Investing.com — Hedge funds and mutual funds both added shares of Bloom Energy, Flex and Seagate Technology last quarter, Goldman Sachs said, as the two investor groups selectively adjusted their exposure to artificial-intelligence-related equities even as they diverged sharply on other AI names.
The brokerage said hedge funds remain more exposed to the AI trade than mutual funds overall, but both groups shifted positions in AI stocks during the second quarter of 2026.
Mutual funds bought shares in Advanced Micro Devices, Micron Technology and SanDisk, while hedge funds sold those same three stocks.
Beyond Bloom Energy, Flex and Seagate Technology, Goldman Sachs identified 12 AI infrastructure stocks that both hedge funds and mutual funds added to during the second quarter: American Electric Power, AXT, Bloom Energy, CoreWeave, Flex, Lion Electric, NiSource, Sanmina, SiTime, Seagate Technology, Talen Energy and Xcel Energy.
Among mega-cap AI names, hedge funds sold most of the group during the quarter, with Microsoft and Amazon.com the exceptions, as hedge funds bought both stocks. Mutual funds, however, sold those same two stocks during the quarter.
The bank noted that hedge fund returns and those of their most popular holdings have been closely correlated with swings in the AI trade in recent months, while the weight of AI infrastructure stocks in mutual fund portfolios has risen sharply this year but failed to keep pace with benchmark weights, leaving mutual funds with a large underweight in the sector.
The findings are based on Goldman Sachs' quarterly Hedge Fund Trend Monitor and Mutual Fundamentals reports, which analyzed positioning across 991 hedge funds holding $5.4 trillion of gross equity positions and 504 large-cap active mutual funds holding $4.6 trillion in equity assets as of the start of the third quarter of 2026.
Outside of AI positioning, both hedge funds and mutual funds are now overweight the financials sector for only the third quarter in Goldman Sachs' historical data, with large-cap stocks bought by both groups including Capital One Financial, Corpay, Fiserv and Interactive Brokers Group.
Hedge funds increased their net tilt toward financials by more than 300 basis points during the second quarter to the largest position in the sector since prior to the global financial crisis, while mutual funds increased their tilt to financials to their largest overweight since at least 2012.
Both groups also carry large overweights in health care but differ on consumer sector tilts. Hedge funds are overweight consumer discretionary and underweight consumer staples, while mutual funds hold the opposite positioning.
Goldman Sachs also identified six "shared favorite" stocks that are popular holdings in both hedge fund and mutual fund portfolios this quarter: Boeing, Capital One Financial, Mastercard, SpaceX, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Visa.
Capital One Financial, SpaceX and Thermo Fisher Scientific became new shared favorites this quarter, while Marvell Technology dropped out of the group.
A rolling portfolio of these shared favorites has returned 29% year-to-date, outperforming the equal-weight S&P 500's 16% return, the bank said.
Since 2013, shared favorites have delivered an annual return of 17% with a standard deviation of 22%, and the median shared favorite stock trades at a price-to-earnings premium to the median S&P 500 stock, at 25 times earnings versus 19 times.
These 3 AI stocks are bought by both hedge funds and mutual funds