Billionaires Dumping Apple As It Falls Out of Their Top Five Holdings

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Let’s take a look now at the billionaire activity in Apple during the first quarter. Carl Icahn remains the most bullish investor of the company, owning 52.76 million shares, unchanged during the quarter. Icahn recently revealed in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook that he believes Apple shares should be trading at $240 right now and that the company is poised to dominate TV and automobiles (though statements like that can only be taken with a grain of salt). Ken Fisher inched his position up slightly, to over 10.81 million shares, while David Einhorn trimmed his position by 14%. Stephen Mandel was one of the most bullish billionaires on Apple during the quarter, more than tripling his position to 6.84 million shares, while Ray Dalio hiked his smaller position by 183% to 732,997 shares. On the other hand, Rob Citrone slashed his holding by 42% while a couple of the billionaires that sold out of their Apple positions completely were Daniel Och of OZ Management and Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors.

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Another investor who sold off his Apple position in the first quarter was Jim Roumell, which we reported during an analysis of Apple’s stock back in February. Roumell felt that while there was still strength and potential in the Apple ecosystem, the stock had become too popular again and there was little room for error trading at close to 11 times earnings plus cash. According to Roumell, the easy money has been made, which may be the reasoning behind the migration of capital from the stock among the non-billionaire investors that we track. Those investors held just $8.47 billion worth of Apple shares, down from $10.21 billion three months earlier, despite those shares gaining nearly 13% in value. Factoring in the appreciation of shares, nearly $3 billion in capital was yanked out of Apple’s stock by the non-billionaire investors we track.

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Disclosure: None

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