Leveraged equity exchange-traded funds took in a record $9.5 billion in the week through Oct. 16, with SOXL attracting about $7 billion as chip shares dropped.
SOXL, a fund tied to semiconductor stocks, accounted for most of the weekly total. The flow figures do not identify who bought the funds. Over the same week, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell about 11.4%, while the Nasdaq 100 declined 5.5%.
Separately, Bloomberg News, citing a Goldman Sachs note, reported that Goldman’s hedge fund clients made their largest proportional technology cut in data dating to 2016. The bank’s comparison covered five trading sessions through Oct. 15. The record describes the proportional size of the reduction, not the dollar value of shares sold.
Semiconductor and semiconductor-equipment stocks together represented 57% of net selling in U.S. technology shares. After the reduction, the net allocation to technology in Goldman’s global prime brokerage book was 23.5%, a reading at the 90th percentile for the previous five years. Those positioning figures cover Goldman’s hedge fund clients; the ETF flow data do not name buyers.
