UBS identifies most crowded consumer staples stocks in July

Investing.com -- UBS released its quantitative analysis of crowded positions in the consumer staples sector for July 2026, identifying the stocks with the highest concentration of long and short positions among fund managers.

The bank's analysis shows that SJM, CL, UTZ, HELE, MKC, and PG rank as the most crowded long positions in the sector. UBS defines crowded longs as stocks owned by a high percentage of eligible funds.

On the short side, BYND, CLX, EPC, ELF, KDP, and HSY represent the most crowded short positions. These are stocks that a high percentage of eligible funds are betting against.

UBS noted that crowding alone does not predict future stock performance. The firm uses a proprietary "Crowding Momentum" score to identify potentially significant positioning trends.

The analysis found no stocks with crowded long momentum in the consumer staples sector. Crowded long momentum occurs when a stock is already crowded, became more crowded over the past three months, and its one-month price return underperformed the global stock universe.

ELF and EPC showed crowded short momentum, which indicates these stocks are heavily shorted, became more crowded with short positions, while their stock prices outperformed the broader market.

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