(Bloomberg) -- Hedge funds, which have had virtually nothing but bad luck this year, caught some good fortune thanks to Microsoft Corp. 

The software maker erased its Tuesday drop and powered more than 4% higher Wednesday after an upbeat forecast for its cloud-computing business, a key avenue of growth. 

The rally is a gift to professional speculators who, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., have made Microsoft their most-important stock. It has also elevated other tech shares by easing some concern over a slowdown in the industry, taking pressure off some hedge funds that were forced to reduce their leverage and rein in risk taking after the recent selloff.

“MSFT rallying seemed to be very cathartic” said Danny Kirsch, head of options at Cornerstone Macro LLC. “Hedge fund positioning felt pretty light and maybe that was the green light to start adding risk.”

Read: Microsoft Soars After Cloud Forecast Eases Wall Street’s Worries

At the start of the fourth quarter, Microsoft surpassed Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms Inc. as the most popular stock among hedge fund, regulatory filings compiled by Goldman showed. The software developer also ranked as the most widely held among mutual funds, according to Citigroup Inc. data. 

So the gain is a respite for stock pickers who are off to a poor start in 2022 after failing to ride the January revival in value shares and struggling to cut exposure to growth companies fast enough when they slid. 

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