Hedge funds ripe for the picking

New York

ONE of the biggest buyers of US stocks has turned so bearish that a growing number of investors say it can only mean one thing: buy.

Hedge funds that aim to profit from global economic trends - a group that oversees some US$550 billion - spent the past month putting on trades that would profit from a decline in equities. As a result, such "short" positions exceed bullish ones by 22 percentage points, their most pessimistic stance since January 2009, Credit Suisse Group says.