Hedge Funds Lost A Bundle On IT, Cons. Discretionary, Biotech Longs

The March 2014 Hedge Fund Monthly Update from UBS financing services highlights important trends that impacted hedge funds returns by strategy in that month.

Hedge funds: US growth stocks in sell mode

“There was a notable sell-off in US growth stocks the last week of the month, particularly in Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary and Biotech names,” observes the research note. Hedge funds holding long positions in these sectors lost heavily during March, though on an overall basis, short positioning in the sectors balanced off some of the losses in the long-short strategy.

According to UBS’ analysis, in the IT sector, the 10 most crowded shorted stocks lost 3.4% while the 10 most crowded longs lost 2.4%, indicating the shorts made...