Ken Griffin's hedge fund produced its worst results in 7 years. What deals failed?

One of the most profitable hedge funds in history, Ken Griffin's Citadel may end 2025 with the lowest return in seven years, Bloomberg reported. The fund's bet on the natural gas market, which previously brought it billions, underperformed this year, the agency said.

Citadel's flagship Citadel fund is up 9.3% YTD through Dec. 18, according to a Bloomberg source familiar with the company's financial results. Strategies in equities, bonds, credit instruments and quant trading contributed positively. Even commodity assets, including natural gas, posted gains despite losses in the first half of the year.

For the fund this result turned out to be the worst for the last seven years, Bloomberg points out. Only six times since Citadel was founded in 1990, the fund showed a return below 10%, the agency notes. This emphasizes how important commodity trading, especially gas, has become for the fund in recent years.

A Citadel spokesman declined to comment.

According to LCH Investments, Citadel ranks No. 1 in hedge fund history in total returns, surpassing Ray Dalio's legendary Bridgewater. Citadel earned $16 billion in profits for clients in 2022, an all-time record for a single year among all hedge funds. Citadel's total profits for investors since inception have exceeded $65 billion.

Managing $72 billion in assets, Citadel has emerged in recent years as one of the biggest players in the commodities market, especially after Sebastian Barrack took the helm in 2017. Natural gas has become a key source of profit, with Citadel being one of the first hedge funds to build a trading division that focused on the physical delivery and storage of the fuel in North America.

In 2022, amid the energy crisis and record volatility, the fund earned about $8 billion from commodities trading - nearly half of its total return. In 2023 and 2024, revenue from the commodities business was maintained at $4 billion annually - again accounting for about 50% of the fund's total returns.

Nevertheless, even though earnings are down this year, the 9.3% growth will be Citadel's 17th consecutive year of positive returns - such stability allows the fund to not only attract more capital from investors, but also to hire the best talent in the industry, Bloomberg writes.

Citadel is not the only player to face difficulties in energy trading. Major oil and gas companies, commodity traders and competing hedge funds have also been under pressure as geopolitical instability and U.S. President Donald Trump's duties have triggered sharp and unpredictable price swings, complicating long-term market positions, Bloomberg notes. Nearly all funds with mixed strategies have underperformed the energy sector in 2025, the agency's sources note. However, unlike Citadel, they did not make such large bets on this segment, and the drawdown did not put so much pressure on their performance.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor