Here are the 10 hedge funds to watch in 2026

Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? . Hedge funds have performed reasonably well in 2026, though most trailed the returns of the S&P 500. Entering 2026, managers to watch include giants with new products and new players. There's plenty of demand for hedge funds, including from the alternatives-hungry private wealth segment. A year that began with artificial intelligence jitters and geopolitical-driven sell-offs is ending with equity markets near record highs, thanks to the continued growth of the world's biggest tech companies. For many hedge funds trading these markets, 2025 was a choppy but ultimately strong year. While few funds have been able to match the returns of the S&P 500, the average manager was up 10.7% through November, according to industry data tracker PivotalPath. In many ways, the $5 trillion industry is at a crossroads. Hedge funds are more institutionalized than ever, grappling with soaring talent costs, an arms race in technology and AI, and the pressure to deliver market-beating returns from the world's largest pools of capital. With that in mind, here are the 10 hedge funds to watch in 2026. There is no particular order to the list, but those selected are managers who, for one reason or another, the industry is talking about. That means new launches from pedigreed founders, evolving titans, struggling upstarts, and more. The firms below declined to comment. Coatue Management Philippe Laffont 's long-running Tiger Cub, Coatue Management, is bigger than ever before and more publicly visible than ever before. The $70 billion firm, long a player in the secretive world of Silicon Valley venture investing, has opened up access to smaller investors with at least $50,000 to invest in a new fund that counts OpenAI and Stripe as significant positions. This year, the firm's executives, including Laffont and his brother, Thomas, have been a constant presence on industry podcasts, conference panels, and CNBC, and the manager is publishing daily, public research notes called C:/Takes . It's a significant departure from the insular style hedge funds typically operate with, but it has not slowed the firm's performance. The flagship hedge is up more than 13% through November, a person familiar with the manager's returns told Business Insider. Jain Global Bobby Jain's firm was one of the industry's biggest launches ever and certainly one of the buzziest. When Jain Global started trading in mid-2024, it immediately began trading different asset classes around the world and competing with industry stalwarts for talent and capital. Eighteen months later, the firm's net performance has lagged its multistrategy peers. A person familiar with the firm's returns said Jain has produced gross gains in the mid-teens since launch, but fees associated with building a new firm from scratch and hiring dozens of investors, tech workers, and risk managers have reduced the end performance to less than 4%. Additionally, the manager, which now runs close to $6 billion, did not immediately start deploying all of its capital, so potential gains were muted as PMs were onboarded....

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