Hedge Fund Crowding Tracker: Most Crowded Trades
Quarterly SEC Form 13F filings provide critical visibility into the equity allocations of the world's most sophisticated capital allocators. We systematically aggregate these regulatory disclosures to track consensus positioning and crowding across institutional investors, including hedge funds and family offices. Review the top 15 most-crowded investments below, or utilize the reporting quarter control to analyze historical trends across stocks and sectors. The default view reflects the most recent filing period.
Top 15 Most-Crowded TradesQ1 2026
Sorted by number of distinct hedge funds holding the name · change versus Q4 2025.
| # | Ticker / Company | Sector | Funds | Δ QoQ | Median Wt | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MSFTMICROSOFT CORP | Technology | 4 | ↓ 48 | 1.5% | |
| 2 | VVISA INC | Financial Services | 4 | ↓ 31 | 0.4% | |
| 3 | JNJJOHNSON & JOHNSON | Healthcare | 3 | ↓ 9 | 0.2% | |
| 4 | JPMJPMORGAN CHASE & CO | Financial Services | 3 | ↓ 13 | 0.3% | |
| 5 | WFCWELLS FARGO & CO | Financial Services | 3 | ↓ 13 | 1.6% | |
| 6 | ADBEADOBE INC | Technology | 3 | ↓ 9 | 0.1% | |
| 7 | AMZNAMAZON COM INC | Consumer Cyclical | 3 | ↓ 51 | 1.0% | |
| 8 | CVSCVS HEALTH CORP | Healthcare | 3 | ↓ 9 | 0.8% | |
| 9 | DISDISNEY WALT CO | Communication Services | 3 | ↓ 22 | 2.2% | |
| 10 | GOOGLALPHABET INC | Communication Services | 3 | ↓ 42 | 0.2% | |
| 11 | METAMETA PLATFORMS INC | Communication Services | 3 | ↓ 36 | 1.6% | |
| 12 | NKENIKE INC | Consumer Cyclical | 3 | ↓ 6 | 0.6% | |
| 13 | PEPPEPSICO INC | Consumer Defensive | 3 | ↓ 11 | 3.4% | |
| 14 | TMOTHERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC INC | Healthcare | 3 | ↓ 12 | 1.0% | |
| 15 | INTUINTUIT | Technology | 3 | ↓ 8 | 0.1% |
Interactive 3D Crowding Universe
Visualize structural ownership trends across hedge funds and family offices over time. Each data point represents a stock-quarter: the X-axis tracks time, the Y-axis tracks the number of distinct institutional entities holding the position, and the Z-axis segments equities by sector.
Navigation: Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom, and hover for specific institutional-count details. Click any sphere to view that stock's complete ownership profile.
Analysis: The in-chart leaderboard displays the highest-conviction names for the current view; click a row to highlight its trajectory, and use ticker links to open each stock's holders page. Select a specific sector from the dropdown to isolate trajectory lines for its top five equities.
Methodology & FAQ
How do we track stock crowding?
We track institutional stock crowding by analyzing SEC 13F-HR filings from top asset managers (those with at least $100M in qualifying U.S. equity AUM). Our platform synthesizes this data to show where "smart money" is concentrated, helping investors spot potential momentum or consensus-reversion trends.
What core crowding metrics are calculated?
For each reporting quarter, we calculate two primary metrics per equity:
- Distinct Institutional Count: The absolute number of funds reporting a long equity position in a specific ticker.
- Median Portfolio Concentration: The position's market value divided by the reporting fund's total 13F AUM (expressed as a percentage).
How is the crowding universe constructed?
Our default "Latest" view ranks the top 150 U.S. equities based on their peak institutional count.
What does institutional crowding tell us?
Crowding is a descriptive metric of consensus positioning, not a predictive directional signal. A high fund count means many institutions agree on a position, but for investors, extreme consensus is a structural market condition. Historically, this peak crowding coincides with either sustained multi-quarter momentum runs or mean-reverting unwinds.