Hedge Fund Adage Capital’s Top Tech Stock Picks

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Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson‘s Adage Capital Management has filed its 13F with the SEC for the reporting period of March 31, with the fund holding a public equity portfolio valued at $41.02 billion as of the reporting period. Gross (pictured) and Atchinson maintain a highly diversified public equity portfolio, with their investments spread out across a multitude of sectors, with their largest financial commitments being to the healthcare, technology, and consumer discretionary sectors. With technology stocks representing two of the top three positions in its public equity portfolio, let’s take a look at the top tech stock holdings of Adage Capital, which are Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB).

Phill Gross

We follow hedge funds like Adage Capital Management because our research has shown that their stock picks historically managed to generate alpha even though the filings are up to 45-days delayed. We used a 60-day delay in our back tests to be on the safe side and our research showed that the 15 most popular small-cap stocks among hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 Total Return Index by an average of 95 basis points per month between 1999 and 2012. After adjusting for risk, our calculations revealed that these stocks’ monthly alpha was 80 basis points. We have also been sharing and tracking the performance of these stocks since the end of August 2012, during which time they have returned 144%, outperforming the S&P 500 ETF by nearly 85 percentage points (see more details here).

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is the second-largest stock investment of the fund and its top tech stock. The investment firm owns 8.87 million shares of the iPhone-maker, with the shares having a market value of $1.10 billion as of March 31. It is quite comfortable to interchange innovation with Apple, as the tech giant keeps on surprising its customers with astounding gadgets. In a recent announcement from General Motors Company (NYSE:GM), the carmaker has announced that it will use CarPlay, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s car system, in all of its 2016 Chevrolet models. Interestingly, General Motors will also use Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Android Auto system alongside CarPlay. These systems are designed to allow easy integration of smartphones with the dashboard interface and reduce driver distraction. Icahn Capital LP and Fisher Asset Management are among the largest stockholders of Apple, which owns one of the most profitable businesses ever.

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