Alger’s Short Exposure in Intel Corp. (INTC) Paid Big Time

Alger, an investment management firm, published its ‘Alger Spectra Fund’ fourth quarter 2020 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. In the letter, the fund highlighted their largest portfolio sector weightings, which is in Information Technology and Consumer Discretionary sector, with their comments on notable companies. The Communication Services sector together with the Industrial sector is where they achieved the largest chunk of their returns. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

Alger Spectra Fund, in their Q4 2020 investor letter, mentioned Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) and emphasized their views on the company. Intel Corporation is a California-based semiconductor company. It currently has a $259.2 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, INTC delivered a 28.04% return, extending its 12-month gains to 42.99%. As of March 15, 2021, the stock closed at $63.79 per share.

Here is what Alger Spectra Fund has to say about Intel Corporation in their Q4 2020 investor letter:

“Short exposure to Intel Corporation also contributed to performance. Intel designs and manufactures semiconductors for the computing and communications industries. We have observed a deterioration in Intel’s proprietary intellectual position and manufacturing prowess versus competition, which is causing the company to lose market share and profit opportunities. The short position contributed to portfolio returns as the company announced disappointing profit margins due to increased competition in personal computers and servers as well as a sales mix shift to lower margined Chromebooks. Importantly, Intel is experiencing design issues with its next generation server chips, which are delaying the product’s introduction and further
weakening the company’s competitiveness. The performance of Intel shares also weakened after Microsoft announced it was designing its own chips for its servers and in Surface computers.”

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), microprocessor, Sign, Logo, chip, hardware, processor

NorGal / Shutterstock.com

Our calculations show that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, Intel Corporation was in 72 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 66 funds in the third quarter. INTC delivered a 26.39% return in the past 3 months.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.