US hedge funds are not having the best of years. Profits are hard to find, they're underperforming and the punters are losing patience, withdrawing US$15 billion ($20.8 billion) in the March quarter. They're expected to withdraw more this quarter.

To try to stem that tide, the American hedgies have increased their bet against Australia in general, and our banks in particular. The schadenfreude would be entirely understandable if that bet sent the hedge funds broke.

The vast majority of the funds missed the Big Short of book and movie fame. Quite a few of them think they can make up for that by shorting Australia's banks now. After all, housing prices have indeed soared here, just like they did in the US before the GFC, right?

Except the Australian housing mortgage market and banks are actually rather different. That's something the hedge funds don't seem to understand.