Abstract The concept of uncertainty in investment returns, as an additional consideration to the traditional mean-variance framework, is receiving increased attention in the finance literature. This article examines the financial market relationship between uncertainty and hedge fund returns, finding that a readily available proxy for uncertainty (the CBOE® VVIX index) is a useful indicator of next-month hedge fund returns. Hedge funds in the highest quintile of VVIX index sensitivity outperform those in the lowest quintile of uncertainty by 5.97% annually, on average. The results of the study indicate that the use of this parsimonious measure of uncertainty compares favorably to more complex measures of uncertainty that have previously been analyzed.