Hedge fund investors are battening down the hatches.
"Hedge fund positions bear all the imprints of significant risk aversion already," Societe Generale strategists said Wednesday in a note. "The volatile start of 2016 forced hedge funds to adopt a very cautious stance."
As the chart below shows, hedge funds are long the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, which measures expected stock market volatility. They are also long 30-year US Treasury bonds and the Nikkei.
They're short the Russell 2000, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq.
Societe Generale