Hedge funds' favorite stocks are having a brutal month

It's been a tough month for the darlings of the hedge fund investment world.

Back in December, Business Insider published a list of the stocks hedge funds love the most. And it's been a brutal few weeks for the 10 top stocks, with several down more than 10% in the last month. In comparison, the S&P 500 is down around 4%, and the Dow is down around 5%.

It's not all bad for hedge funds' bets, of course, with many of the market's favorite short trades benefitting from the recent volatility. Nvidia, a popular short target, is down 12% in the last month, for example. And Tesla's tumbling stock has made short sellers $1.9 billion in less than a month, as reported by my colleague Joe Ciolli.

And more generally, higher levels of dispersion, a measure which reflects how widely market returns are distributed, creates opportunities for investors. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, dispersion is the highest since 2009, when the market was just starting to recover from the financial crisis.

Still, it's been a rough month for some of the most popular stocks. Here's a look at the top stocks and their one month performance:

1. Facebook: -16.2%
2. Amazon: -6.6%
3. Alibaba: -3.95%
4. Alphabet: -10.5%
5. Microsoft: -6%
6. Time Warner: +0.47%
7. Apple: -7.46%
8. Bank of America: -9.5%
9. NXP Semiconductors: -2.93%
10. Citigroup: -10.7%

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