Be Like Gandalf // Are We Waiting for a SaaS Surge?iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETFBATS:IGVStrong_HoldersToday I was reminded of how, at the height of the pandemic, when everyone was screaming "sell," Marko Kolanovic was one of the only strategists at his level to openly say you should be buying the dip — and he was right. I always admired his way of thinking. So today I decided to look up what JPMorgan's chief strategist thinks right now. Turns out he's already been shown the door. Kolanovic spent 19 years at JPMorgan as Chief Global Markets Strategist. He was let go in July 2024 after two years of badly missed calls. In his heyday he was known as "the Gandalf of Wall Street" — but after 2020 the magic faded. He was bullish during the 2022 selloff, then stubbornly bearish through the 2023–2024 rally. He now runs his own channel on X. So what does the Gandalf of Wall Street think right now? Kolanovich says a bounce in software stocks may be right around the corner. The theory: the selloff in IGV (iShares Software ETF) isn't just AI fear or multiple compression — it's mechanical hedging by large players with significant private asset exposure. Big funds are sitting on enormous portfolios of unlisted tech and SaaS companies. These assets: - don't trade on an exchange - are revalued infrequently (once a quarter) - can't be sold quickly When the market turns and sentiment on tech/SaaS deteriorates, these funds can't exit their private holdings directly. So instead they short or sell IGV as a liquid public proxy — to hedge the risk on their private books. The suggestion is that these sales are forced and urgent — not an investment decision, but a panicked defense of the balance sheet. That explains why the IGV selloff looks disproportionately severe relative to the actual deterioration in the fundamentals of the companies inside the ETF. When the short is unwound, the squeeze back up could be fast and violent.