M&A indexes getting second look after torrent of deals

With global M&A volume rising to its highest level since 2007, investors put more than twice as much money into event-driven strategies in the second quarter of 2014 as they did in the first quarter

Investors allocated more money this quarter to a hedge fund strategy that profits from mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity than last quarter, even though most merger arbitrage strategies have underperformed the broader stock market so far this year.

The HFRX ED: Merger Arbitrage index, a benchmark for strategies that seek to profit from buying the shares of M&A targets and shorting the shares of buyers, had dropped 0.21% this year as of August 7. The S&P 500 index rose nearly 5% over the