How Viking Global Played Major Tech Stocks in Q3

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Viking Global Investors is a global investment firm founded in 1999. The investment firm has long term approach for investing and mainly deals in public and private equity interests across industries.

Viking Global Investors’ portfolio consists of stocks from different sectors. Information Technology stocks form a third of its portfolio while Energy and Consumer Discretionary stocks account for 18% and 17% respectively. During the quarter ended September 30th, the fund made major movements in stocks such as Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Broadcom Ltd (NASDAQ:AVGO) and Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE:CRM). Let’s take a closer look.

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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is a pretty big conviction bet for Viking as it makes up 10.58% of the fund’s 13F portfolio. For the quarter ended on 30th September, 2016, the investment fund trimmed its holding of the stock by 6% to 18.74 million shares, however, amounting to around $2.4 billion at the time. Although it’s hard to blame anyone for taking profits on the stock, many bulls think Facebook has more long term upside ahead as arguably the best CEO in tech, Mark Zuckerberg, leads it. Facebook also has an admirably wide moat and more monetization opportunities ahead in AI and virtual reality.

Follow Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Viking Global Investors boosted its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Class A shares by 9% during the quarter ended on 30th September, 2016. The fund held $1.578 billion worth of Alphabet stock at the end of the quarter, forming 6.81% of its 13F portfolio. That translates to roughly 1.963 million shares. Although the election of Donald Trump doesn’t benefit the tech sector as much as other sectors, having Trump, who is known to be a big defender of businesses small and big, as President could potentially help Alphabet bring its overseas profits back home at a lower tax rate. That might mean more buybacks ahead.

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