FT Reports Quant Funds Are the Clear Winner All through 2026

By EC Assets · Published 5 October 2026 · Updated 5 October 2026

If you want to know where this year's returns are coming from, look at the machines.

According to a new report in the Financial Times, computer-driven hedge funds have been among the standout performers of 2026, making big profits in the market most investors fear right now: government bonds.

The FT reports that several of the industry's best-known systematic funds are up by double digits this year, some of them by more than 20%. And the gains have not come in a single burst. Last month alone added several percentage points for some of them.

These are not isolated wins. Data from HFR cited by the FT shows the category on course for its best year since 2022.

Bond yields have been climbing since the war with Iran began in February and pushed Brent crude up 40%. The US 10-year moved from around 4% to above 5.2%, its highest level since 2007. French, UK and Italian debt sold off alongside it.

Systematic models picked up the move early and kept adding to it. As the FT describes, they held short positions in government bonds as yields rose, long positions in energy as oil stayed high, and found a third source of return in currencies.

One quant director told the paper their risk had been pointed at exactly those three markets since July. Their summary of the backdrop: "The embers of inflation are still glowing red."

None of this required a view on the war, the Fed or the next CPI print. The models do not forecast. They measure persistence, size into it, and cut when it fades.

That is the part allocators tend to underestimate. A discretionary manager needs to be right about the cause. A systematic one only needs the effect to last.

At EC Assets, we were built on the same principle. Our strategies are fully systematic: models decide what gets traded, how large, and when to step aside.

Different instruments, same discipline. Process over prediction, rules over narratives.

And in this regime, the effects are lasting. The Fed has raised rates for the first time since 2023. The ECB has moved twice. The Bank of England is expected to follow. Each step pushes in the same direction, and every push is another signal the models can trade.

There is a portfolio lesson too. Bonds were meant to cushion equities. In an inflation regime they can fall together, leaving a classic diversified book with fewer places to hide. Funds trading across rates, commodities and currencies were not relying on that cushion. They were trading its failure.

For years these strategies were the line on the allocation list that kept getting deferred. The lean stretch was real. So was the patience it demanded.

This year is what that patience was for.

Discretion needs a forecast. A system only needs a market.