Greatly benefiting from the performance of convertible bonds and the increasing credit spread, the convertible arbitrage strategy posted a fifth consecutive month of gains up 5% for the month, according to research from EDHEC.

The EDHEC Alternative Indexes showed overall positive results with only a few strategies still posting negative results.

The increasing credit spread benefited the distressed securities strategy which rose 3.87%. The emerging markets strategy managed a second month of significantly positive returns posting a positive 6.54% return. However, the CTA global strategy remained in negative territory for a fourth consecutive month, down 1.50% for April.

The profits of the stock markets benefited the equity-oriented strategies such as long/short equity (+4.24%) and event driven (+3.59%). For long/short equity this was the best performance since February 2008 and for event driven since April 1999. Equity market neutral, however, posted a small negative return of 0.15%.

Overall, the fund of funds strategy was up a modest 1% benefiting moderately from the gains on the stock markets.

EDHEC Alternative Indexes

* Cumulative return since January 1, 2009.