Longer-term trend followers buying U.S. equities - BofA Securities

Published 04/07/2025, 12:28
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Investing.com - Longer-term trend followers have had a difficult first half of the year, according to Bank of America Securities, but are now back buying U.S. equities.

The SG CTA benchmark snapped a four-month losing streak in June posting a 93 bps gain on the month, but trend followers are likely still down on the year with the benchmark falling 7.6% in the first half of 2025. 

While CTAs [commodity trading advisors] have been supported by short U.S. dollar and long gold positions for most of the year, equity, bond, and oil fluctuations have caused difficulties for the trend following community.

According to the U.S. bank’s model, short-term trend followers already have meaningful S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000 and Nikkei 225 long positions, while medium- and long-term models lag with smaller longs or, in the case of Russell 2000, short positions.

“However, over the next week, these medium- and long-term trend followers are expected to buy across these markets, and this could be significant given that we have shown that most trend followers are somewhere in the medium- to long-term range of model speed,” analysts at Bank of America Securities said, in a note dated July 3.

“Meanwhile, our models still indicate that CTAs have consensus EURO STOXX 50 longs that could slightly shrink next week.”

In foreign exchange, the U.S. dollar declined again this week despite a pop higher in reaction to the strong U.S. jobs report on Thursday. 

“Our model suggests that CTAs still have USD shorts vs EUR, GBP, MXN, and CAD. In other currencies, JPY and AUD longs are less stretched with JPY selling expected next week following this week’s USD strengthening vs JPY,” BofA said.

In commodities, trend followers could buy oil and aluminum futures in the coming days, the bank said, as positioning in both commodities is currently mixed with shorter-term trend followers more long while longer-term trend followers are short. 

Despite the rise in U.S. yields this week, CTAs are still projected to buy 10Y and 30Y Treasury futures in the coming days, but the bank also expects Bund futures selling.

 

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