Hedge funds rose 2.2% last month, according to new figures from RBC Capital Markets.

The RBC Hedge 250 Index was paced by strong returns from event-driven credit and equity long/short funds. The former rose 3.85% in September (17.49% year-to-date) while the latter added 2.7% (23.42% YTD). The overall index is up 17.44% this year.

Fixed-income arbitrage funds also put in a strong month, rising 2.67% (17.26% YTD). Managed futures funds added 2.17% (3.97% YTD), mergers and special situations funds 2.15% (26.3% YTD) and multi-strategy funds 1.82% (12.42% YTD).

The year’s best-performing strategy, convertible arbitrage, trailed its peers in September with a return of just 1.1%. Despite that, and its 0.39% decline last month, it remains far-and-away the strongest strategy of 2009 with a 60.08% return.

Just one of the RBC index’s substrategies lost ground last month: equity market-neutral, which fell 1.18% on the month, but is up 1.99% on the year.