Investor positioning across major U.S. equity benchmarks continued to drift lower last week, with the S&P 500 seeing an uptick in newly established short positions, Citigroup strategists said.
The team, led by Chris Montagu, highlighted that the Nasdaq 100 is bucking this broader trend. Fresh long positions combined with short covering have lifted overall net exposure to the tech-heavy index.
Across the Atlantic, positioning in the FTSE 100 has remained broadly steady as traders hold off ahead of the UK’s budget announcement later this week.
Meanwhile, sentiment in the Euro Stoxx 50 has been sliding for more than a month, though Citigroup noted the index still sits firmly in bullish territory.
In the European banking sector, most of the recent flow has been driven by long unwinding, indicating that investors are locking in gains after several weeks of accumulation.