Cliff Asness’ Short Position on AMC and His Top 5 Picks

2. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 259

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a Washington-based technology company. Latest 13F filings show that AQR Capital Management owned over 5.4 million shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) at the end of March 2022 worth $1.6 billion, representing 3.18% of the portfolio. The firm has been in the AQR portfolio since the third quarter of 2017. AQR decreased its stake in the firm by 7% in the first quarter of 2022 compared to fourth quarter filings. 

On June 17, Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss maintained an Overweight rating on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock with a price target of $372, noting that the gaming franchise build of the firm has hit “overdrive” as the firm expands its user base. 

Among the hedge funds being tracked by Insider Monkey, Washington-based investment firm Fisher Asset Management is a leading shareholder in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)  with 27 million shares worth more than $8.5 billion.

In its Q4 2021 investor letter, ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, highlighted a few stocks and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“Despite these mixed emerging growth results, the ClearBridge Global Growth Strategy outperformed the benchmark due to resilience among our secular and structural growth holdings. The bulk of these contributions came from U.S. mega-cap growth stocks Apple and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) which continued to uniquely act both offensively and defensively as they have through most of the pandemic.”