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Matthias Knab, Opalesque:

Global hedge funds faced severe equity losses in March 2026 as the Middle East conflict intensified, but energy emerged as a rare bright spot, attracting a wave of inflows from the Hazeltree fund community, according to the firm's March 2026 Crowdedness Report. Hazeltree is a leading provider of treasury and liquidity management solutions for alternative asset managers, and its monthly report draws on anonymized data from approximately 16,000 securities across more than 600 global funds.

The energy sector saw a 55% increase in the number of funds long energy stocks during the month, and 44% of companies in the sector registered a more than 10% increase in long fund counts compared to February.

EQT Corporation, the only large-scale, vertically integrated natural gas producer in the dataset, was called out as a standout name, recording a 24% increase in the number of funds long the stock and a 36% decrease in the number of funds short it versus the prior month.

"When we analyzed our previous Crowdedness Report, the Middle East conflict had just begun on February 28 and little did we know what a significant impact it would have across broad global market sectors, with the exception of energy," commented Tim Smith, Managing Director, Data Insights at Hazeltree. "Energy stocks proved to be a magnet for hedge fund inflows likely due to a combination of macro positioning and geopolitical risk."

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