US Hedge Funds Just Sold Every AI Stock They Bought Since 2025

U.S. hedge funds sold AI-related stocks for five consecutive days in October, reversing all the AI stock purchases they had made since the beginning of 2025, according to Goldman Sachs data. Morgan Stanley reported that funds had cut more than 8% of their overall stock positions since June, the sharpest retreat since at least 2017. The selling was concentrated in technology and memory-chip companies: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, and SanDisk lost more than $700 billion in market value in under two weeks, while the late-October technology selloff erased about $2 trillion from the Nasdaq-100. Goldman’s basket of hedge funds’ favored stocks fell 4.2% on October 22, its worst single-day decline since 2011.

The account frames the retreat primarily as a rapid unwind of leveraged positions, rather than a broad bet that AI demand is collapsing. On the heaviest selling day, funds sold shares they owned roughly 3.5 times faster than they opened short positions, suggesting they were reducing exposure and risk. Macro investor Jordi Visser estimated that leverage accumulated over 18 months and unwound in 75 days. At the same time, corporate profits were up about 20%, AI computing demand still exceeded supply, and SK Hynix expected memory shortages to persist until 2030. Goldman warned that the unwind may be nearer its beginning than its end: hedge funds’ AI holdings remained in the top 17% of their range over the previous three years, leaving room for further selling.