Billionaires’ Top Picks Beat The Market in Q2: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Allergan PLC (AGN), eBay Inc (EBAY), More

The Chinese technology company, Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU), is another favorite stock pick of billionaires. Baidu has been investing heavily towards expansion and one of its recent investments includes a $3.2 billion push into Nuomi, an app that connects online customers with brick-and-mortar businesses. This investment could help the Chinese tech company expand its existing ecosystem and monetize mobile users. The shares of Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) have declined 4.47% during the second quarter and smart money is bearish on the stock. In comparison with the 95 hedge fund managers holding $8.42 billion of the company’s shares at the end of the fourth quarter of 2014, 75 hedge fund investors maintained positions in the company at the end of the first quarter of 2015, with aggregate holdings of $7.00 billion. Baidu Inc has attracted investments from numerous Tiger Cubs, including Stephen Mandel of Lone Pine Capital and Lee Ainslie of Maverick Capital. Mandel’s current stake in the company includes 5.28 million shares valued at $1.10 billion. Baidu was equally competitive in terms of landing investments from billionaires, as the Chinese tech firm bagged 17 billionaire investors at the end of the first quarter.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) is among the top e-commerce companies in the world and the Chinese retailer is quickly becoming known for entering other business segments at a rapid pace. The company is ready to enter the Chinese entertainment market by forming new partnerships with other Chinese media players including Hunan Satellite Television and DMG Entertainment. The service will start by offering films, TV content and games to the existing six million cable TV subscribers of Hunan Satellite Television and later expand to offer the first bundled package of mobile, internet, and cable TV entertainment in a single service. The shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) declined 1.17% during the second quarter. Smart money was bearish over this Chinese company as well, with 86 investors holding net investments of $5.80 billion at the end of the first quarter compared to total holdings of $7.11 billion from 90 investors in the previous reporting period. Rob Citrone’s Discovery Capital Management was the biggest shareholder of Alibaba heading into the second quarter, holding $730.36 million in the company’s stock, owning 8.77 million shares. Among all the stock choices discussed in this post, Alibaba had the lowest number of billionaire investors, with 15 at the end of the first quarter.

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