GOAL Positioning Tracking the momentum led deleveraging in Tech

Portfolio Strategy Research 3 August 2026 | 12:22PM BST

Tracking the momentum-led deleveraging in Tech

n Our sentiment and positioning indicator has turned short-dated options (like 0DTE) and other leveraged Christian Mueller-Glissmann, CFA more negative and is now around the 53rd-ile. Our Risk ETPs (Exhibit 1). Optimism around a handful of AI | christian.mueller- Appetite Indicator remains elevated, around 0.8. Equity capex/semiconductor stocks has driven unusually high Goldman Sachs International

flows have been resilient (Exhibit 13) but fixed income dispersion within the market: Exhibit 2 shows the Alessandro Giglio | flows have dominated on a YTD basis, particularly in average single stock implied vol rising to its highest level Goldman Sachs International relative terms (Exhibit 11, Exhibit 12). Most fast-moving since 2020, while index implied correlation has Andrea Ferrario positioning indicators have shifted more bearish. Futures remained anchored at low levels. | positioning in US equities remains elevated, but is no n After peaking at record highs, retail leverage has Goldman Sachs International

longer at extremes (Exhibit 53), call/put ratios have started to moderate, particularly in DM Asia. Margin Elena Porfidia | decreased and investors’ surveys have turned less balances surged to record highs in South Korean Goldman Sachs International optimistic. Active managers’ US equity positioning equities before starting to reverse (Exhibit 3). A similar Peter Oppenheimer (NAAIM Index - 79.7) has also pulled back modestly, pattern emerged in Japan, where margin-financed | while hedge funds have deleveraged meaningfully equity purchases reached their highest level since 1990 Goldman Sachs International

(Exhibit 65): gross leverage has reversed half of the (Exhibit 4). In the US, retail investors also moderated yearly increase, and net leverage is down on the year. purchases of semiconductor stocks, after the strong n Investor activity has been dominated by momentum inflows earlier this year (Exhibit 5). Assets in leveraged unwind in AI-related trades rather than signs of ETFs exposed to Tech, including South Korea and broad-based de-risking. According to GS Prime Taiwan, have retraced after the sharp build-up in the Brokerage data, last week global Info Tech stocks previous weeks (Exhibit 6). recorded the largest long selling since Jan ‘21, and the n Leveraged funds reduced their short VIX futures second-largest 2-day long selling of the past decade. As exposure, similar to previous VIX carry unwinds in 2018 highlighted previously, re-risking over recent weeks has (‘volmageddon’) and 2024-25 (Exhibit 7). By contrast, been fast and highly concentrated around the ‘AI trade’, equity-linked debt issuance remained resilient, like with participation increasingly expressed through

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Goldman Sachs GOAL Positioning

global Tech convertible issuance, which was particularly strong during Q2 (Exhibit 8). n Outside of equities, the largest shifts in cross-asset positioning reflected the repricing of policy expectations following the latest central bank meetings and FX interventions. USD net future speculative positioning increased sharply (Exhibit 50) and long-dated Treasury ETF put-call skew rose sharply after the FOMC (Exhibit 9). JPY risk reversals rebounded sharply into the recent FX intervention, although net future non-commercial positioning remains negative (Exhibit 10).

Our positioning and sentiment indicator lingers around the 53rd-ile

Source: Datastream, Haver Analytics, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research