The Top Global Macro Hedge Funds (2024)

Global Macro is a hedge fund strategy that constructs a portfolio based on top-down macroeconomic analysis.

Global macro has a long history of absolute performance, with the most prominent firms dominating the space.

We analyzed the most popular global macro firms on various factors to let you know the best players in town.

Best US-Based Global Macro Funds

Garda Capital Partners

Garda Capital is an independently owned and operated asset management firm specializing in global alternative investment strategies. The company offers portfolio management, financial planning, and investment advisory services.

Garda Fund Description

Garda Fixed Income Relative Value (FIRV) Opportunity Master Fund is operated by Garda Capital and has assets under management of $97 billion.

Garda Strategy

Garda Capital deploys relative value strategies across fixed-income markets for institutional investors across fixed-income markets investors for market cycles uncorrelated to broader market movements.

Garda Headquarters

  • Minneapolis, Minnesota

Garda Leadership

  • Jeff Drobny, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Investment Officer

Bridgewater Associates

Bridgewater Associates is a premier global macro asset management firm that focuses on delivering value for sophisticated international institutional investors. The macro hedge fund has assets under management of $140 billion.

Bridgewater Fund Description

Pure Alpha is Bridgewater’s flagship macro strategy fund. The firm launched Pure Alpha in 1991 and began to propagate portable alpha strategies. The fund did exceptionally well during the market downturn of 2000 and 2003. It has an AUM of $76.8 billion.

Bridgewater Strategy

According to Ray Dalio, Bridgewater uses quantitative investment methods to identify new investments. The firm invests based on economic trends, such as inflation, exchange rates, and US gross domestic product readings. The firm mainly avoids unrealistic historical models. Its objective is to design portfolios with uncorrelated investment returns focusing on risk allocations instead of asset allocations.

Bridgewater Headquarters

  • Westport, Connecticut

Bridgewater Leadership

Element Capital Management

The global macro hedge fund company manages assets worth over $55.9 billion under management. Founded in 2005, the company only manages investments for qualified and institutional investors.

Element Capital Fund Description

Element Capital Master Fund has assets under management worth $62.03 billion, generating average gains of nearly 20% since inception.

Element Capital Strategy

Element leverages fundamental, systemic, and relative value macro analysis to construct the portfolio. It refers to its strategy as “modern macro”, which uses a proprietary technology base, advanced risk management, and innovative trade structuring.

Element Capital Headquarters

  • New York
  • London

Element Capital Leadership

Moore Capital Management

Founded in 1989 by Louis Moore Bacon, the hedge fund has more than $53.824 billion of assets under management. One of the most successful traders, Bacon is also credited for propagating macro trading through his bets on US equity, European bonds, and Asian currencies. T

Moore Capital Fund Description

The JJJ Master Fund is the master hedge fund operated by Moore Capital with a portfolio constructed based on their expectations of the global macroeconomy.

Moore Capital Strategy

MCM is a global macro investor that leverages macroeconomic themes, cash, futures, and derivatives in its portfolios. The firm plans its moves based on evaluating future trends in inflation, economic growth, central bank policy, and national politics. The researchers and strategists use this data to decide on the themes and investments.

Moore Capital Headquarters

  • New York

Moore Capital Leadership

Caxton

Caxton Associates is a global macro hedge fund firm founded in 1983 by Bruce Kovner. The firm operates six private funds and has approximately 20 billion in total assets under management.

Caxton Fund Description

Caxton Macro Limited is the primary macro fund managed by Caxton Associates with an asset base of $6.44 billion.

Caxton Strategy

As per the company, its primary business is to “manage client and proprietary capital through global macro hedge fund strategies.” The hedge fund operates on a three-pronged strategy: listening to the markets, closely tracking politics, and managing risk effectively.

Caxton Headquarters

  • Princeton, NJ

Caxton Leadership

Brevan Howard Asset Management

Founded in 2002, Brevan Howard is a leading global alternative investment management platform specializing in global macro. It manages global institutional investors’ assets, including sovereign wealth funds, corporate and public pension plans, foundations, and endowments.

Brevan Howard Fund Description

As of 2022, Brevan Howard operates several funds, including (LSE: BHGG) and BH Macro (LSE: BHMG), two publicly-available closed-end funds.

Brevan Howard Strategy

Brevan’s investment approach combines directional, relative value, and derivative trading strategies that aim to deliver orthogonal but complementary returns across a wide range of investment solutions.

Brevan Howard Headquarters

  • London

Brevan Howard Leadership

King Street Capital Management

Founded in 1995 by Brian J. Higgins, King Street is a 20 billion global investment management firm with experience of over two decades of focussed investing in credit markets. The senior leadership of King Street comprises nine Partners, and the hedge fund has over 21.219 billion of assets under management.

King Street Capital Fund Description

King Street Tactical Credit Opportunity Fund is a New York-based Hedge Fund with $756.7 million in assets under management.

