May hedge fund returns: Steve Cohen's Point72 leads the way among the industry's biggest names

1 week ago 22

Steve Cohen's $50.7 billion hedge fund has continued its strong run of returns with a 2% gain in May, a person close to the firm tells Business Insider.

That gain puts Cohen's firm at 10.5% for the year, following a 17.5% gain in 2025, when the manager outperformed its main rivals in the multistrategy space, namely Millennium and Citadel.

May was generally good for big-name managers, people close to the firms told Business Insider. Millennium was up 2.4%, pushing its 2026 gains to 6.1%. Balyasny is now positive for the year thanks to a 1.4% gain last month. Citadel also gained 1.4% in May; Ken Griffin's firm is now up 3.9% in 2026.

Still, funds struggled to keep pace with equity markets, which surged in May thanks to continued enthusiasm for tech and AI stocks. The S&P 500 index ended last month up 11% after a more than 5% gain in May.

A few managers lost money for the month. Walleye and North Rock both posted small losses — 0.9% and 0.2%, respectively — in May.

The funds listed below declined to comment.

Editor's note: This story was originally published on June 3 at 12:16 p.m. New figures have been added to the table below as they have been learned.

Bradley Saacks covers hedge funds and other asset managers for Business Insider from New York. He first wrote about the multi-trillion-dollar industry for Business Insider from New York in late 2018, after spending two years covering mutual funds for the Financial Times' trade publication, Ignites.He left Business Insider for a little over a year, starting in mid-2022, and worked as a business reporter for Semafor, a media startup. He rejoined Business Insider in 2023, this time in the publication's London office, and has since relocated back to New York. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Media and Journalism, he was the recipient of the O.J. Skipper Coffin Award, which is given to the top graduating senior in the reporting track.During his time at Business Insider, he has broken news on the biggest names in hedge funds, including Paul Singer's Elliott Management, Ken Griffin's Citadel, Seth Klarman's Baupost Group, and more. He is interested in telling stories about the people behind the scenes who are driving big changes at the biggest firms. He can be reached on WhatsApp and Signal at +1 919 816 5537.Notable stories include: