Equity positioning climbs as tech stocks gain favor, Deutsche Bank says

Deutsche Bank strategists say aggregate equity positioning rose last week, driven by discretionary managers moving to overweight and continued gains in systematic strategies. Volatility-control funds lifted equity allocations to a three-month high even as commodity-trading-advisor equity longs fell. Sector positioning shifted toward mega-cap growth and technology — alongside energy — while other sectors stayed neutral or underweight. Retail/institutional flows show accelerated equity fund inflows of $20.5 billion (led by US and broad-global funds), contrasted with large emerging-market outflows (EM: $25.4B; China: $22.2B). Bond funds saw $28 billion of inflows, the largest this year. Net impact: a bullish tilt toward US tech/mega-cap stocks (supporting indices such as US Tech 100), but mixed positioning overall given simultaneous bond demand and EM weakness.