Hedge fund bears have suffered heavy losses.

According to some fund investors, some US hedge funds suffered heavy losses in January, especially those that aggressively shorted WSB concept stocks such as GME and AMC.

Well-known hedge funds such as D1 Capital Partners, owned by Dan Sundheim, and Point72 Asset Management, owned by Steve Cohen, both made huge losses in January, and both fell on GameStop. But there are also hedge funds that have profited from the volatile trading.

As stocks that had been heavily shorted, such as GME and AMC, began to soar at the end of January, most hedge funds had poor results in January.

Melvin Capital, which is aggressively shorting GameStop, lost 53 per cent in January, while Maplelane, which is also shorting GME, lost 45 per cent.Other hedge funds have also fallen sharply. For example, Point72 lost nearly 9%. Greenlight Capital, owned by David Einhorn, lost 11%.

D1 Capital Partners, one of the best-performing hedge funds last year, lost about 20% this year as of Jan. 27, making it one of the biggest victims of a wave of retail shorting.

Hedge funds as a whole have lost $19.75 billion so far this year, based on market capitalisation, according to S3 Partners.

Despite a loss of nearly $20 billion, short sellers have not been wiped out, and GME still has a large short position. Naked short selling of GME shares fell by only about 5 million shares last week, according to S3, meaning short selling interests fell by only 8 per cent.GME's short position still stands at more than $11 billion.

Retail investors are not the biggest winners

So are the retail investors who "beat" which hedge funds have made a lot of money?

The "leading brother" of American retail investors returned an astonishing 4000% in January, making a profit of more than $47 million.However, these are only January data, and previous earnings are giving back quickly as stocks sought after by retail investors begin to pullback these two days.The retail "leader" has made big losses for two consecutive days this week, losing more than $5 million on Monday, followed by more than $13 million on Tuesday.The previous income has been returned to only 1000%, which is less than 3/4 in two days.

However, even with a big profit-taking, he still did not sell GME shares. He has held 50, 000 GME shares and 500 GME call options since the beginning of 2021.

In terms of GME, the "leader" is not the one who earns the most, and there are nine investors who earn more.

As shown in the following figure, of these nine investorsThe least earned $1.1 billion and the most earned $3 billion, adding up to more than $16 billion, equivalent to more than 100 billion yuan.

It is worth noting thatInstitutions make up the majority of the nine investors. Seven are institutional investors.It made a cumulative profit of more than 12 billion US dollars.

For example, Fidelity FMR, which holds 9.5 million GME shares, accounting for nearly 14% of the outstanding shares, made a big profit of $3 billion. Then there are Blackrock and Vanguard Group, which own GME12.3% and 7.6 per cent outstanding shares respectively, earning $2.7 billion and $1.7 billion respectively in this wave of retail investors.

These are just the profits of institutional investors on the GME stock, and judging from the overall performance in January, many hedge funds have made a lot of money and become the real winners.

According to Reuters, a person familiar with the matter saidMudrick Capital, a hedge fund, posted its best monthly performance ever in January, with assets under management growing by 9.8 per cent in January, following an 11.2 per cent increase in 2020.

The reason why Mudrick is a winner is becauseIt does not belong to the short camp, but also with clever financing operations to save AMC, so it is regarded as a hero by retail investors.

In addition, Axon Capital, owned by Dinakar Singh, earned 8.5 per cent in January and then grew by another 8 per cent in the first two days of February. Axon Capital bet last year that the vaccine would soon boost tourism.

Thus it can be seen that on the surface, this is a "war" in which retail investors attack Wall Street institutions, but in fact, retail investors are just "pawn" of another group of institutions.In essence, it is a game between institutions. In the end, it is the organization that earns the most.

The retail investors who just entered the market at this time may become the last "catcher".

Now, although this wave of air pressure has cooled down, it is still not completely over. Although stocks such as GME have fallen sharply, there are still netizens on the Reddit forum calling for not to throw in the towel. For example, a netizen named "mwybert" posted a post calling on other retail investors:

"guys, we have to stick together to be useful. Buy and hold every fall! For all of us, it's not over yet.

Mark Mark Cuban, billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said in an online question and answer on WSB on February 2:

"if you have the ability to hold shares, then continue to hold. Although I don't hold these stocks, I would continue to hold them if I were you. "

This remark seems to be a cheer for retail investors, but it may have deceived those who listened to him. If you start to hold retail investors from more than a dozen dollars or dozens of dollars, you can make a profit by selling a little. But if it is the retail investors who want to enter the market at this time, nine times out of ten they will become the catcher.

Similar situations are not uncommon in history. So, in the end, what most retail investors get may be an honor to "beat the institution".