Citadel’s Wellington Fund Posts 10.2% Gain as 2025 Market Swings Roil Investors

Citadel’s flagship multistrategy Wellington fund ended 2025 with a 10.2% return, navigating a year of pronounced market volatility that tested many money managers and briefly pushed major U.S. equity benchmarks toward bear-market territory.

The performance details, confirmed by a person familiar with the firm’s private results, highlight how the Chicago-based investment firm managed by billionaire founder Ken Griffin balanced risk and opportunity during a turbulent 12-month stretch. The gains arrived despite rapid shifts in sentiment caused by renewed trade frictions, wide moves in interest-rate expectations and a sharp equity sell-off sparked by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement in early April.

Citadel’s diversified approach produced mixed but overall positive outcomes across its main strategies:

• The multistrategy Wellington fund advanced 10.2% for the full year.
• The tactical trading fund, which combines equity positioning with quantitative techniques, rose 18.6%.
• The fundamental equity strategy gained 14.5%.
• The global fixed income fund increased 9.4%.

Citadel declined to comment on the figures. The privately held firm does not routinely disclose monthly or annual returns, and the individual providing the data requested anonymity because the information is confidential.

The results place Citadel’s largest portfolio behind the broader market on a headline basis, though the comparison is complicated by differences in leverage, risk targets and asset mix. The S&P 500 gained 16.4% in 2025, notching a third consecutive year of double-digit appreciation. However, the index’s path to its year-end level was far from linear. In April, the benchmark lost ground rapidly after the White House announced new tariffs covering a wide range of imported goods, a move that revived fears of a protracted trade war. At the worst point of the decline, the S&P 500 slipped to within a fraction of the 20% threshold that typically defines a bear market.

Citadel’s leadership responded to the volatile backdrop by actively managing exposure across asset classes. Wellington, launched in 1990, is designed to deploy capital dynamically among equities, commodities, fixed income, credit and quantitative strategies, seeking attractive risk-adjusted returns rather than outsized directional bets. Since inception, the fund has delivered an annualized return of about 19%, according to the person familiar with the data.

Alongside the performance update, the firm is taking steps to control its overall asset base. Citadel plans to return roughly $5 billion of 2025 profits to clients, a move intended to limit capital growth and preserve the nimble structure that executives consider critical to the fund’s investment process. After the distribution, assets under management are expected to decline to about $67 billion from approximately $72 billion.

Citadel’s size-management practice is not new. The firm has periodically capped or reduced external capital to avoid diluting returns or overwhelming trading strategies that work best with carefully calibrated position sizes. Such decisions resonate with institutional investors who weigh liquidity, capacity and track records when allocating to multistrategy managers.

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The double-digit advance in tactical trading underscores the contribution of quantitative models and rapid execution to Citadel’s overall outcomes. This fund integrates systematic stock selection, statistical arbitrage and real-time risk controls, allowing it to exploit short-term dislocations that often accompany macroeconomic surprises or abrupt changes in monetary-policy expectations. Meanwhile, the global fixed income portfolio benefited from opportunities in sovereign bonds, interest-rate derivatives and relative-value trades as central banks adjusted policy signals through the year.

Citadel’s founder Ken Griffin, 56, maintained a public profile in 2025, speaking at financial conferences and industry gatherings. In November 2024, he addressed the Economic Club of New York at The Plaza Hotel, outlining his views on markets, regulation and the economy. While such appearances offer glimpses into the firm’s philosophy, Citadel rarely elaborates on specific positioning or real-time strategy allocations.

The broader hedge-fund landscape recorded mixed results during the year. Managers with concentrated equity exposure often struggled in the spring downturn, while macro and multistrategy firms that actively shifted allocation fared better. Investors continued to scrutinize fees and redemption terms, emphasizing transparency and consistent performance as prerequisites for capital commitments.

Cautious optimism characterizes the outlook heading into 2026. Market participants remain alert to the potential impact of trade negotiations, fiscal-policy developments and the Federal Reserve’s rate trajectory. Citadel’s decision to trim assets suggests a focus on agility as the firm prepares for another period of possible cross-asset volatility.

Crédito da imagem: Brendan McDermid / Reuters