Jefferies: The percentage of institutional investors increasing their holdings of US software stocks is at an all-time low

Zhitong Finance learned that in Jefferies's position survey, the percentage of institutional investors increasing their holdings of software stocks by 19% was at an all-time low. This percentage has been declining in 2024, starting at 51% in January and then falling to 28% in July. Michael Toomey, head of stock trading at Jefferies Technology, Media and Telecom, said the latest move was “very interesting” given the excellent performance of the software industry so far in the second half of 2024 and the price response over the past two weeks.

Cloud computing software company ServiceNow (NOW.US) was the most crowded shorting stock for two consecutive quarters, while data warehouse company Snowflake (SNOW.US) became the second-most crowded shorting stock for three consecutive quarters. Jefferies investigates institutional investors' positions in various TMT sub-industries before making a profit.

Referring to TMT Trading's October 2024 position survey, Toomey said, “It is also worth emphasizing that the respondents listed 54 different software stocks as crowded short targets, which is lower than the 73 in our July survey. Adobe (ADBE.US) remains one of the most controversial names in the software industry.” he said. The survey continued from September 30 to October 11.

Crowded targets (other than Microsoft):

ServiceNow, Oracle (ORCL.US), SAP (SAP.US), Palantir (PLTR.US), Datadog (DDOG.US), Palo Alto Networks (PANW.US), CrowdStrike (CRWD.US), Adobe (ADBE.US), Workday (WDAY.US).

The targets of the empty crowds (other than Microsoft):

Adobe, Snowflake, Seflex, MongoDB (MDB.US), Zscaler (ZS.US) CrowdStrike, Palantir, Atlassian (TEAM.US), Oracle.