Amid an oil rally that has seen the United States Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USO), which tracks West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures, climb nearly 9% over the past 90 days, investors are pouring back into select energy exchange traded funds.
Count Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management among them. USO hauled in $978.1 million in new assets this year and Point72 Asset Management has contributed to those inflows.
“The firm bought 1.305 million shares of the U.S. Oil Fund valued at about $22 million in the three months through March 31,” Moming Zhou reports for Bloomberg, citing a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
USO is a minor position for Point72, representing just 0.15% of the firm’s equity portfolio, according to Whale Wisdom. However. Point72’s USO stake is further evidence of increased ETF use by the hedge fund and family office communities. [Another Hedge Fund Legend Likes ETFs]
David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management LP boosted its exposure to two marquee broad market ETFs in the first quarter. The hedge fund owned $413 worth of the PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ), the Nasdaq-100 (NDQ) tracking ETF, at the end of the first quarter, reports Juliet Chung for the Wall Street Journal.
Appaloosa also owned $934 million of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY) is the world’s largest ETF, at the end of the first quarter, according to the Journal. [Nasdaq ETFs Surge]
Last week, it was revealed that Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, added to its stake in SPY last quarter. SPY is Bridgewater’s second-largest equity position behind the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: VWO).
Bridgewater owns positions in several other ETFs, including the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: EEM) and the iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEArca: LQD). [Bridgewater Alters ETF Positions]