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It has been a tough year for the London-based hedge fund Algebris Investments.

Algebris, a $1.3 billion fund that focuses on global financial stocks, was down about 7 percent for the year through late June because of shares it held in European financial companies. Those stocks fell sharply recently amid fears they could have losses if Greece defaulted on its debt.

Still, undaunted by the risks that the Greek crisis could spread to other countries, managers at Algebris decided to buy more shares of European financial companies on the cheap.

“The volatility in the market gave us the opportunity to buy a number of stocks of European banks and insurance companies where we think there is tremendous value and the risk of systemic meltdown was very low,” said Eric Halet, co-founder of the fund.

As Greece’s fiscal turmoil has rattled global equity, bond and currency markets, hedge funds have scrambled to figure out how to make the big score.

Last week, financial markets rebounded sharply on news that the Greek Parliament had approved a tough austerity package, a move that staved off a default and was a condition for further international assistance.

Over the weekend, European ministers agreed to finance Greece through the summer but deferred crucial decisions on a second bailout.

After a two-hour conference call late on Saturday, the finance ministers from the 17 euro zone countries said they would sign off on an 8.7 billion euro, or $12.6 billion, loan to Greece, part of a 110 billion euro package agreed upon last year. The board of the International Monetary Fund was expected to approve its part of this installment, worth about $4.8 billion, within days.

Without the loans, the Greek government faced the prospect of insolvency in weeks. But with Greece still struggling to shore up its finances, European finance ministers also need to put together a second package of loans to help it through 2014. That bailout is expected to amount to 80 billion to 90 billion euros but the package may not be agreed upon until September.

The twists and turns of the crisis are making it tough for some hedge funds to maneuver.

While it is possible that a hedge fund received a hefty payday from betting that the euro would rise in value against the dollar or that Greece would not default on its debt, no big winners have emerged, several hedge fund investors and managers said.

Only nine out of the more than 300 hedge funds tracked by HSBC’s private bank through mid-June showed double-digit returns this year. In a separate survey, hedge funds tracked by Lyxor Asset Management showed that almost every fund lost money in June.

Some investors said that many hedge funds appeared to have sat out much of the euro zone crisis, particularly in bets involving Greek sovereign debt, concluding it was a “no-win situation,” said Gerlof de Vrij, the head of the global asset allocation team at APG Asset Management in the Netherlands, which oversees $395 billion in investments for seven Dutch pension funds.

“If you were long Greece, your investors are going to ask, ‘How could you be long? Why didn’t you see all the difficulties?’ ” De Vrij said. “And if you’re short, people will blame you for being a speculator and for all of the problems the country has.”

Those sentiments were echoed by Philippe Jabre, the former star trader of British hedge fund GLG, who now oversees Jabre Capital Partners, which is based in Geneva.

“The hedge fund industry, in general, is being sidelined because we know things will be tougher, we’re just not sure where it’s going to come from, so we’re trying to reduce our exposure,” Jabre said. He noted, for instance, that his firm had reduced its holdings of European banks.

Concerns that European regulators could suddenly ban short selling or take another unusual step to shore up their banks caused Pedro de Noronha, the manager of the $36 million Noster Capital Fund in London, to close out short positions, or bets he had made that European bank shares would fall some time ago. He positioned his fund instead to bet that the sovereign debt of emerging-market countries could run into trouble.

“The problem with being short with the European banks is that politicians will do everything they can to save them,” said De Noronha. “You’re fighting against people who can change the rules in the middle of the game.”

Some bank stocks have been under pressure from potential losses and downgrades from the ratings agencies because of the Greek debt they hold. In addition, investors have worried the additional capital requirements that regulators in the United States and Europe are demanding to shore up the banking systems and prevent broader systemic risk will sharply reduce profits.

Still Halet, from Algebris, said the market had overreacted to those concerns. “Yes, we do have exposures to European financials. We are not doing great,” he said. “But we’re not doing worse than many other hedge funds.”

The New York Times