizer-Allergan (PFE AGN) deal, we were wondering with event/arb funds would be most impacted. We now of know at least one, and it’s a name that has been hit not only on M&A arbs blowing up, but also on some core hedge fund hotel names such as Allergan getting crushed in the 2016.

We are talking about John Paulson, whose performance in the past few years has been rather deplorable (in the past five years, he only made money in 2013, when the offshore Advantage Plus made 32.4%).

According to Bloomberg, Paulson had another abysmal month in March when his Advantage funds both dropped 7%, bringing their YTD loss to -15%, and making Paulson one of the worst performers YTD, in the company of such former HF luminaries as Chase Coleman, Bill Ackman and Larry Robbins. His return since then is likely even worse, considering his substantial stake in Allergen which earlier this week plunged 20% after the Pfizer deal was called off.

Then again, considering his historical returns:

… this is probably not too surprising.

Paulson is just one of many hedge fund managers having a bad year. As the following, which table breaks down the marquee hedge fund names, shows merely beating the S&P500 continues to remain an elusive goal for more than half of the “smart money” out there.

Here, courtesy of HSBC, are the top 20 best and worst hedge funds through the first week of April. And yes, the aptly named Tulip Trend Fund continues to crush everyone else into submission for another month running.