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Hazeltree: Managers demonstrate more confidence in May
19 June 2026 US
Image: Fahng/stock.adobe.com
Global hedge funds maintained a strong appetite for technology and semiconductor companies for the last month, continuing a trend that has persisted throughout much of 2026 despite inflation concerns, rising energy prices, ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and questions surrounding fiscal sustainability, according to Hazeltree’s May 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: “Based on May global equity market activity and the activity we observed in Hazeltree’s hedge fund community, managers demonstrated more confidence that the market rally had legs despite lingering concerns about inflation, energy prices, and geopolitical tensions.
“We kept a close eye on semiconductor names and NXP Semiconductors' long-to-short fund count ratio nearly doubled from roughly 2:1 in April to 4:1 in May — the biggest improvement in the entire sector.
“We were particularly intrigued by hedge fund positioning in NXP, including long fund participation increasing approximately 17.3 per cent month-over-month, with short fund participation declining and a rise of 10 per cent in its stock price between April and May.”
In North America, ON Semiconductor and Omnicom saw the highest increase in the large-cap short crowdedness category.
Hyatt was at the top of the mid-cap category, and Flowers Foods and CBIZ came top of the small-cap short crowdedness category.
In EMEA, Adyen came top of the large-cap short crowdedness category.
In APAC’s large-cap short crowdedness category, Lasertec came top, for the mid-cap, and Silex Systems, Kyoritsu, Ube, and DroneShield 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: “Based on May global equity market activity and the activity we observed in Hazeltree’s hedge fund community, managers demonstrated more confidence that the market rally had legs despite lingering concerns about inflation, energy prices, and geopolitical tensions.
“We kept a close eye on semiconductor names and NXP Semiconductors' long-to-short fund count ratio nearly doubled from roughly 2:1 in April to 4:1 in May — the biggest improvement in the entire sector.
“We were particularly intrigued by hedge fund positioning in NXP, including long fund participation increasing approximately 17.3 per cent month-over-month, with short fund participation declining and a rise of 10 per cent in its stock price between April and May.”
In North America, ON Semiconductor and Omnicom saw the highest increase in the large-cap short crowdedness category.
Hyatt was at the top of the mid-cap category, and Flowers Foods and CBIZ came top of the small-cap short crowdedness category.
In EMEA, Adyen came top of the large-cap short crowdedness category.
In APAC’s large-cap short crowdedness category, Lasertec came top, for the mid-cap, and Silex Systems, Kyoritsu, Ube, and DroneShield topped APAC’s small-cap short crowdedness.
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