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

Nu Holdings

14/08/2024 22:37

(Updates with Light Street, Maverick)
    By Carolina Mandl and David Randall
       NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Investors are watching
quarterly filings on Wednesday to get a glimpse at how some of
the world’s biggest money managers were positioned at the end of
the second quarter, a period marked by a series of record highs
in the S&P 500 that preceded more recent turmoil in U.S. stocks.
    Filed at the end of each quarter, the 13-F filings are one
of the few ways to get a snapshot of how often-secretive market
participants such as hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds are
positioned, though they are backward-looking and do not reveal
current holdings. 
    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 that the Federal Reserve will be able to lower U.S.
inflation without hurting growth. 
    Markets turned frothy at the start of the third quarter.
Worries over rich valuations hit many of the market's tech
heavyweights, including chipmaker Nvidia  NVDA.O , the
poster-child of the AI rally. Concerns over the U.S. economy and
a rate hike from the Bank of Japan 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:
    
    LIGHT STREET CAPITAL
    Tech-focused equity hedge fund Light Street Capital added
77,459 shares in Apple  AAPL.O  while dumping all 110,000 of its
shares in Alphabet  GOOGL.O  and also 46,000 shares in Microsoft
 MSFT.O  in the second quarter. It 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  AMZN.O , but slashed its stake
in Alphabet. Maverick 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 approximately 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 few 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  UNH.N 
- or 2.3 million shares. It made no changes to its positions in
so-called Magnificent Seven tech and growth stocks, which
included Nvidia, Google-parent 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  and 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 Platforms, Nvidia,
Microsoft and Amazon.     
    
    SOROS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
    The family office of 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. 
    
    SAUDI PUBLIC INVESTMENT FUND    
    The Saudi Public Investment Fund closed out its position in
weight-loss biotech Allurion Technologies Inc  ALUR.N , selling
nearly 1.2 million shares. It tripled its position in the
Brazilian digital-banking company Nu Holdings Ltd  NU.N , adding
approximately 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 and Rod Nickel)
 ((carolina.mandl@thomsonreuters.com; +1 (917) 891-4931;))