Melvin Capital Has Another Bad January After Raising $6 Billion in 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Melvin Capital Management, after raising almost $6 billion last year, just booked another January of steep losses.

Gabe Plotkin's hedge fund tumbled 15% last month, according to a person familiar with the matter, compared with a 9% drop for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index and 5.3% decline for the S&P 500.

The first month of last year was even worse. The fund plunged almost 55%, erasing roughly $7 billion of capital, as short wagers on meme stocks such as GameStop Corp. turned sour.  

Even after gaining about 33% in the months that followed, Plotkin was still down 39.3% for the year. He now needs to gain about 94% to break even.  

Melvin pulled in $3.2 billion of fresh capital later in the year, according to filings, after raising $2.75 billion in January from investors including Ken Griffin's Citadel and Steve Cohen's Point72 Asset Management.   

Read more: Citadel, Point72 Back Melvin With $2.75 Billion After Losses

The Wall Street Journal reported last month's returns earlier Wednesday.

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