What Are the Most Crowded Trades in the Market?

The short answer. The most crowded positions among the institutional investors we track are led by MSFT, held by 80 separate filers in their most recent 13F filings. Crowding is measured by the number of distinct managers reporting a position, not by dollars, because one enormous holder is not a crowd.

A crowded trade is one that a great many professional investors hold at the same time. It matters for a reason that has nothing to do with whether the companies are good: when a lot of funds own the same thing and something forces them to sell, they are all trying to leave through the same door at the same time.

Which stocks do the most funds own?

Is crowding bad?

Not inherently, and the concentration at the top of this table is mostly a rational response to a real fact — a handful of enormous companies genuinely do dominate the index and the earnings of the market. What crowding changes is behaviour in a drawdown. A widely held position falls further than its news deserves when funds face redemptions, because it is the liquid thing they can sell.

The practical implication is not "avoid these". It is that if you hold several of them you are less diversified than the number of tickers suggests, because they will move together precisely when you need them not to.

How is this counted?

One row per company, counting distinct filers at each fund's own latest 13F, common stock only. Options positions are excluded: a put is a bet against a company, and counting it as ownership would invert the meaning of the table.

What this cannot tell you

13F filings arrive up to 45 days after the quarter ends and cover only US-listed long positions. A fund shown here may have sold. Shorts, bonds, foreign listings and cash are all invisible.

Educational information, not financial advice. Every figure on this page is read from the source filings when the page loads rather than written into the article, so what you are reading is today's data and not a snapshot of the day it was published.