As we have repeatedly pointed out, the one surest way to generate profits in these manipulated, broken markets is to take advantage of the one legacy trade that makes zero sense in a world in which the global central banks are the ultimate providers of downside risk protection: i.e., going long the most shorted names. We did just this most recently past Friday, when we listed the latest hedge fund long hotel, as well as the names most shorted by the “sophisticated” investors, saying “anyone going long these names is virtually assured to outperform the market over the next year.” One day later and this “strategy” is already generating outsized alpha, with the most shorted names solidly outperforming the market.
And as the case may, this latest bout of “most shorted” outperformance is set to continue for one main reason. As the CFTC reported last friday, institutional investors using Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures turned bearish this month for the first time since September 2012.
Incidentally, September 2012 is precisely when we first said that the one trade guaranteed to generate outsized returns is to go long the most shorted names. This is what happened next:
As Bloomberg reports: “Hedge funds and other large speculators have been net short for the last two weeks, wagering that the S&P 500 (SPX) will decrease in value, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.”
This is how the net HF exposure looks like:
Bloomberg adds:
“Everyone made a ton of money last year being long and they may be hedging their portfolios in the S&P 500 futures market,†Eric Green, director of research and fund manager at Penn Capital Management, said by phone on Feb. 21. The Philadelphia-based firm oversees $7.5 billion. “The bad economic data and the emerging-market news that broke in January have all contributed to more negative sentiment.â€
