Hedge funds share a few bets. These crowded systematic and idiosyncratic exposures are the main sources of the industry’s relative performance and of many firms’ returns. Two factors and three stocks were behind most herding of hedge fund long U.S. equity positions in Q2 2015. Investors should treat consensus ideas with caution: Crowded stocks are prone […]
Hedge funds share a few systematic and idiosyncratic bets. These crowded bets are the main sources of the industry’s relative performance and of many individual funds’ returns. Three factors and four stocks were behind the majority of hedge fund long U.S. equity herding during Q1 2015. Investors should treat crowded ideas with caution: Crowded stocks are […]
Hedge funds share a few systematic and idiosyncratic bets. These crowded bets are the main sources of the industry’s relative performance and of many individual funds’ returns. We survey risk factors and stocks responsible for the majority of hedge fund long U.S. equity herding during Q4 2014. Investors should treat crowded ideas with caution: Due to […]
U.S. hedge funds share a few systematic and idiosyncratic long bets. These crowded bets are the main sources of aggregate hedge fund relative performance and of many individual funds’ returns. We survey the risk factors and the stocks behind most of Q3 2014 hedge fund herding. Investors should treat crowded ideas with caution: Due to the […]
The March to Uniformity – Illustrated and Quantified We examined the evolution of systematic, idiosyncratic, and total risk of long equity hedge fund portfolios relative to each other. We found decreasing differentiation and increasing herding over time. In summary, over the past 10 years total differentiation declined by 30% while systematic (factor) differentiation declined by […]
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowding U.S. hedge funds share a few systematic and stock-specific long bets. These crowded bets are the main sources of aggregate long hedge fund relative performance as well as many individual funds’ returns. Two risk factors and six stocks are behind most of this herding. The crowded stocks […]
Rapid asset flows into smart beta strategies have led to concerns about froth and a vigorous debate among systematic portfolio vendors. At the same time, few discussions of smart beta crowding are burdened by data on the aggregate risk of smart beta strategies. This article attempts to remedy this data vacuum. We survey the risk factors […]
Asset outflows and portfolio liquidations have devastated crowded hedge fund bets since 2015. Losses have been especially severe in the Finance Sector. We survey hedge fund finance sector crowding and identify the stocks driving it. Investors and allocators must be vigilant: when capital flows out, these bets tend to suffer sharp losses. When capital flows […]
And Their Consensus Industrials Ideas in 2016 The challenges of identifying good investors and distilling their skill obscure the top stock pickers’ consistently strong performance. For instance, contrary to popular wisdom 2015 was a good year for stock picking. These results also generally apply to large market sub-segments such as the Industrials sector. In this […]
Crowding consists of large capital pools chasing related strategies. Within the hedge fund industry, long equity portfolios crowd into several clusters with similar systematic (factor) and idiosyncratic (residual) bets. This hedge fund clustering is the internal structure of crowding. We illustrate the large-scale hedge fund clustering and crowded bets within the largest cluster. Allocators and […]