Hedge Funds Poured $86 Billion Into Stocks — Should You Follow the Smart Money?

“Goldman Sachs published a note late last Thursday, revealing that systematic hedge funds, the algorithm driven funds known as CTAs or Commodity Trading Advisors, bought 86 billion of stock exposure over the last five trading sessions. That ranks as one of the largest buying surges in the history of these funds. They further estimated another 90 billion could follow over the next five sessions if the signal stays aligned.”

“CTA flows are a short-term momentum signal. They are not, not, not, not, a fundamental endorsement. The algorithms are buying because prices are rising. They don't know and they don't care whether the war ends, whether earnings hold, or whether the consumer cracks. The smart money is in. But the smart money isn't always right. It's just faster.”

“There is a fundamental difference between financial markets and the real economy. They are not the same thing. Markets can be at all time highs while the economy is struggling. Now, where we are right now is not a struggling economy. It is a labor market that is a bit more weak, a bit weaker than it was last year. It's a consumer that is a bit more strained by inflationary pressures.”

“Traders have abandoned their bets on a stronger dollar, and the greenback is on course for its worst month since August. Dollar index is down 2.3% from its late March peak. The euro has recovered almost all the losses it made in the conflict's first week. The dollar's loss ground against every major currency except the yen so far in April.”

“The industries where they said we'd see the most wage gains from reduced labor supply are actually seeing slower growth in the broader economy. Employment in those 41 immigrant dependent industries fell by 90,400 in February from the previous February, while overall employment grew 298,000. The fundamental economic concept at work here is a lump of labor fallacy.”

“Alternative Asset Managers are very rate-sensitive. Higher for longer rates, they compress private equity deal activity, they slow realizations, they reduce fundraising momentum. There's definitely a lot of downside risk because of how private investments are valued and oftentimes you don't know how bad things are in private markets until they get really bad.”

“In a way, it is a toll road on America's aging water pipe replacement cycle. But daily average sales growth is down. There is a clear demand cooling trend. Private construction is soft. Tariff driven input costs, uncertainty, another overhang here. It is, in many ways, a high quality infrastructure distributor at a multi-year low valuation.”