Citadel Sidesteps April’s Market Swoons to Post Gains Across Its Funds
Ken Griffin’s main hedge fund is now up for the year after losing money in the first quarter
Key Points
Citadel’s flagship hedge fund, Wellington, gained 1.3% in April, outperforming the broader stock market.
Wellington is up 0.5% this year through April, after a challenging first quarter.
Ken Griffin urged his team to invest opportunistically during the market selloff.
Citadel navigated April’s market chaos and generated a 1.3% gain in its flagship hedge fund last month, a person familiar with the matter said, outperforming the broader stock market.
The details
Citadel doesn’t disclose much to investors about where its multistrategy Wellington fund makes its money, but the performance of other funds it manages offers some clues of what worked for the firm in April. Citadel’s stocks-focused hedge fund gained 2.2% last month, while its tactical-trading fund and global fixed-income funds were up 1.9% and 1.2%, respectively, the person said.
April’s gains pushed Wellington into the green on the year after a challenging first quarter. Big hedge funds were whipsawed when a broader flight from risk hurt some go-to investing strategies and revealed how many of them held similar positions that came under selling pressure. After losing 0.8% in the first three months of 2025, Wellington is now up 0.5% this year through April.
Ken Griffin, Citadel’s founder and chief executive, has urged his team to play offense and invest opportunistically during the market selloff. The firm allocated more capital to invest to around a quarter of its U.S. stock-picking portfolio managers, the person said.
“As I’ve always said, an opinion without a position is still just an opinion,” Griffin said at a recent firmwide meeting. “This is a job that each and every day you have to act with conviction. You need to lay it on the line and translate your opinion into a position.”
The context
Griffin has been one of Wall Street’s most outspoken critics of parts of President Trump’s economic agenda. Griffin said at a recent event hosted by Semafor that the trade war the White House kicked off has devolved into a “nonsensical place” and was “eroding [the U.S.’s] brand.”
“We’re moving too haphazardly and we’re breaking a lot of glass in trying to solve some very real problems,” Griffin said at the event. “With the policy volatility, you actually undermine the very goal you’re trying to achieve.”
The market uncertainty prompted by Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs and his complaints about the Federal Reserve pummeled stocks for most of last month, though a recent rally trimmed April’s losses. As of Wednesday, the S&P 500 is down 4.9% for the year on a total return basis.