Some traders are looking for a surge in stock buying on Tuesday as fund managers rebuild their stock holdings in the final hours of the worst quarter for the Dow since 1987.

That's because as stocks lost ground, pension funds' allocation to equities shrank, and as bonds rallied, those assets in their portfolios increased. In addition to pensions, other funds and investors may also see the need to conduct a rebalancing to shift the mix back by Tuesday's closing bell, the end of the month and the first quarter.

That simply means they could sell bonds and buy stocks.

"The rebalancing story is something everybody is watching very closely. It might help temporarily prop up some asset prices, either directly or via the expectations it might happen," said Jon Hill, senior BMO rate strategist. "The question is what happens April 1? I think this is a second order factor, but everybody is trying to rebalance everything they're doing. I'm not sure that leads to a huge flood into equities just because of the state of market uncertainty."

The Dow is down 21.8% this quarter, the worst since the 25% decline in the fourth quarter of 1987 and the worst Q1 ever. The S&P 500 is on pace for an 18% decline, its worst quarter since the fourth quarter of 2008 and its worst first quarter since 1938.

"We think there's an element of people positioning themselves for a big buy," said Julian Emanuel, chief equities and derivatives strategist at BTIG. Emanuel said the forecasts for how much funds might buy range wildly from $20 billion to over $200 billion, and he blames those expectations for some of the market volatility.