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Hazeltree: Global markets reached new highs in April
28 May 2026 Global
Image: Tokyo/stock.adobe.com
Despite geopolitical turbulence and a mix of high volatility, global markets reached new highs during the month of April, according to Hazeltree’s April 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’s 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’s 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: “Despite the continued Middle East conflict and the rising cost of oil, global markets snapped back in April with a risk-on approach, particularly in the tech and semiconductor sectors, as hedge funds in our community data set followed.
“We noted in our analysis of the semiconductor sector that hedge fund positioning in Nvidia remained long-biased with softening at the margin, while long fund participation declined by approximately 4.5 per cent month-over-month, while short fund participation increased meaningfully in April.”
In North America, General Mills saw the highest increase in the large-cap short crowdedness category.
The Campbell's Company, and Repligen were the top of the mid-cap category, and Ziff Davis, T1 Energy, Tripadvisor, Kohl's, Lindblad Expeditions, and Douglas Emmett came top of the small-cap short crowdedness category.
In EMEA, Barry Callebaut topped the mid-cap short crowdedness category, and Domino's Pizza Group saw the biggest increase in EMEA’s small-cap short crowdedness.
In APAC’s large-cap short crowdedness category, Horizon Robotics, and Fujikura came top, for the mid-cap, Japan Steel Works, Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, and Alibaba Health came top.
JMDC and Nankai Co. topped APAC’s small-cap short crowdedness.
The monthly report provides a look back at hedge fund long and short crowdedness across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, based on Hazeltree’s 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’s 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: “Despite the continued Middle East conflict and the rising cost of oil, global markets snapped back in April with a risk-on approach, particularly in the tech and semiconductor sectors, as hedge funds in our community data set followed.
“We noted in our analysis of the semiconductor sector that hedge fund positioning in Nvidia remained long-biased with softening at the margin, while long fund participation declined by approximately 4.5 per cent month-over-month, while short fund participation increased meaningfully in April.”
In North America, General Mills saw the highest increase in the large-cap short crowdedness category.
The Campbell's Company, and Repligen were the top of the mid-cap category, and Ziff Davis, T1 Energy, Tripadvisor, Kohl's, Lindblad Expeditions, and Douglas Emmett came top of the small-cap short crowdedness category.
In EMEA, Barry Callebaut topped the mid-cap short crowdedness category, and Domino's Pizza Group saw the biggest increase in EMEA’s small-cap short crowdedness.
In APAC’s large-cap short crowdedness category, Horizon Robotics, and Fujikura came top, for the mid-cap, Japan Steel Works, Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, and Alibaba Health came top.
JMDC and Nankai Co. topped APAC’s small-cap short crowdedness.
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