Hedge Funds Selling Out Of These Five Stocks: American Airlines Group Inc (AAL), Ally Financial Inc (ALLY), SanDisk Corporation (SNDK)

Baidu Inc (ADR)(NASDAQ:BIDU) lands in the three hole, with 20 less funds owning shares of the Chinese search engine company on March 31 than there were at the end of 2014. All told, fund ownership dipped to 75 from 95 and capital invested fell to $7.01 billion from $8.42 billion. The dip in Baidu Inc (ADR)(NASDAQ:BIDU) came amid a general cautiousness towards China in the first quarter as concerns over the country’s slowing growth weighed on investors. The Chinese government made moves to remedy that in April by announcing a further stimulus package to help kickstart growth. However Baidu’s shares ran into their own problems at the end of April when the company’s latest earnings report missed revenue expectations, sending shares down by 13% over the following week. Some of the investors who closed their positions in Baidu Inc (ADR)(NASDAQ:BIDU) before that dip came are Daniel Benton’s Andor Capital and Chinese investor Lei Zhang of Hillhouse Capital Management.

SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) comes it at fourth with ownership from 40 funds which have $1.35 billion invested in the memory chip maker, down from 58 funds holding $2.76 billion worth of the company’s shares a quarter earlier. The year got off to a bad start almost immediately for SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK), whose preliminary fiscal fourth quarter 2014 revenue of $1.73 billion came in below its previous guidance of $1.80 to $1.87 billion for the quarter. Things didn’t get any better later in the first quarter as SanDisk was again forced to revise its revenue downward, this time for its first quarter earnings. The result is shares that are down by more than 31% year-to-date as SanDisk struggles under the weight of disappointing sales of iNAND and other retail products and lower margins due to increasing competition in the chip sector. There appears to be strong long-term potential for the stock however, with several potentially booming segments for its chips such as the smart home and internet of things segments. Regardless, Rob Citrone’s Discovery Capital Management has closed its large position in SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) for now, as has billionaire Steve Cohen.