King Street Capital Strategy

King Street manages two global evergreen funds focused on long/short multi-strategy credit and event-driven investments. The Funds aims to produce long-term risk-adjusted returns throughout diverse market environments. The managers also seek capital preservation and minimization of volatility through these funds. The hedge fund also manages a European Fund that “generally invests alongside the Flagship Funds in European situations.”

King Street Headquarters

  • New York, NY

King Street Leadership

John Hancock

John Hancock Fund Description

Managed by Kenneth G. Tropin and Pablo E. Calderini, John Hancock Diversified Macro Fund has an asset base of $504.82 million as of Nov 30, 2021. The fund aims to achieve its investment objective by leveraging a multi-asset, quantitatively-driven strategy that provides exposure to diversified sources of return.

John Hancock Strategy

John Hancock Diversified Macro Fund pursues diversified sources of returns through algorithmic long and short positions in carrying, fundamental, trend, and value strategies. The fund trades futures and foreign exchange instruments for stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities across 55 global markets.

John Hancock Headquarters

  • Boston, MA

John Hancock Leadership


Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co.

GMO offers Mutual Funds to investors who meet minimum investment size requirements, which are generally $5 million.

Fund Description

GMO SGM Major Markets Investment Fund is an actively managed fund with assets under management of $310.9 million.

GMO Strategy

The GMO Systematic Global Macro Strategy’s investment objective is long-term total return. The fund’s portfolio seeks to achieve this by taking both long and short positions in a range of global equity, bond, currency, and commodity markets. The firm uses exchange-traded futures, ETFs, foreign exchange forward contracts, and other investments to achieve its objectives.

GMO Headquarters

  • Boston

GMO Leadership

Graham Capital Management

Founded in 1994, Graham Capital Management hedge fund focuses on alternative investment and innovative investment solutions. The firm has assets under management worth $17 billion.

Graham Capital Fund Description

With assets under management worth $210.8 million, Graham Diversified Alpha Fund is the master hedge fund managed by Graham Capital.

Graham Capital Strategy

Graham Capital has over two decades of trading experience, and its primary investment capabilities include discretionary macro, quantitative macro, and systematic trend-following. GCM manages quantitative and discretionary trading portfolios with several return and volatility objectives and blended portfolios. The firm’s strategies trade global interest rates, currencies, commodities, and equities.

Graham Capital Headquarters

  • Rowayton, Connecticut

Graham Capital Leadership

Autonomy Capital

Founded in 2003 by CIO Robert Gibbins, Autonomy Capital looks beyond the dynamics of global economies and into local ones to explore untapped opportunities. The strategy is diversified between developed and emerging markets, and its investment coverage includes more than 60 countries.

Autonomy Capital Fund Description

The hedge fund has 11 clients and discretionary assets under management of $5,172,377,903.

Autonomy Capital Strategy

The fund constantly looks for micro-changes that can turn into major macro shifts. It re-rates and de-rates scenarios based on the themes in the global landscape. The liquid global macro strategy aims at a diversified opportunity and international exposure across major macroeconomic asset classes.

Autonomy Capital Headquarters

  • New York

Autonomy Capital Leadership

Discovery Capital Management

Established in August 1999 by Robert Citrone and Harry Krensky, Discovery Capital Management (DCM) is a hedge fund manager. Discovery Capital Management is part of the Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services Industry. The firm has nearly 75 employees across all of its locations and generates $5.80 million in sales.

Discovery Capital Management Fund Description

The Discovery Global Opportunity Fund is DCM’s pooled investment fund.

Discovery Capital Management Strategy

DCM is involved in multi-asset class investing across global financial markets. It also leverages a combination of global macro and equity long/short strategies to identify investment opportunities. With investment coverage, including over 60 countries, the process is diversified between developed and emerging markets.

Discovery Capital Management Headquarters

  • Vancouver, B.C.

Discovery Capital Management Leadership


Sculptor Capital Management

Sculptor, previously known as Och-Ziff Capital Management, is a global diversified alternative asset management company. The hedge fund has assets under management of $51.7 billion.

Sculptor Capital Management Strategy

Och-Ziff operates multiple investment strategies, including multi-strategy, credit, and real estate.

Sculptor Capital Management Headquarters

  • New York

Sculptor Capital Management Leadership

  • Jimmy Levin, Chief Investment Officer, and Chief Executive Officer

JPMorgan Macro Opportunities Fund

JPMorgan Macro Opportunities Fund Description

This macro fund offers 66.6% exposure to international equities and 17.7% to money markets.

JPMorgan Macro Opportunities Strategy

JPMorgan Macro Opportunities Fund aims to capitalize on return opportunities through an investment process that focuses on macroeconomic research to identify global investment themes.

Utilizes a flexible approach to asset allocation through long and short positions across global equities, fixed income, derivatives, currencies, and cash. It uses a focused set of strategies to adjust portfolio exposures flexibly when the macro landscape and market environment shift.

