Should You Follow This Fund Into Its Investments in Paypal Holdings Inc (PYPL), Tripadvisor Inc (TRIP), & Others?

Should you invest in Teck Resources Ltd (USA) (NYSE:TCK), Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL), Tripadvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP), and Insulet Corporation (NASDAQ:PODD)? Among many investment strategies that a retail investor can use to generate market-beating returns, one involves looking at how the hedge funds and other big smart money investors are trading them. One fund that is bullish on all these four stocks is David Greenspan‘s Slate Path Capital and its bets on the company are paying off as we shall see further in this article.

Slate Path Capital had an equity portfolio worth $1.28 billion at the end of June, which was mainly divided among Materials, Technology, and Consumer Discretionary sectors. According to our methodology of assessing a fund’s returns based on its long investments in companies valued at over $1.0 billion, Slate Path managed to post a gain of 16.12% in the third quarter from 11 “relevant” positions.

Without any further ado, let’s take a look at the fund’s positions in the four aforementioned companies and see how they performed last quarter.

Teck Resources Ltd (USA) (NYSE:TCK), which was a new position in Slate Path’s equity portfolio heading into the third quarter, was also one of the best-performing investments, as the stock surged by nearly 37% between July and September. In its last 13F filing, the fund reported ownership of 6.12 million shares valued at $80.54 million. At the end of June, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, up by 59% from the first quarter. More specifically, Arrowstreet Capital was the largest shareholder of Teck Resources Ltd (USA) (NYSE:TCK), with a stake worth $187.5 million reported as of the end of June. Trailing Arrowstreet Capital was Impala Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $123.1 million. Balyasny Asset Management and McKinley Capital Management also held valuable positions in the company.

In Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL), the fund amassed 5.88 million shares at the end of June, up by 10% over the quarter; the position was valued at $214.68 million. During the third quarter, PayPal’s shares have gained 12.2%, which had a positive impact on the returns of Slate Path and 83 other funds from our database that held shares of the company heading into the quarter.  Among these funds, Icahn Capital LP held the most valuable stake in Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL), which was worth $1237.6 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was Orbis Investment Management which amassed $490 million worth of shares. Moreover, Lone Pine Capital, D E Shaw, and Coatue Management were also bullish on Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL).

Then there’s Tripadvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP), which saw Slate Path increase its exposure by 19% to 1.88 million shares worth $120.56 million during the second quarter. However, the stock inched down by 1.7% in the following three months. Overall, the number of funds tracked by our team that held shares of Tripadvisor fell by 18% to 33 during the second quarter. PAR Capital Management, led by Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro, held the largest position, which was valued at $205.6 million at the end of June. The second-largest stake was held by Jonathon Jacobson’s Highfields Capital Management, which disclosed holding $160.7 million worth of stock. Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management and Christopher R. Hansen’s Valiant Capital also reported substantial stakes in Tripadvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP) heading into the third quarter.

Last but not least, Insulet Corporation (NASDAQ:PODD) was another profitable investment of Slate Path Capital, as the stock surged by 35.4% during the third quarter. Heading into the quarter, Slate Path owned 2.72 million shares, valued at $82.25 million. A total of 20 funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on Insulet Corporation at the end of June, down by 5% over the quarter. Among them, Slate Capital was the top shareholder, followed by Valinor Management LLC, which amassed $77.2 millions worth of shares. Moreover, Think Investments, Millennium Management, and D. E. Shaw were also bullish on Insulet Corporation (NASDAQ:PODD).

Disclosure: none