The hedge fund industry took in a net $430 million (0.02 per cent of assets) in April, building on an inflow of $817 million in March, according to the latest data from BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research. The results are based on data from 3,393 funds.

Despite these April inflows, the hedge fund industry continued to struggle with performance, delivering a return of 0.6 per cent in April, one-third of the S&P 500’s 1.8 per cent rise. In the past 12 months hedge fund investors had a return of 8.1 per cent and the S&P 500 rose 14.3 per cent.

The report said that stock-picking hedge fund managers performed well, just as they did over the past 12 months.

The best performing funds were equity long-only hedge funds, which rose 4.4 per cent in April, making them the strongest performing of 13 major fund categories.

In comparison, funds of hedge funds continued to shed assets, losing $4.2 billion in April and $53.2 billion over the past 12 months.  Funds of funds outperformed the hedge fund industry for the first time in 10 months in April, outpacing the industry’s gains by 20 basis points.

The survey also found that bearish sentiment on the S&P 500 dived by 25 percentage points in the wake of the relentless rally in May and that while bullishness for June slightly outstrips bearishness, most managers were neutral.