On the second spot stands Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), the stock of the e-commerce company gaining nearly 20% during the first three months of 2015. Amazon’s stock jumped mainly on the back of its financial results for the fourth quarter, with earnings beating the consensus estimates, though sales did come in slightly below the forecasts. Another recent development that might make investors and consumers excited is Amazon’s plans to introduce a so-called “dash button”, a one-button controller that would allow for the ordering of certain products with a simple press of a button.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) also doesn’t rank very highly in terms of popularity among hedge funds (probably due to the high price of the stock), since 76 funds hold around $5.91 billion worth of stock as of the end of 2014, but these figures appreciated significantly during the fourth quarter from 66 funds with $4.49 billion worth of stock at the end of September. Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management is among the top shareholders of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) holding 2.42 million shares as of the end of 2014.
Next in line is another tech giant, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), which gained 13.20% in the first three months of 2015 on the back of several major developments. First, the company reported excellent results for the fourth quarter, with sales of its new iPhone reaching an outstanding 75 million (with a gross margin of 40%). Then Apple announced that it will release its new Apple Watch in April, and analysts are forecasting large sales figures for the device, some of the models of which can reach a price tag of $17,000. Just to give you an idea about the potential sales, it is expected that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will consume 746 tonnes of gold per year for its gold watch, which would place the $700 billion tech company as the third-largest consumer of gold behind India and China.
Another thing that made everybody excited about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) recently is its solid financial position, with $180 billion in cash on its balance sheet. This pile of money sparked tons of rumors and speculation regarding what the company could do with it, including the acquisition of Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), which most likely is not going to happen, at least not in the predictable future. However, Tim Cook will probably use the money to return some capital to shareholders, as one of those shareholders, Carl Icahn, insisted last year. In addition, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is the favorite stock of hedge funds as of the end of 2014 and Mr. Icahn holds the largest stake among 149 funds, which contains 52.76 million shares.
