Factbox: Tech shares in focus as investors eye latest filings from funds

Nu Holdings

15/08/2024 01:32

(Recasts top of story, adds Bridgewater Associates and Soros
Fund Management)
    By Carolina Mandl and David Randall
       NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Tech stocks once again
grabbed the attention of the world's biggest funds in the second
quarter, regulatory filings showed, as the S&P 500  .SPX 
rallied to a series of record highs that preceded more recent
turmoil in U.S. equities.
        Buyers of tech stocks ranged from Renaissance
Technologies, which purchased 1.5 million shares of chipmaker
Nvidia  NVDA.O  to Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital, which more
than tripled its Microsoft  MSFT.O  position to 600,000 shares. 
        The positioning was disclosed in 13-F filings, a
snapshot of how funds were positioned at the end of the quarter.
Though they do not reveal current holdings, they are one of the
few ways to get a look at the portfolios of often-secretive
market players such as hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds. 
    The S&P 500 rose nearly 4% from the beginning of April until
the end of June, notching nine consecutive record highs in a
rally fueled by excitement over artificial intelligence and
expectations the Federal Reserve will be able to lower U.S.
inflation without hurting growth.
        Markets turned frothy at the start of the third quarter
as worries over rich valuations hit the shares of many tech
heavyweights. Concerns over the U.S. economy and the unwinding
of a global, yen-based carry trade roiled markets further,
spurring a sharp early August plunge in the S&P 500. The index
has recently made up much of those losses. 
    Here is a snapshot of how some of the biggest funds were
positioned at the end of June:

        BRIDGEWATER ASSOCIATES
        The macro hedge fund founded by legendary investor Ray
Dalio more than doubled its stake in Amazon  AMZN.O  to 2.6
million shares, a position valued at $551.3 million at the end
of June. The fund roughly doubled its shares in Microsoft to
1.09 million, worth $487.3 million. But it slashed its Apple
 AAPL.O   stake by nearly three-quarters to 469,324 shares, or
$98.8 million.
        
  
        SOROS FUND MANAGEMENT
    Not all big funds were tech buyers. The family office of
George Soros reduced its stake in Google parent Alphabet
 GOOGL.O  by nearly 39% to just under 915,000 shares, worth
$166.7 million. It cut its stake in Amazon by just over 26% to
around 290,850 shares, worth $56.2 million.
        Outside of tech, it added a $12.7 million position in
UnitedHealth Group  UNH.N . The fund also cut its stake in
weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk  NOVOb.CO  while raising its
stake in Merck & Co  MRK.N  to 300,000 shares worth $37.1
million.
    
    LIGHT STREET CAPITAL
    Tech-focused equity hedge fund Light Street Capital added
77,459 shares of Apple while dumping all 110,000 of its shares
in Alphabet and also sold 46,000 shares in Microsoft in the
second quarter. The fund trimmed its stakes in Meta  META.O  and
Nvidia. It added Dell Technologies  DELL.N , buying $17.4
million worth, or 126,279 shares.
    
    MAVERICK CAPITAL
    Lee Ainslie's hedge fund more than tripled its shares in
Microsoft to 600,000 shares in the second quarter. It increased
its positions in Meta and Amazon but slashed its stake in
Alphabet. Maverick also trimmed its Nvidia exposure.   

    RENAISSANCE TECHNOLOGIES AND OTHERS
    Nvidia, which has helped lead the broader stock market
higher this year, continued to gain interest from prominent
investors including hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, which
added about 1.5 million shares over the quarter. 
    Large asset managers including BlackRock, State Street, and
Vanguard made significant purchases as well. Texas-based Twin
Tree Asset Management was among the funds that closed out of its
Nvidia position by selling nearly 900,000 shares.
    
    TIGER GLOBAL MANAGEMENT
    Chase Coleman's hedge fund added 1.9 million shares in
Qualcomm  QCOM.O , totaling $370 million. Outside of tech, it
added a new $1.2 billion position in UnitedHealth Group - or 2.3
million shares. It made no changes to its positions in so-called
Magnificent Seven tech and growth stocks, which included Nvidia,
Alphabet and Amazon.
    
    SCION ASSET MANAGEMENT
    Fund manager Michael Burry, whose bets against the U.S.
housing market before the 2008 financial crisis were chronicled
in the movie "The Big Short," reduced the number of companies in
his portfolio to 10 in June from 16 in March. Still, he added
some new stocks, including real estate company Hudson Pacific
Properties  HPP.N  as well as Molina Healthcare  MOH.N , which
provides healthcare services under the government-backed
programs, and payments company Shift4  FOUR.N .     
    
    ROKOS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
    The macro hedge fund run by Chris Rokos sold a $164.9
million position in Apple totaling 961,403 shares that it held
at the end of the first quarter, while also reducing its stake
in Alphabet by almost 90%. But Rokos increased its stakes in
other Magnificent Seven stocks: Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft and
Amazon.     
    
    SOROS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
    The family office of George Soros' son Robert Soros
dissolved its 63,640 share stake in Microsoft worth $26.6
million at the end of March, and sold all 103,000 shares it
owned in Advanced Micro Devices  AMD.O  in the second quarter,
while also reducing exposure to other big tech companies, such
as Amazon, Uber Technologies  UBER.N , Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Company  TSM.N  and Meta. Soros dissolved a
sizable put position, which is typically seen as bearish, in the
exchange-traded fund iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond
 HYG.P . 
    
    SAUDI PUBLIC INVESTMENT FUND    
    The Saudi Public Investment Fund closed out its position in
weight-loss biotech Allurion Technologies  ALUR.N , selling
nearly 1.2 million shares. It tripled its position in the
Brazilian digital-banking company Nu Holdings  NU.N , adding
about 2.6 million shares, and added to existing call positions –
which are typically seen as bullish - in large technology stocks
including PayPal  PYPL.O , Microsoft, and Meta. 
    The fund held roughly $20.7 billion in U.S. stocks in the
second quarter. In the first quarter, it had slashed its
holdings nearly in half to $18 billion. 
    
    JANA PARTNERS
    Activist investor Jana Partners built a new stake in U.S.
enterprise software company BlackLine Systems  BL.O  during the
second quarter. Jana owned 1.15 million shares on June 30,
equivalent to a near 2% stake.

 (Reporting by Carolina Mandl and David Randall in New York;
Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by Ira
Iosebashvili, Nick Zieminski, Rod Nickel and Jamie Freed)
 ((carolina.mandl@thomsonreuters.com; +1 (917) 891-4931;))