After Monday’s trillion-dollar sell-off, big money investors are doing what retail investors typically do: buying the dips.
Hedge funds that are both bullish and bearish snapped up individual U.S. stocks at the fastest pace since March, reversing months of selling as new investors sold off, according to data compiled by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Prime Brokerage. Institutional investors bought a net $14 billion of stocks during the market sell-off, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysis.
Professional traders chose the worst day of the year to get back into the market, reinforcing a host of bullish arguments, including that all the volatility is an overreaction to economic data that, while weakening, has not yet confirmed a recession.
The sharp rebound in stocks suggests hedge funds are on to something. But it will take more than Tuesday’s rally to prove the pros can beat day traders, as market valuations are high by almost any measure.
“It’s like seeing a 10% discount on a designer bag you’ve always wanted,” said Max Gokhman, senior vice president of Franklin Fidelity Investment Solutions. “It’s still expensive, but you can tell yourself it’s a good price.”
The S&P 500 rose about 1% on Tuesday, a day after its worst performance in nearly two years. The Nasdaq 100 rose by a similar amount. Wall Street's main fear gauge, the Cboe VIX Index, fell from its highest level so far in 2020, and the VVIX, a measure of VIX volatility, also fell.
After Tuesday’s rebound, the recent plunge in U.S. stocks seems less horrific. The decline over the past five days is 3.6%, which is in line with similar corrections over the past five years.
Whether Monday's stock market volatility marks a bottom is anyone's guess, and investors' list of worries remains long. Earnings results from Big Tech giants sparked concerns that spending on artificial intelligence is too high relative to short-term returns. Last week's monthly jobs report added to concerns that the Federal Reserve waited too long to cut interest rates.
Before professional investors returned to U.S. stocks on Monday, hedge funds had been pulling out of individual stocks for the past few months, with July seeing the biggest reduction in notional value since 2016, according to Goldman Sachs data.
While concerns remain, some investors say recession anxiety, which has sent the Nasdaq 100 into correction territory and the S&P 500 down 7%, is premature.
Earnings season showed S&P 500 companies' second-quarter profits grew 12%, and more than 80% of earnings reports exceeded expectations, according to Bloomberg Intelligence data.
"Many hedge funds view the sell-off as a buying opportunity," said Jonathan Caplis, chief executive of hedge fund research firm PivotalPath. “When we talk to most fund managers, they frame the current issues as short-term and sentiment-driven rather than long-term issues with public corporate fundamentals or even the broader U.S. economy.”
If history is any guide, the recent pullback does represent opportunity. Since 1980, the S&P 500 has delivered a median return of 6% in the three months following a 5% decline from a recent high, according to data from Goldman Sachs’ strategy team led by David Kostin.
Kostin’s team made no recommendations in its findings. But it warned that a 10% plunge in the benchmark index would have a “significantly different” outlook if it occurred in an environment of resilient economic growth than in a pre-recession correction. They noted that while growth-sensitive cyclical stocks have lagged defensive shares in this month’s sell-off, U.S. stocks are still not pricing in an economic contraction.
Meanwhile, Citigroup’s strategy team warned this week that “recessionary scenarios are simply not priced in.”
Citi strategist Beata Manthey wrote in a memo that the bank's so-called "bear market checklist" - a gauge that includes equity valuations, the yield curve, investor sentiment and profitability - recommends "buying the dips." But she said: "We will have more confidence once we see more complete evidence of positioning adjustments."
Article forwarded from: Jinshi Data