General Motors Company (GM), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): How Does This $500 Million Hedge Fund View the Stock Market?

Last is Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:ATI).  The company recently announced that it was expecting weak 1Q sales and earnings as prices in raw materials depressed income.  Allegheny said that earnings would be only $0.09 per share versus estimates of $0.23 share.  Although the company has shifted from stainless steel to specialty alloy products, the transition has not translated into higher revenue as falling raw material prices, short lead times and higher inventory costs caused the earnings adjustment.  Allegheny’s percentage of sales devoted to costs increased almost 2% for the most recent quarter and net income fell 26%. Further deteriorating in the company’s financials could depress the stock price for Allegheny, already down 14% since the start of the year.

Judging by the relatively unimpressive gains in most of these positions, it may appear that Kao might be picking stocks based on name recognition rather than strong fundamentals; of course, critiques should be aware of the size of Akanthanos, and realize that year-to-date analysis is rather short sighted. We’ll wait a bit longer before judging these positions. Of these, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is in the best bet to appreciate further, and it’s hard to see much upside from Goldcorp Inc. (USA) (NYSE:GG).  The rest are hobbled by weak commodity prices, anemic economic conditions and more aggressive competitors.  See how the rest of the “elite” hedge fund industry is playing the stock market.

Disclosure: none