Billionaire Noam Gottesman’s Top Stock Picks

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GLG Partners, founded by Noam Gottesman has filed its 13F for the reporting period of March 31, with the fund holding an equity portfolio valued at just under $3.0 billion as of the reporting period. The fund was launched in 1995, working as a sub-division of Lehman Brothers International (Europe) at the time, and is now a part of Man Group and managed by Teun Johnston and Mark Jones. The fund holds a diversified portfolio with the technology, energy, finance, and healthcare sectors all having nearly equal weight in its portfolio. The fund’s portfolio is also well-balanced, with its top ten stock holdings accounting for just 16.35% of the portfolio’s overall value. Actavis plc (NYSE:ACT), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSEMKT:LNG) are among the primary stockholdings of GLG Partners, which we’ll examine in this article.

Cheniere LNG Tanker Shipping Ship Liquid Natural Gas Vessel Fuel Carrier

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Why are we interested in the 13F filings of a select group of hedge funds? We use these filings to determine the top 15 small-cap stocks held by these elite funds based on 16 years of research that showed their top small-cap picks are much more profitable than both their large-cap stocks and the broader market as a whole. These small-cap stocks beat the S&P 500 Total Return Index by an average of nearly one percentage point per month in our backtests, which were conducted over the period of 1999 to 2012. Moreover, since the beginning of forward testing from August 2012, the strategy worked just as our research predicted, outperforming the market every year and returning 139% over the last 32 months, which is more than 80 percentage points higher than the returns of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) (see more details).

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With 266,903 shares valued at $79.44 million, Actavis plc (NYSE:ACT) is the largest stock holding of GLG Partners, though the fund’s position in the pharmaceutical company was trimmed by 7% during the reporting period. Shares of Actavis plc (NYSE:ACT) have grown 16.1% year-to-date and it has a market cap of $118.26 billion. Actavis was recently crowned as the most popular stock among the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, with 157 hedge funds holding the pharmaceutical company in their portfolios, replacing Apple as the number one choice of investment managers. Viking Global, Paulson & Co and OZ Management are among some of those 157 stockholders of Actavis plc (NYSE:ACT) which we track.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) comes in at number two in the equity portfolio of GLG Partners, which owns 467,291 shares valued at $58.15 million. The investment firm reduced its position in the iPhone-maker by 19% during the first quarter. Shares of Apple, which owns one of the most profitable businesses ever have improved 17.79% year-to-date, lifting its market cap to $763.57 billion. Apple Inc. is planning to launch a live streaming service and is in touch with different local broadcast networks for possible partnerships. This might be excellent news for the investors of Apple, but it will delay the launch of the much-awaited Apple TV. GLG’s top two mimic’s the hedge funds in our database, as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is also the second favorite stock of hedge funds with 150 holding positions in the company as of March 31. Carl Icahn‘s Icahn Capital LP, Fisher Asset Management, and Adage Capital Management are among some of those investors of the iPad manufacturer.

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