The chronic underperformance of the hedge fund industry is well-documented. In the first quarter of 2017, the hedge fund industry trailed the broader stock market by more than two percentage points, +3.2% for fund managers versus +5.5% for the S&P 500, according to industry tracker Preqin.
“You wonder why the performance of the hedge fund indices is so horrendous,” says Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough, “they’re all doing the same thing, after the market moves. You shouldn’t be paid for that.”
Case in point, McCullough says in the video above from The Macro Show earlier today, last week Wall Street consensus piled into a short position in the Russell 2000 just before a +3.9% move higher for the small cap index over the past five days of trading.
Rather than accumulating a short position in the Russell 2000, Wall Street could have acquired long positions in our favorite sectors: Technology (XLK), Consumer Discretionary (XLY) and Financials (XLF). All of these sectors were among the market leaders on yesterday’s stock market pop.
“A lot of people have been bitching and moaning about the Russell and the Financials because they’ve been shorting them after they go down,” McCullough says. In the video above, McCullough explains why we’re bullish on Tech, Consumer Discretionary and Financials and adamantly takes Wall Street to task for perennial underperformance.