Dymon Asia macro shines with 17pc return after Yuan bet

When Danny Yong started what's now the Dymon Asia Macro Fund with $113 million in 2008, billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones's hedge-fund firm was his first outside backer. Six years later, Yong's one-time upstart has grown to $3.5 billion in assets and delivered the second-best performance of any large Asia-based hedge fund.

From its perch in Singapore, Dymon Asia Macro returned 17 percent in the first 10 months of 2014. Only the Quantedge Global Fund's 32.3 percent topped it in Asia in Bloomberg Markets' annual ranking of funds with $1 billion or more in assets.

Dymon was also a standout worldwide. It came in at No. 10 among all large funds in a bad year for some macro funds, which seek to profit from trends in currencies, interest rates, and equities and commodities markets. Managers of big Asiafocused funds can struggle to deliver consistent gains. Markets are smaller and less liquid than those in the U.S. and Europe, and there's a limited pool of talented professionals to run the funds. Yong, 43, who has a resume that includes Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has 18 years of experience trading Asian securities.

Dymon Asia Macro returned 82.1 percent from August 2008 through October 2014, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. That compares with a 16 percent loss for the HFRX Macro/CTA Index, which measures macro hedge funds and the so-called commoditytrading advisers that trade futures and forward contracts on commodities, financial assets and currencies.

The Dymon fund's only calendar year loss was for its inaugural five months in 2008. In 2011, Dymon Asia Macro topped all $1 billion-plus Asian funds, with a return of more than 20 percent after fees. "Dymon, over the years, demonstrated strong risk management," says Stephane Pizzo, managing partner of Singapore-based Lotus Peak Capital, which invests in hedge funds.