Investor Letter Reveals John Burbank Beat the Market in September; Take a Look at His Top Picks

The letter also revealed that John Burbank is shorting the energy sector, but he is bullish on renewables and SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY) is one of his top picks, with Passport having 4% portfolio exposure to the stock. The investor held 2.84 million shares of the company at the end of June, and another stake in bonds underlying 4.0 million shares. SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY)’s most recent financial results were mixed, with revenue of $113.86 million for the third quarter beating the estimates, but the net loss of $2.41 per share being $0.46 lower than expected. Short-seller Jim Chanos is shorting SolarCity and called the company a “subprime financing company” (see article).

To Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS), Passport has 4% exposure to the stock and disclosed holding 10.97 million shares in its 13F filing for the June quarter. The stock lost 24% in the third quarter, but is still over 8% in the green year-to-date and trades at around 27-times forward earnings while sporting a PEG ratio below 1.0. Vipshop gained more popularity among the investors from our database during the second quarter, as the number of funds with long positions in it went up to 54 from 48, while the aggregate value of their holdings was equal to 17% of the company’s stock at the end of June. Another investor bullish on Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS) is John Horseman‘s Horseman Capital Management, which owns a stake of 1.57 million shares as of the end of September.

NRG Energy Inc (NYSE:NRG) is another top utilities pick of John Burbank. At the end of September, Passport had 4% portfolio exposure to the company, while a quarter earlier, it owned 8.82 million shares, having added 6.73 million shares between July and September. The stock lost almost 35% in the third quarter and is down by nearly 50% year-to-date. Among the funds we track, 31 reported long positions in NRG Energy Inc (NYSE:NRG) as of the end of June, holding in aggregate 14% of the company’s outstanding stock.

Disclosure: None