Blow-Off Top: After 8 Weeks Of Selling, Hedge Funds Capitulate And Buy Stocks At The Fastest Pace Since 2021

For much of the second half of the year, and certainly since the August carry trade splat, it felt like stocks were climbing a wall of worry because even as record stock buybacks pushed the market to daily all time highs - on Friday, the S&P closed at its 45th all-time high of the year, making the 2024 S&P performance through Friday the best of the 21st century...

... but then everything flipped last week, because as Goldman's Prime Brokerage writes in its must read Weekly Rundown note (available to pro subs), after 8 straight weeks of selling, HFs net bought US equities at the fastest pace in 4 months, driven entirely by Single Stocks which saw the largest net buying since Dec ‘21, and by long buys and short covers (1.2 to 1).