Eclectica Fund is one of the more popular of the “global macro” hedge funds out there, which has been managing money for investors for 15 years and has led the firm to receive accolades from investors who have seen market beating returns for most of those years. But in 2017, when the market is up 15%, the once darling macro fund is down 9.4%.

What went wrong?

Let’s back up a bit. The fund is run by Hugh Hendry, a Scottish hedge fund manager who famously bet against banks during the 2007-2009 financial crisis and made a big enough return to gain the respect of the financial community. That led to attracting more and more capital, but that didn’t translate into better performance this year (although his performance in prior years was impressive, such as the 31% gain he got in 2008).

Let’s talk a bit about Hendry’s investment approach. Macroeconomic investing is driven by a look at large economy-wide data and trends and making investments that will theoretically benefit from those trends. For instance, Hendry toured China in 2009 and concluded that the country’s economic growth was not really as strong as the government claimed—which resulted in him making a very famous short bet on several Chinese stocks.

Global macro is a relatively new investment strategy, and it intersects with several other investment strategies. Many hedge funds use a combination of macro and micro—that is, they will use a broader theory about the economy (the U.S. is getting stronger, jobs are paying better, etc.) with a specific theory about a single company (this firm’s business is solid, its cash flow is growing, and it has a dominant market position that it can protect from competition). Eclectica Fund was notoriously skimpy on the latter, depending instead on an international approach that combined due diligence that some fundamental investors could criticize as shallow or superficial. For instance, when Hendry toured China’s infamous “ghost cities,” many opponents pointed out (quite rightly, it so happened to turn out) that this is how China operates: it first builds big cities and then moves entire populations in after they’re finished being built. Since this is culturally and structurally different from the way things work in Europe, Hendry’s occidental prejudices got in the way of his investment decision.

On the other hand, some would defend Hendry’s investment style by pointing out that he did get a lot of things right. But in recent interviews following the shuttering of his fund, Hendry has hinted that global macro as a standalone methodology was no longer working for him, although the usual culprits (quantitative easing, for one) were blamed for making alpha generation impossible.

It’s important to remember that many global macro funds still exist, and many that rely on global macro as one of many methodologies remain incredibly popular—and profitable. But in Hendry’s fall we may learn something about what global macro methods work and whether the efficacy of those methods is changing.