The benchmark S&P 500 is up 8.3% year to date by market price as of July 29, signaling that all is well on Wall Street and that the stock market is ready for business, despite some lingering uncertainty concerning U.S. trade policy and macroeconomics.
That wasn’t the case in the first quarter of 2025, though, as talk of tariff terrors, rampant inflation, job-stealing artificial intelligence and skittish consumers gave Main Street investors the jitters.
Not everyone stuck to that downbeat playbook in Q1.
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Hedge fund managers and exchange-traded fund, or ETF, managers used the first-quarter market dip, when the S&P 500 lost 4.6%, to start snapping up shares of once-robust stocks that had turned sluggish. By the end of May, hedge fund managers had purchased global stocks at the fastest rate since late 2024. That helped brand-name funds like AQR Capital Management and Bridgewater Associates to stack double-digit gains for the first half of 2025.
With the S&P 500 returning 28% since April 8, top fund managers find themselves on the right side of short-term history. In the process, they’ve offered retail investors a lesson in strategic investing and why affluent investors pay so much cash to come along for the ride.
“Markets have already erased the spring’s major tumble and are trading at all?time highs with the S&P 500 approaching a double-digit gain year to date,” says William Stern, founder of Bank of Cardiff in Del Mar, California.
With the futures markets now pricing in roughly a 60% probability of the Fed cutting rates by a quarter-point by September, the big portfolio managers may get even more aggressive as buyers. “The Fed number is an inflection that, if realized, has historically unlocked 20%-plus full?year gains in years like 1980, 1982, 1998 and 2009, when deep drawdowns were followed by Fed pivots,” Stern notes.
What Companies Are Hedge Funds and ETFs Investing In?
If and when that scenario occurs, bet on hedge fund and ETF managers to keep the pedal to the metal and keep betting on U.S. equities. Which stocks are they buying? These 10 names are likely to continue making their lists:
| Hedge Fund/ETF Holdings | YTD Performance* | Forward Dividend Yield* |
| Procter & Gamble Co. (ticker: PG) | -4.7% | 2.7% |
| Coca?Cola Co. (KO) | 13.1% | 2.9% |
| Johnson?&?Johnson (JNJ) | 18.0% | 3.1% |
| Colgate?Palmolive Co. (CL) | -2.8% | 2.4% |
| Micron Technology Inc. (MU) | 33.3% | 0.4% |
| Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) | 30.7% | 0.0% |
| Alphabet Inc. (GOOG, GOOGL) | 3.4% | 0.4% |
| GE Vernova Inc. (GEV) | 92.5% | 0.2% |
| Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER) | 44.4% | 0.0% |
| Home Depot Inc. (HD) | -1.8% | 2.4% |
*As of the July 29 market close.
Procter & Gamble Co. (PG)
Year-to-date performance: -4.7%
One move top fund managers made this spring was to curb their technology positions and slide into consumer staples. Procter & Gamble may be down for the year, but hedge fund and ETF managers are bullish on historically solid consumer goods.
“Goldman’s prime?broker data show hedge funds have slashed tech longs even as stocks climb,” Stern says. “For a fourth week straight, consumer staples are the most net?bought sector, comprising food, beverage and personal care giants.”
That strategy shouldn’t change anytime soon.
“That money managers are still skeptical of the rebound and are piling into stability?oriented names despite new highs” is a classic contrarian green light, Stern said. “When pros hate the rally, it often signals more room to run.”
Coca?Cola Co. (KO)
YTD performance: 13.1%
Coca-Cola is a step ahead of the S&P 500, up over 13% year to date. So hoist a glass to investing powerhouses like Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B), Harry Segalas’ HS Management Partners and Atalanta Sosnoff Capital, all of which hold solid positions in KO stock.
Aside from the tidy 2.9% dividend yield (a favorite attribute for Buffett), top portfolio operators and retail investors alike have shifted to Coca-Cola and other consumer staples to sidestep global macroeconomic angst. With KO executives already calling for stronger sales and earnings-per-share growth in the second half of 2025, watch those same fund managers expand their KO holdings.
Johnson?&?Johnson (JNJ)
YTD performance: 18%
This health care goods and services company is stitching together a memorable 2025, with the stock price up 18% for the year and 10.3% in the past month. The stock is particularly popular with ETF managers, with 182 ETFs holding JNJ shares in their top 15 positions as of late July. JNJ also offers shareholders a nice 3.1% dividend.
In mid-July, JNJ hiked its 2025 outlook after accounting for a milder tariff and trade impact and more substantial second-half revenues.
Colgate?Palmolive Co. (CL)
YTD performance: -2.8%
Trading around $87 per share in late July, which is down almost 3% year to date, Colgate?Palmolive isn’t resonating much with the general investing public, but top fund managers see plenty of value in the stock. For starters, it’s a tried-and-true consumer goods staple with products in bathrooms and kitchens across the globe. Its products are available in over 200 countries, with popular brands like Irish Spring, Speed Stick, Ajax, Colgate and Palmolive.
