The other day, with the market giving up about a third of its March gain in DJIA points, I went looking through my favorite market stats to see if any remaining profits could be pounced upon. Typically, profit possibilities can be identified quickly on NYSE lists of the largest dollar and percent gainers.

Alarmingly, 75% of the largest percent gainers were ETFs, and many of those operate using the same strategies as classic hedge funds— most owned no common stock at all! At the same time, 93% of the largest dollar gainers were ETFs with a large proportion plainly operating like a hedge fund.

Earlier in March, while we were all sunning ourselves in the far-too-infrequent-lately UVs of a brief rally, I was doing a similar search for undervalued IGVSI stocks. Yes, Virginia, there is an equally impressive array of hedge funds betting …