Hedge funds and mutual funds both increased allocations to artificial-intelligence infrastructure stocks in the second quarter, with Bloom Energy, Flex and Seagate Technology among the most widely added names, according to Goldman Sachs data.
Goldman’s quarterly reports tracked positioning across 991 hedge funds with $5.4 trillion in gross equity positions and 504 large-cap active mutual funds managing $4.6 trillion at the start of the third quarter. Twelve AI infrastructure stocks were added by both fund groups, including American Electric Power, AXT, Bloom Energy, CoreWeave, Flex, Lion Electric, NiSource, Sanmina, SiTime, Seagate Technology, Talen Energy and Xcel Energy.
Diverging strategies emerged in other AI-related equities. Mutual funds purchased Advanced Micro Devices, Micron Technology and SanDisk, while hedge funds trimmed or exited those positions. Among mega-cap AI leaders, hedge funds bought Microsoft and Amazon.com but trimmed most of the group; mutual funds trimmed Microsoft and Amazon.com.
Goldman noted that hedge funds remain more exposed to the AI trade overall, though both groups adjusted portfolios during the quarter. Mutual funds increased their weight in AI infrastructure stocks this year but still trailed benchmark weights, leaving the group underweight the sector.
Both fund types carried large overweights in health care and tilted into financials to multi-year highs. Hedge funds raised their net tilt to financials by more than 300 basis points to the largest position since before the global financial crisis. Mutual funds increased their financials overweight to the largest since at least 2012, with Capital One Financial, Corpay, Fiserv and Interactive Brokers Group among the most widely purchased large-cap financials.
Six stocks now rank as shared favorites across both hedge fund and mutual fund portfolios: Boeing, Capital One Financial, Mastercard, SpaceX, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Visa. Capital One Financial, SpaceX and Thermo Fisher Scientific joined the list this quarter, while Marvell Technology dropped out. A rolling portfolio of these shared favorites has returned 29% year-to-date, outperforming the equal-weight S&P 500’s 16% gain. Since 2013, the group has delivered a median annual return of 17% with a standard deviation of 22%. The median shared favorite trades at a 25 times forward price-to-earnings multiple, a premium to the S&P 500’s 19 times.
Goldman’s ProPicks AI, which evaluates stocks monthly using more than 100 financial metrics, previously highlighted Siemens Energy and SanDisk as top performers ahead of broader adoption.
