Под ударом иранских боевых действий! Goldman Sachs: глобальные хедж-фонды в марте зафиксировали крупнейший за четыре года спад по максимальной просадке

Cailian Press, April 2 (Editor Liu Rui) On Wednesday, U.S. Eastern Time, Goldman Sachs said in a report to clients that global hedge funds suffered the worst monthly loss since January 2022 last month.

This market volatility was clearly triggered by the Iran war—which has impacted global equities and adversely affected the performance of many large global asset management institutions.

Global hedge funds suffer severe drawdowns

In 2025, hedge funds delivered impressive results, but this year’s first quarter has seen a “fall from grace.” In the first quarter, the S&P 500 fell 4.63%, the Nasdaq 100 fell 4.87%, with March seeing the steepest decline.

Goldman’s report said that in March, global hedge funds experienced the largest monthly drawdown since January 2022—four years ago, investors were mainly concerned about the Fed’s increasingly hawkish policy and geopolitical tensions, whereas in March this year, it was the Iranian conflict that sparked investors’ worries.

According to Goldman’s prime broker report, stocks in long/short funds across all regional markets worldwide saw negative returns in March; funds focused on the Asian market had the largest decline, down 7.3%. European funds fell 6.3%, while U.S. funds fell an average of 4.3% in March.

As of March 31, the returns for managers of long/short funds in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. this year were positive 6.5%, negative 1.8%, and negative 2.4%, respectively.

By sector, technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) were among the industries hit hardest: long/short funds pulled back 7.8% in March, and the entire quarter fell 11.8%. Funds focused on healthcare retreated by about 0.9% in March.

Hedge funds rush to sell stocks

Goldman’s report also noted that March marked the fourth consecutive month hedge funds sold global stocks, and the pace of selling reached the fastest level in the past 13 years.

In addition, in March, the equal-weighted average return and the median long/short investment return both fell by 3.96% and 4.77%, respectively, indicating that larger-scale managed funds performed poorly during the month.

“March 2026 is one of the most severe months for the hedge fund industry in recent years,” said Bruno Schneller (Bruno Schneller), managing partner of Erlen Capital Management,

“The high volatility in hedge fund performance is caused by a range of factors, including geopolitical tensions—especially the escalation of the Middle East situation involving Iran—and the rapid shifts in interest rates, currencies, commodity and stock factors due to factor rotation.”