Billionaire Cliff Asness Was Relentlessly Buying Meta Platforms (META) and These 4 Stocks in Q1

3. Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA)

Value of AQR Capital Management‘s 13F Position: $235 million

Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 41

Health and related companies were among AQR’s top buys during Q1, evidenced again by the fund building up its stake in Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) by 163% to 1.37 million shares during the quarter. Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management also raised its position in MRNA during Q1, by 62% to 6.93 million shares.

Cliff Asness appears to be taking advantage of the weakness in Covid stocks like Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA), shares of which have tanked by 69% since early August 2021. The company recently had its Covid vaccine approved for kids aged 6 to 17, but that approval comes after many kids have already been vaccinated against the virus using Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)’s approved vaccine.

Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) has also been working on a booster shot that has been shown to be effective against omicron’s subvariants. How much of a need there will ultimately be for those boosters will depend on what kind of foothold those subvariants can gain. Covid cases are again on the rise globally after falling for much of the past five months, and those omicron subvariants, which are highly transmissible, could soon be the dominant strains in many countries according to projections.