Having enjoyed its best performance in almost a decade in May, the hedge fund industry ended the first half of the year in a more muted fashion, according to data from Hedge Fund Research, the Chicago-based fund tracker.

The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index posted a gain of 0.13 per cent for June, compared to a 5.23 rise in the previous month. But while gains were relatively small for June, every month in positive territory must be welcome for an industry still smarting from last year’s abysmal performance: according to HFR’s figures, these investment pools suffered a record loss of 19.04 per cent in 2008.

While on aggregate hedge funds came out of June in the black - bringing the industry’s gains for the first half of 2009 to 9.41 per cent - performance for the month was however mixed within the various investment strategies.

Relative Value Arbitrage and Event Driven strategies posted the strongest performance in June, with the HFRI Relative Value (Total) Index gaining 1.88 and HFRI Event Driven (Total) Index rising 1.63 per cent. Meanwhile, the HFRI Equity Hedge (Total) Index posted a modest loss of 0.11 per cent in June to end the first half of 2009 with a gain of nearly 12 per cent.

HFR also found that funds looking outside of developed markets for growth were rewarded with modest gains last month: the HFRI Emerging Markets (Total) Index posted a 0.65 per cent gain in June, bringing this strategy’s first half performance to 20.3 per cent.

Among the losers for the month of June were the funds covered by the HFRI Macro (Total) Index, which on aggregate posted a loss of 0.91 per cent. These funds have however concluded the first half of this year up a modest 1.3 per cent, and it should also be noted that funds employing this strategy gained 4.83 per cent in 2008 as many other strategies suffered unprecedented losses.