U.S. hedge funds circle high-flying tech stocks in second-quarter: SEC filings
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. hedge fund managers were active in the FAANG group of high-flying tech stocks in the second quarter, with Third Point increasing its stake in two of the companies and Omega Advisors trimming stakes in three, regulatory filings showed.
The group comprises Facebook (FB.O), Amazon (AMZN.O), Apple (AAPL.O), Netflix (NFLX.O) and Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), each of which have roughly followed broader U.S. indexes including the benchmark S&P 500 .SPX, Dow Jones industrial average .DJI, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite .IXIC to record highs in recent months.
Daniel Loeb's Third Point increased its stake in Alphabet by 120,000 class A shares to 575,000 and increased its position in Facebook by 500,000 class A shares to 3.5 million in the quarter ended June 30, according to the filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Leon Cooperman's Omega Advisors took a generally bearish stance overall and cut its stake in Facebook by 26,700 class A shares to 236,200. It also cut its stake in Netflix by 12,700 shares to 65,000 shares and trimmed its stake in Amazon by 8,900 shares to 10,500 shares. Omega kept unchanged its stake in Alphabet of 158,835 class A shares.
Cooperman told CNBC last week that Alphabet was his biggest position and that his investment in the company’s shares amounted to about 4-4.5 percent of his fund.
Barry Rosenstein's Jana Partners, while not a holder of any of the FAANG stocks at the end of the second quarter, showed that it increased its stake in upscale grocer Whole Foods Market Inc (WFM.O) over the three-month period by 9 million shares to 23.3 million shares.
Jana made a hefty profit in July by cashing out of its position in Whole Foods, according to a regulatory filing released last month, after the June announcement that the company agreed to be acquired by Amazon (AMZN.O) in a $13.7 billion deal.
Third Point's bullish move on Facebook appeared prescient as the social network has built on its second-quarter gain of 6.3 percent with a roughly 13 percent surge so far in the third quarter through afternoon U.S. trading on Monday.
Third Point's decision to increase its Alphabet stake and Omega's decision to maintain its exposure also appeared to be profitable investments, after a 9.7 percent surge during the second quarter. So far, shares are up 1 percent in the third quarter.