NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Hedge fund investors are positioned for a possible recession after they posted a negative May performance, increasing their losses to nearly 3% this year, according to HFR’s Tuesday report.

HFR stated that May saw volatility in equities and bonds, which led to a drop in fund weighted compositeindices by 0.58%. However, all categories were in the negative zone. Still, 41% of all hedge fund compiled saw gains.

In the first five month of this year, equity hedge funds saw a loss of 8.8%. This is among the worst performances of any category of HFR-monitored hedge fund types. They still outperformed the, down 12.76%.

The year was tough for hedge funds, which invest in growth-oriented industries like healthcare and technology. Tiger Global lost 14%, which is 52% less than the industry’s largest firms.

HFR President Kenneth Heinz said that “Hedge funds outperformed U.S. Equities in May.” Managers had to navigate not only Russia/Ukraine’s ongoing war, record energy prices increases, generational inflation, rising interest rates and increased volatility, but also increased risks of a U.S. consumer-led economic recession.

Macro hedge fund managers who bet on macroeconomic trends saw a 9.32% increase in that same time frame, despite losing 0.31% to May.

Hedge funds have had a very different performance this year. Although the highest decile posted a positive average performance of 33.9% over the first five months, it was lower by 25.7% for the bottom.