Hazeltree: Hedge funds experience volatility in March
17 April 2026 Global
Image: Yanka/stock.adobe.com
Global hedge funds experienced volatility and uncertainty in March as investor concerns reached a 鈥渇ever pitch鈥�, according to Hazeltree鈥檚 March 2026 Crowdness Report.
The monthly report provides a look back at hedge fund long and short crowdedness across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, based on Hazeltree鈥檚 analysis of anonymised data from more than 600 funds, covering approximately 16,000 securities.
It includes the 10 most crowded regional long and short positions, broken out by large, mid, and small-cap categories.
Hazeltree defines the crowdedness score as a relative metric that normalises the number of funds in the Hazeltree鈥檚 community longing or shorting a given security within a pre-defined group (by region and market cap) compared to its peers.
Tim Smith, managing director of data insights at Hazeltree, says: 鈥淲hen we analysed our previous Crowdedness Report, the Middle East conflict had just begun on 28 February and little did we know what a significant impact it would have across broad global market sectors, with the exception of energy.
鈥淓nergy stocks proved to be a magnet for hedge fund inflows likely due to a combination of macro positioning and geopolitical risk.
鈥淲e noted from our hedge fund community, EQT Corporation, the only large-scale, vertically integrated natural gas producer, emerged as a top energy security, receiving a 24 per cent increase of funds long on the stock and 36 per cent decrease of funds short on the stock compared to the prior month.鈥�
In North America, Cloudflare, Nebius Group, and Brown & Brown saw the highest increases in the large-cap short crowdedness category.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, MGM Resorts International, and Terawulf were the top of the mid-cap category, and Eos Energy Enterprises, Pagaya Technologies, Canadian Solar, Xometry, and Pacira Biosciences came top of the small-cap short crowdedness category.
In EMEA, AUTO1 Group topped the mid-cap short crowdedness category, and Tate & Lyle, and Sinch AB saw the biggest increase in EMEA鈥檚 small-cap short crowdedness.
In APAC鈥檚 large-cap short crowdedness category, Xiaomi Corp and Alibaba Health Information Technology came top, and for the small-cap, IPH came top.
The monthly report provides a look back at hedge fund long and short crowdedness across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, based on Hazeltree鈥檚 analysis of anonymised data from more than 600 funds, covering approximately 16,000 securities.
It includes the 10 most crowded regional long and short positions, broken out by large, mid, and small-cap categories.
Hazeltree defines the crowdedness score as a relative metric that normalises the number of funds in the Hazeltree鈥檚 community longing or shorting a given security within a pre-defined group (by region and market cap) compared to its peers.
Tim Smith, managing director of data insights at Hazeltree, says: 鈥淲hen we analysed our previous Crowdedness Report, the Middle East conflict had just begun on 28 February and little did we know what a significant impact it would have across broad global market sectors, with the exception of energy.
鈥淓nergy stocks proved to be a magnet for hedge fund inflows likely due to a combination of macro positioning and geopolitical risk.
鈥淲e noted from our hedge fund community, EQT Corporation, the only large-scale, vertically integrated natural gas producer, emerged as a top energy security, receiving a 24 per cent increase of funds long on the stock and 36 per cent decrease of funds short on the stock compared to the prior month.鈥�
In North America, Cloudflare, Nebius Group, and Brown & Brown saw the highest increases in the large-cap short crowdedness category.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, MGM Resorts International, and Terawulf were the top of the mid-cap category, and Eos Energy Enterprises, Pagaya Technologies, Canadian Solar, Xometry, and Pacira Biosciences came top of the small-cap short crowdedness category.
In EMEA, AUTO1 Group topped the mid-cap short crowdedness category, and Tate & Lyle, and Sinch AB saw the biggest increase in EMEA鈥檚 small-cap short crowdedness.
In APAC鈥檚 large-cap short crowdedness category, Xiaomi Corp and Alibaba Health Information Technology came top, and for the small-cap, IPH came top.
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