The world's hedge fund sector had a strong month in February but investors holding a passive pool of US blue-chip stocks would have fared even better.

The global hedge fund industry, which has logged mixed results since the 2008 financial crisis, clocked up returns of 2.2 per cent in February this year - its best results for two years. It lagged the US equity market, however, according to new figures.

The S&P 500 Index of blue-chip US equities rose by 5.5 per cent in February, according to BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research, in a regular snapshot of the hedge fund sector.

Hedge funds took in $7.2 billion in February, the strongest inflow in the past six months and a turnabout from January’s outflow of $11.2 billion, which accounted for 0.5 per cent of assets.

“The redemptions of $4.1 billion in the first two months of this year stand in dramatic contrast to the inflow of $31.6 billion in the same period last year,” Sol Waksman, president and founder of BarclayHedge, said in a statement on the figures. “In the past 12 months, hedge funds added $39.2 billion, down 57 per cent from $91.4 billion in the previous twelve-month span,” he said.

Hedge fund industry assets edged up to $2.49 trillion in February, from $2.47 trillion the month before, according to BarclayHedge's estimates based on data from 3,600 funds.

“Fixed income funds had their best showing in sixteen months, rising 1.2 per cent in February,” Waksman said. “Multi-strategy funds had the strongest inflows in February, taking in $2.0 billion,” he continued.

The TrimTabs/BarclayHedge Hedge Fund Sentiment Survey found that optimism on US stocks dipped to a six-month low in March, while bearishness rose by the highest amount in 14 months. Some three-quarters of managers expect developed markets to outperform emerging and frontier markets in the next six months, while a slim majority expects stocks to outperform bonds and precious metals.