It's a good time to be a hedge fund.
The stocks most widely held by large speculative financial institutions are beating the S&P 500 by almost 4 percentage points this year, on pace to exceed last year's outperformance, which also saw the group return more than the benchmark.
The equity strategy team at Goldman Sachs maintains a list of the stocks that matter most to hedge funds. Analyzing 821 funds that hold a total of $1.9 trillion in gross equity positions, they identify the stocks that appear the most frequently among top 10 holdings.
Those companies are then put into an index called the Goldman Hedge Fund VIP basket, which is rebalanced on a periodic basis, depending on the latest hedge fund 13-F filings.
Here's a list of the 14 stocks in the index that show up most frequently in the top 10 of hedge fund portfolios, as of March 31:
14. Citigroup
Subsector: Diversified banks
Total return year-to-date: 2%
No. of funds with stock as top 10 holding: 30
Source: Goldman Sachs
Get real-time Citigroup charts here>>
13. Reynolds American
Subsector: Tobacco
Total return year-to-date: 18%
No. of funds with stock as top 10 holding: 31
Source: Goldman Sachs
Get real-time RAI charts here>>
12. Alibaba Group
Subsector: Internet software & services
Total return year-to-date: 38%
No. of funds with stock as top 10 holding: 33
Source: Goldman Sachs
Get real-time BABA charts here>>
See the rest of the story at Business Insider