For a stable consumer goods club member, CL shows some growth characteristics that attract portfolio managers. Company management sees solid year-to-year earnings gains from 2024 to 2025, with future estimates in the 3%-to-5% earnings growth range.
Micron Technology Inc. (MU)
YTD performance: 33.3%
Micron Technology is among the top 10 stock components of the Goldman Sachs Hedge Industry VIP ETF (GVIP), at 2.3% of the portfolio (holdings go no higher than 2.9%). The fund’s symbol stands for Goldman Very Important Positions, and that reflects the standards it aims for. GVIP is up 28.4% over the past 12 months, with a three-year annualized return of 22.6%.
“GVIP is a great way to track what the big funds are buying,” says Vince Stanzione, CEO and founder of Monaco-based First Information, a financial publishing firm. “The Goldman Sachs VIP list is not normally available to retail clients, but this ETF is available.”
Micron makes this list because it remains in GVIP’s top 10 after the Boise, Idaho, data memory and storage firm gained 33.3% year to date and a whopping 45.8% in the past three months. The company has largely benefited from the artificial intelligence spending spree, and investment bank UBS estimates that demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI chips should crest 35% in 2026, with an 18% price boost.
Nvidia Corp. (NVDA)
YTD performance: 30.7%
Nvidia is also a GVIP top-10 holding, making up 2.5% of the fund. In fact, NVDA is a favorite in the institutional club set, with 7,386 institutional owners filing 13D/G or 13F forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that show NVDA as a holding as of July 2025, according to Fintel. Those institutions hold over 18 billion shares, with Vanguard Group, BlackRock Inc. (BLK), FMR LLC, State Street Corp. (STT), Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares (VTSMX) and Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares (VFINX) among the big names holding the stock.
Nvidia shares are up 61% over the past 90 days, representative of the big run-up in technology stocks since early May. However, it’s still rated a consensus “strong buy” by a group of 38 Wall Street analysts on TipRanks.com, with 4% upside.
YTD performance: 3.4%
Alphabet is another big tech brand that shows up on institutional fund lists that hold the stock. That’s hardly a surprise, given GOOG’s high visibility factor as an original Magnificent Seven stock.
That said, the stock is lagging in 2025, up only 3.4% year to date. That could be primarily due to an August deadline set by a U.S. federal court judge who ruled last year that the company held an unfair monopoly in the internet general search and digital text advertising markets.
J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth said the court is expected to decide on specific remedies or actions Google must take by early August, which should clear the air. “The exact nature and financial implications of the remedy remain difficult to predict, and we believe this uncertainty explains the muted reaction in GOOG/L shares since 2Q earnings,” he wrote in a recent research note.
GE Vernova Inc. (GEV)
YTD performance: 92.5%
The industrials sector has emerged as one of the best-performing U.S. sectors for ETF performance in 2025, with funds like the Industrial Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLI) exhibiting stellar gains.
One name that keeps cropping up on the industrials “must have” list is GE Vernova, which represents 2.9% of the GVIP fund’s holdings and is its top position as of July 29. The stock is certainly pricey at $654 per share, but the big institutional funds and major ETFs don’t mind that. They appreciate the 92.5% run that GEV has been on in 2025, with a 70.5% return in the past three months. The Cambridge, Massachusetts, electric power firm is only four years old, but its reputation as a fund mainstay could be a long-term situation.
Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER)
YTD performance: 44.4%
San Francisco-based Uber is another popular institutional fund pick, with 3,412 institutional owners, 3,321 long-only positions and over 2 billion shares in play as of late July. Like Nvidia, Uber attracts some big fund names, including Vanguard Group, BlackRock, Capital Research Global Investors, State Street and Morgan Stanley (MS).
Uber is having a great year, with its share price up 44.4% so far in 2025, although it shaved 4.8% in the past month. Analysts continue to back the stock, with Stifel recently sticking to its “buy” position and boosting its price target to $117 from $110.
Home Depot Inc. (HD)
YTD performance: -1.8%
Thanks to a reported new record of $35 trillion in U.S. home equity, Home Depot finds itself in the sweet spot right now, as homeowners reluctant to sell head off to the closest HD location to buy paint, fencing, lumber and other remodeling necessities for their abodes.
Those visits could increase if the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates as expected. That could entice homeowners sitting on a pile of home equity to cash in on those lower rates and start even bigger home maintenance and remodeling projects.
Right now, about 73% of HD shares are held by institutional investors, with ETF veteran Vanguard Group holding the biggest chunk, at 9.7%, and BlackRock (7.5%) and State Street (4.6%) close behind. Big fund managers love big dollar signs, so that $35 trillion is getting their attention. With a 2.4% dividend yield in the mix, Main Street investors may be wise to follow suit.
