Tech Stocks: Why No Love From Fund Managers?
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This is Your Money Matters from The Wall Street Journal. Welcome to Your Money Matters. I'm J.R. Whalen in New York. Tech stocks are loved by investors. In fact, the tech sector is one of the most high-flying on Wall Street in recent years.
Why are fund managers' tech holdings at a 15-month low?
But if you ask fund managers, they might say seeking out tech stocks is like looking for love in all the wrong places. Wall Street Journal reporter Chelsea Delaney joins us to explain why fund managers' liking toward tech stocks has soured. So Chelsea, active fund managers in particular have backed away from tech stocks.
There was a report from Bank of America this week that showed holdings of tech stocks have fallen to a 15-month low, which is kind of surprising because tech stocks have been a very popular trade in the past couple of years, and they've just been on a tear. I think the S&P's tech sector was up almost 40% last year. So they've been doing really, really well. But, yeah, some of these fund managers and hedge funds as well have been pulling back.
Yeah, the hedge funds also, that seemed to be a surprise as well.
Yeah. And that's notable because this is the smart money. This is what people call the smart money. And these are the investors who are doing a lot of research and have a really good sense of the industry. So the fact that those investors are starting to get a little more cautious in this sector is interesting.
And so it's... And so it seems a big reason for this is that while tech stocks are still performing well, they're not outpacing other sectors as much as they once did.
Right. And so it's not necessarily a bad story here. For a long time, tech was the place where you could get a lot of growth because tech stocks, their earnings were growing double digit and they were doing really well. But now a lot of companies are doing really well. So You know, we've had this big recovery in global growth. We've had higher energy prices. A weaker dollar is helping companies. And now we have the tax cut. So a lot of companies are, you know, their earnings, their revenues are growing a lot. So, you know, it just makes tax growth look a little bit less exceptional.
And we're speaking with reporter Chelsea Delaney, and you're listening to Your Money Matters from The Wall Street Journal. Welcome back, everybody. So Chelsea, another reason fund managers seem to have soured a bit toward tech stocks is that they feel that the pronounced run-up the sector has seen could put the sector, the tech sector, in a position for a correction?
Right.
Which data shows hedge funds and active managers pulling back from tech?
So as we sort of talked about, tech stocks have been rising for years and they are looking more expensive. A lot of stocks are above their averages over the past couple years. So there has been a bit of concern about just how fast they've risen and if it's possible for the S&P's tech sector to notch another 40% gain this year.
And so I guess the fund managers are just thinking that we've seen this movie before. They want to be in a position just from a position of caution just in case something were to happen.
And just, you know, it is very the sector has gotten expensive. So there are just a lot more opportunities now.
And just to be clear, it's not as if the tech sector is declining. It is still the sector still is supporting the market pretty strongly.
They are, and that's partially just because of how the indexes are structured. So the S&P is weighted by market value, and so that gives companies like Amazon and Microsoft a much bigger sway over the broader U.S. market. So Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, those have been the companies that have really been driving the S&P and the NASDAQ this year.
And so whether it's fund managers or hedge funds, it's the smart money, as you call it, and their movements kind of carry the spotlight.
They do. And if you look at some of these other investor flows, like ETF flows are still really strong into tech funds. So some of the less active investors still are buying a lot of tech stocks, but the smart money does seem to be taking another look at it now.
Okay, that's reporter Chelsea Delaney joining us.
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