Only one of four strategies in the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks posted positive performance in November. Many hedge fund indexes were down more than the major equity benchmark the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 was in November (-8%) and significantly trailed the Dow Jones Corporate Bond Index, which was up 4.88%.

The lone bright spot among the Dow Jones hedge fund indexes, albeit a tiny bright spot at 0.15% for the month, was merger arbitrage. For the year-to-date period through November, merger arbitrage was still down about -8.72%.

Merger arbitrage was also one of six hedge fund index categories among the much larger family of Hennessee Group hedge fund indexes that posted positive returns in November, also barely up, at 0.26%.

Among the 27 Hennessee hedge fund indexes, the Macro Index and the Market Neutral Index had monthly returns of 1.23% and 1.15% in November, respectively. Its Short Biased Index continued to lead all hedge fund benchmarks, up 4.13% for the month.

Since the summer months, hedge funds have been hit hard by the market meltdown, mass investor redemptions and decreasing leverage available in the market.

Looking for other bright spots among the hedge fund carnage, Dow Jones noted that its convertible arbitrage benchmark was only down -4.80% in November, making it the second-best performer among the four major hedge fund benchmarks. And that was a notable change, as year-to-date, convertible arbitrage has been the worst performer, down 47.70% through November.

The Dow Jones event-driven and distressed securities hedge fund indexes were down 6.35% and 7.47%, respectively, for the month. For year-to-date through November, event-driven is down 23.83% and distressed is down 32.57%.