Investors are always looking for ways to follow the so-called smart money and outperform.
The strategy of buying the most crowded stocks owned by hedge funds beats the market, according to hedge-fund tracking firm Symmetric's latest report.
"Stocks where hedge funds own a large percentage of the float tend to outperform the SPY [S&P 500 ETF] by about 3.6% a year," the firm wrote in a note to clients Thursday.
"Some of the worst hit stocks may offer opportunities for buying by investors who seek to profit from the historical outperformance of crowded hedge fund names vs. the market," the note said.
The Symmetric Hedge Fund Exposure Index tracks the top 50 companies where hedge funds constitute a large percentage of the public traded shares of a stock.
Here are the firm's top 10 most crowded hedge fund stocks in the index down the most this year, which may offer the most upside according to Symmetric.
