The last time we looked at which stock is at the penthouse floor [8]of the hedge fund hotel (as of December 31), we learned that virtually everyone had heard the "long GM" idea dinner pitch. That was when GM stock was about 20% higher, wasn't splayed out in front of Congress in a humiliating scandal exposing management for a bunch of bottom-line hungry pseudo-criminals, and had announced about 15 million less recalls, which probably explains why hedge funds are not only underperforming the S&P500 for the 6th year in a row, but are down YTD as a group.
And while on Friday we showed what the most hated (by everyone) Russell 2000 stocks [9] are as of the most recent period (and hence most susceptible to epic short squeezes), here is a listing of what the most beloved stocks, by hedge funds, are as of March 31 courtesy of Goldman Sachs.
One thing to note: just like in the case of first Apple, then GM, any time virtually everyone piles into the most held stock, it means just one thing - there are no marginal buyers left.
Another thing to note: while Google is now the most popular hedge fund hotel stock, above both Apple and GM, as a result of recent gross deleveraging across the hedge fund community the 158 holders of GOOG are still less than the 167 hedge funds who were long the stock as of December 31 [10].
[11]
Here is how the popularity of various stocks changed during 2014: below is a list of the largest positive and negative popularity changes. With GM rapidly becoming the most loathed by the HF community stock, one wonders: does anyone do any due diligence anymore?
[12]
Which is why if anyone wants to put on the most contrarian trade possible, it would be going long the most shorted stock in the Russell 2000, Blyth, and pairing that with a short in Google.