LONDON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Gold and coffee helped to

deliver trend-following hedge funds a positive result in

September, a Societe Generale note showed on Tuesday, thanks to

record commodities prices, rising equities and falling interest

rates.

Gold has surged almost 30% this year to a record high on

Sept. 26. The precious metal has been one of the best performing

financial assets in 2024 for these kinds of hedge funds which

use price and trading volumes data to find and trade market

trends, said the SocGen note seen by Reuters.

Robusta coffee futures also reached record highs

last month.

Top coffee producer Brazil has suffered a drought which has

impacted much of the crop for the 2024-2025 season, pushing up

prices.

The mean return for the group of 96 funds tracked by Societe

Generale's prime brokerage trading desk returned roughly 0.7%

for September, with the highest return coming in at a positive

7.41% and the lowest at a negative 15.77% said the note.

Over half of the trend funds posted a positive return for

the month, the bank research showed.

The Australian dollar, though adding to hedge fund

performance in September, has drained the most from trend hedge

funds this year, the SocGen note said.

Other losing positions for the year-to-date included the

Mexican peso, silver and natural gas, it said. Sterling, though

it proved a positive position in September was still a losing

position for trend funds in the year so far.

The bank research did not show which pairs were on the other

side of the currency crosses, nor what kind of way the

commodities trades were structured.

New notable positions that trend followers entered towards

the end of September included long positions in Hong Kong's Hang

Seng stock index, sugar, silver, lean hogs, German and

Spanish stock indices the Canadian, Australian

and New Zealand dollar, said the bank.

A long position is essentially a bet that an asset will

rise in value.