Morgan Stanley's analysis of fund flow data up to the week ending August 13th revealed the following:
1. Hedge funds were net buyers of global equities that week, primarily driven by long positions. The increase in long positions was approximately three times the increase in short positions, with almost all demand concentrated in US stocks. Net long-short leverage in US equities rebounded from a low of 47% at the end of July to 58%, and total leverage rose to 209%.
2. The re-leveraging of asset portfolios has spread from AI to a wider range of sectors. Within AI, there was continued buying in semiconductors and hyperscale cloud service providers. The global storage sector saw its first genuine long demand since deleveraging in July, particularly from non-TMT diversified funds (TMT refers to technology, media, and communications). (These views are from Morgan Stanley's August 14th report.)
