Whale Rock Capital Management racked up double-digit losses in the first quarter as President Donald Trump’s trade wars rattled markets.
The public equities hedge fund lost 15% in March, extending its loss over the first three months of the year to about 20%, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private results. The S&P 500 sank 4.6% in the quarter.
A representative for Boston-based Whale Rock declined to comment.
Whale Rock, which focuses on technology, media and telecommunications companies, is prone to big swings in performance. It lost 45% in 2022, then jumped 31.8% and 54.1% in the following two years.
Other equity hedge funds managed to eke out gains in the first quarter, including Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global Investors and Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management. Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management lost 2.1% in March, leaving it break-even for the year.
The people didn’t say how Alex Sacerdote’s Whale Rock has performed through the first half of this month. Markets swung wildly after Trump announced many of his sweeping tariffs on April 2, and then paused many of them.
Whale Rock managed about $8 billion at the end of February.
Written by: Gillian Tan, Hema Parmar, and Katherine Burton @Bloomberg
The post “Whale Rock Lost 20% in First Quarter Amid Trade War Volatility” first appeared on Bloomberg