Paul Tudor Jones Betting On Emerging Markets, Pepsi, Facebook, More

Paul Tudor Jones, the founder of Tudor Investment Corp, is also known as the “legendary macro trader”. He focuses on equity, venture capital, debt, currency, and commodity markets. His fund had a 13F portfolio value of $4.26 billion as at the end of September 2016 and invests mostly in sectors such as healthcare, technology, financial and services. The fund laid off around 15% of its staff during the second quarter after suffering losses and investor withdrawals amounting to $700 million. Let us take a close look at some of Tudor Investment Corp’s biggest moves during the third quarter.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Indx (ETF) (NYSEARCA:EEM) was amongst one of the top buys by Tudor during the third quarter. Tudor Investment Corp reported buying 1,867,000 shares of this stock, valued at $69.9 million during the quarter. The ETF seeks investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The ETF which has an expense ratio of 0.69% and has the largest allocation of 26.88% to Chinese companies. Its top ten holdings were Information Technology companies. 114 funds created new positions while 270 funds added to an existing position of iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Indx (ETF) (NYSEARCA:EEM) during the third quarter. In all 33 hedge funds from our system held shares worth $3.89 billion in this stock during the third quarter.

PepsiCo Inc (NYSE:PEP), which is one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, was the sixth largest holding of Tudor Investment Corp. The fund held 503,600 shares of this company worth more than $54 million. During 2015, per capita soda consumption fell to a 30-year low in USA. Moreover, some bears anticipate potential soda taxes on sugary drinks to hit PepsiCo Inc (NYSE:PEP), in addition to the trend of consumers moving more towards healthier refreshments. In response, the company announced plans to cut sugar content in its beverages and has vowed to cut the calories in at least two-third of its beverages to one hundred calories or less by 2025. During the third quarter 57 hedge funds from our system held shares worth $4.79 billion in this stock, accounting for 3.5% of the company’s float as of Septemeber 30th.

Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) formed 0.9% of Tudor Investment Corp’s total 13F portfolio value as of September 30. The fund held 125,668 shares valued at $39 million by the end of the third quarter. The company reported an earnings per share of $4.71 on revenues of $2.95 billion during the third quarter which increased from an EPS $4.15 on revenues of $2.77 billion for the year ago quarter. Biogen has plans to spin off its hemophilia drug business in 2017. By the end of the third quarter, 81 hedge funds that we track held shares worth $4.86 billion in this stock, up from 73 funds holding $4.04 billion at the end of the quarter two.

Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE:ADS) is one of Tudor’s top tech holdings with the fund reporting a stake of 162,176 shares valued at $34.79 million at the end of the third quarter. Alliance Data Systems is in the business of providing marketing and loyalty solutions to consumer focused companies and has a market value of more than $13 billion. The stock has yielded admirable returns to investors with the company rising over 150% over the last 5 years. Analysts have a positive view on this stock with 18 out of the 27 analysts rating it as a ‘Buy’. 11.2% of the company’s float as at September 30th was held by 32 hedge funds from our records.

 

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is the fund’s third largest technology holding with Tudor Investment holding more $34.6 million of this stock at the end of the third quarter. The fund bought 230,197 additional shares of this popular social media stock and it comprised 0.8% of the total 13F fund holdings at the end of the third quarter. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) recently announced that it will start a $6 billion stock buyback program and will expand its UK office by hiring 500 new employees. By the end of the third quarter, 149 funds from our system held shares worth $16.27 billion up from $15.24 billion held during the second quarter.

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