JPMorgan Macro Opportunities Leadership

AQR Macro Opportunities Fund

AQR Fund Description

The fund aims to deliver returns that are uncorrelated to stocks and bonds. The Fund positions across macro asset classes (currencies, commodities, equities, fixed income) based on macroeconomic trends, seeking to capitalize on the markets’ tendency to under-react to changes in fundamentals. It has assets under management of $27 million.

AQR Strategy

The fund pursues a Macro Opportunities investment strategy, trading in over 100 individual markets across approximately 30 countries. The fund tends to buy assets for which macroeconomic fundamentals are improving, either relative or absolute and short assets for which macroeconomic fundamentals are deteriorating. Macroeconomic trends are evaluated across multiple dimensions, utilizing quantitative and discretionary inputs.

AQR Headquarters

  • Greenwich, Connecticut

AQR Leadership

William Blair Macro Allocation Fund

William Blair Fund Description

The William Blair Macro Allocation Fund aims to capitalize on fundamental opportunities through active management across asset classes, geographies, currencies, and risk themes.

William Blair Strategy

The Macro Allocation Fund uses a top-down approach focusing on general price movements across asset classes and currencies instead of the performance of individual company securities.

The Fund manager believes that the fundamentals ascertain future cash flows eventually drive the value of asset classes and currencies. Their goal is to identify and exploit occasional discrepancies between intrinsic values and market prices, and this value/price discrepancy forms the foundation of the William Blair Macro Allocation Fund.

William Blair Headquarters

  • Chicago

William Blair Leadership

UK-Based Global Macro Funds

AHL Macro by Man Group

AHL Macro Fund Description

FRM hedge fund was founded in 1991 and acquired by Man Group in 2012. It is a specialized investment advisory managing about $ 139.5 billion for its global clients. The institutional investors contribute nearly 83% of the group’s funds under management.

AHL Macro Strategy

AHL Macro by Man Group is a Systematic macro focused on behavioral models. The fund brings together the features of traditional CTAs and conventional macro trades. It tracks up to 30 signals across multiple asset classes on liquid instruments. The fund has minimal correlation to traditional investments, such as bonds and equities.

AHL Macro Headquarters

  • London

AHL Macro Leadership

Viking Global Equities

Viking Global Investors

Viking Global is a global investment firm founded in 1999. The hedge fund has over $50 billion of assets under management. The company utilizes fundamental analysis to decide on investments. It centralizes risk management and decentralizes investment research, analysis, and decision-making.

Viking Global Fund Description

Viking Global Equities Master is a fund operated by Viking Global Investors and has assets under management of $36.19 billion.

Viking Global Strategy

Viking employs a long-term focused investment approach that is research-intensive. It uses fundamental analysis to pick public and private equity investments across industries and geographies. Viking invests in companies after an in-depth assessment of their business models and fundamentals, management teams’ performance record, and cyclical and secular industry trends.

Viking Global Headquarters

  • Greenwich

Viking Global Leadership

Marshall Wace

Marshall Wace, Founded in 1997, is a global investment house offering a diverse set of alternative and customized investment solutions. The firm manages more than $48 billion of assets and caters to a wide range of customers.

Marshall Wace Fund Description

The Marshall Wace Systematic Alpha UCITS Fund is a global equity market-neutral fund. It aims to generate an absolute return with a 4-6% volatility target range uncorrelated to equities.

Marshall Wace Strategy

Marshall Wace manages various long-short equity in its strategies. The investment process is governed by proprietary algorithms that use various data, including fundamentals, flows, sentiment, news, and macro.

Headquarters

  • London

Leadership

LMR Partners

Founded by Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel, and Stefan Renold, LMR Partners is a global alternative investment manager. The firm manages approximately US$ 7.5 billion in AUM and invests these globally in multiple asset classes and strategies to offer a diverse collection of high Sharpe ratio solutions.

LMR Fund Description

LMR Partners is a hedge fund management firm that takes positions in macro and micro factors under its flagship investment strategy.

LMR Strategy

The firm believes that global asset prices are driven predominantly by macroeconomic factors during some phases, while in other times, it is led by asset-specific events. During both of these scenarios, the fund aims to achieve its investment objectives by combining macro trading with systematic equity long/short.

LMR Headquarters

  • London

GAM

GAM Investments is an asset management group headquartered in Zurich that uses multiple strategies.GAM has CHF 100 billion AUM and employs around 680 staff in 14 countries.

GAM Systematic Fund Description

GAM Systematic acquired Cantab Capital Partners in 2016. The fund uses robust models, and institutional quality systems and software are responsible for its success.

GAM Systematic Strategy

CCP is a fully systematic fund that develops and deploys sophisticated mathematical algorithms to trade. Every model of CCP is backed by an underlying economic rationale that drives the returns.

GAM Headquarters

  • Cambridge

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