Americas hedge funds month over month crowdedness moved in tandem, with longs led by Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta and shorts centered on IBM, Strategy, and Synopsys
NEW YORK & LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Hedge fund crowdedness in 2025 diverged sharply by region, reflecting fundamentally different economic drivers across North America, EMEA, and APAC, according to Hazeltree, a leading provider of integrated treasury and liquidity management solutions for alternative asset managers.
Key takeaways from today’s just-published Hazeltree Crowdedness Report – 2025 Year in Review include:
- Technology, Financials, and Healthcare dominated crowdedness positioning in North America, underscoring the market’s continued focus on intangible assets and AI monetization.
- EMEA crowdedness rotated toward Industrials and Financials, driven by policy-led investment tied to defense and energy spending.
- APAC positioning centered on Industrials and Technology Hardware, highlighting the region’s role as the manufacturing and supply-chain backbone of the global AI build-out.
- Across all regions, Consumer Discretionary became a “global battlefield” for hedge funds, with crowdedness divergence reflective of where goods are sold and made.
The annual report offers a look back at hedge fund long and short crowdedness across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, based on Hazeltree’s analysis of anonymized data from 16,000 securities in its community of more than 600 asset management firms. The addition of long crowdedness is a new layer of analysis for its external reporting.
An insightful aspect of this new report is Hazeltree’s month-over-month crowdedness heatmap, which tracks changes in hedge fund positioning across regions and sectors throughout the year.
“Our heatmap analysis demonstrated the long and short side moved in tandem most of the year for those crowded sectors within the North America region, such as Consumer Discretionary, Financials, and Information Technology sector,” according to Tim Smith, Managing Director, Data Insights, Hazeltree. “Meanwhile, longs in the Healthcare sector picked up volume in the month of September while the shorts remained stable throughout the year.”
At the security level, hedge fund longs remained heavily crowded in large-cap technology stocks such as Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms, reflecting continued conviction in software and services companies with visible AI monetization. On the short side, crowding persisted in names including IBM and Strategy, while Synopsys emerged as an increasingly crowded short as concerns grew around execution risk tied to its pending Ansys acquisition.
Within Financials, banks took center stage in claiming the title of the most crowded across longs and shorts. Citigroup, Bank of America, and U.S. Bancorp led the field for longs based on successful turnaround stories and high-efficiency growth targets, while Wells Fargo, JPMorganChase, and KeyCorp led the most crowded space for shorts.
In Healthcare, heatmap trends show two-sided crowding concentrated in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and life sciences, with longs increasingly focused on Merck, while shorts rotated toward Amgen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Revvity, reflecting sensitivity to valuation and margin pressure as the year progressed.
Further Highlights from the Year in Review Hedge Fund Report include:
North America: Intangible Assets Focused, Sector-Neutral Positioning
- Divergence data shows Information Technology as the most crowded sector on both the long and short sides throughout the year. Scatter analysis places the sector firmly in the high-long, high-short quadrant, signaling a highly grossed market where hedge funds maintained large offsetting positions. Financials and Healthcare also featured prominently, while Consumer Discretionary and Energy showed slightly more bearish skew.
EMEA: Industrials Lead as Policy and Macro Drive Crowding
- Industrials dominated crowded positioning on both sides of the book, reflecting sustained exposure to capital goods and policy-driven themes. Divergence analysis shows Financials skewing more bullish, while Consumer Staples stood out as a relatively bearish outlier. Scatter charts reinforce that crowding in the region was more concentrated and structurally driven than in the Americas.
APAC: Physical Infrastructure Over Software
- Across APAC, divergence and scatter data highlight persistent crowding in Industrials and Information Technology, with positioning rotating between the two sectors throughout the year. Unlike North America, crowding here was anchored in manufacturing, capital goods, and technology hardware, underscoring the region’s role in global supply chains rather than software-led growth.
Looking Ahead to 2026
As 2026 begins amid ongoing geopolitical frictions, divergence and volatility are likely to remain defining market themes. At the same time, the potential onset of a historic IPO super-cycle—including anticipated debuts from companies such as SpaceX, Stripe, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks—places markets at a crossroads, where heightened uncertainty may also create new opportunities for well-informed investors.
To view Hazeltree’s 2025 Year in Review Hedge Fund Report and past reports, click here.
Methodology
The “Hazeltree Crowdedness Report – 2025 Year in Review” analysis is based on anonymized and aggregated positioning data from its hedge fund client base and examines crowding patterns across regions and sectors during 2025. It covers the full period from January through December 2025.
- Divergence Bar Chart
The divergence bar chart shows the 2025 average crowdedness score by sector and region. Long positions are represented on the blue side of the chart and short positions on the red side, enabling a comparison of long and short positioning within each sector.
- Scatter (Bubble) Chart
The scatter chart plots the 2025 average long crowdedness score by sector and region on the X-axis and the 2025 average short crowdedness score on the Y-axis. Bubble size reflects the aggregate market capitalization of the constituent securities within each sector and region.
- Crowdedness Heatmap
The heatmap displays month-over-month changes in crowdedness during 2025 for long and short positionings at the regional and sector level. Crowdedness is measured using an indexed fund count, calculated as the fund count in each month divided by the January fund count for the same region and sector. January is indexed to 1 for long positions and −1 for short positions. Higher color intensity indicates a higher degree of crowding.
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About Hazeltree
Hazeltree is the leading provider of treasury and liquidity management and optimization solutions purpose-built for the alternative investment industry. Trusted by more than 600 investment firms managing over $4 trillion in assets, Hazeltree empowers hedge funds, private markets firms, and asset managers to enhance operational efficiency, reduce risk, and unlock alpha. Hazeltree’s cloud-based platform facilitates nearly $8 billion in daily transactions across more than 10,000 funds. By delivering seamless connectivity across counterparties and service providers, Hazeltree enables clients to optimize cash, credit facilities, margin, and fees—driving stronger returns and greater transparency across the investment lifecycle. Hazeltree is headquartered in New York with offices in London, Bournemouth, and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit www.hazeltree.com.
Contacts
Media Contact:
Ben Tanner
Hazeltree
[email protected]
