Asian hedge fund managers favor growth over Bitcoin: Goldman Sachs survey

Earlier this week, a Bank of America survey found that American hedge fund managers favor Bitcoin (BTC) over tech, but a Goldman Sachs poll with chief investment officers in Asia tells a different story.

Goldman Sach Global Investment Research published a new survey polling 25 chief investment officers from different hedge funds in Asia. The results show that Bitcoin is the least favorite investment class for 35% of the participants.

“We held two CIO roundtable sessions earlier this week, which were attended by 25 CIOs from various long-only and hedge funds,” wrote Goldman Sachs strategist Timothy Moe. “Their most favorite is Growth style but least favorite on Bitcoin.”

New initial public offerings follow Bitcoin as the least favorite investment style with 25%.

On the other hand, more than half (55%) favor growth investing, which is to invest in companies that offer strong earnings growth. This is followed by value-style investing (30%) — i.e., seeking out undervalued assets in the market.

While the poll sample size is small for generalization, Goldman Sachs’ poll draws a stark contrast with the recent survey from the Bank of America (BofA). With responses from 194 fund managers with $592 billion worth of assets under management, the BofA survey suggests that the “long Bitcoin” bet is now the most crowded trade across all markets.

According to the BofA survey, “long Bitcoin” has even surpassed trading “long tech,” with almost 45% of respondents favoring the largest cryptocurrency over tech. Trades identified as crowded have historically heralded an incoming top for their respective markets, BofA noted in survey remarks.

Following a bearish month, Bitcoin has had a rocky start for June. As miners sold more than 5,000 BTC over the past week, Bitcoin crashed below $33,000 for the first time since May 23.

The global crypto market lost about $500 billion this week alone. The last two months’ losses after the peak in April have completely wiped out the previous quarter’s growth in the market.