eBay Inc (EBAY), Micron Technology, Inc. (MU), Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG): Why Billionaire Klarman’s Top Picks Underperformed The Market?

Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU)’s stock had the worst decline among all companies from the list, losing 22.5% during the first three months of 2015. Mr. Klarman might have anticipated such an outcome, since Baupost disclosed ownership of 19.71 million shares, down by 62% on the quarter. The semiconductor manufacturer has faced considerable pressure in sales from both NAND and DRAM segments. However, the company’s new 3D NAND line and the transition from the 25nm 8GB NAND to 20nm 8GB NAND, which reduces board space by about 30% to 40%, has made some analysts very hopeful of the company’s future prospects. David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital was another significant shareholder of Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) with 31.26 million shares valued at $1.09 billion at the end of the fourth quarter.

eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) added some counterweight to the fund’s slide as its stock returned nearly 2.78% during the first quarter, while Baupost held 9.32 million shares as of the end of December, up by 53% on the quarter.  The parent company of PayPal is set to spin off its payment arm later this year. According to the PayPal’s Senior Vice President the company is experiencing phenomenal growth as it expands in markets outside the U.S. It remains to be seen how profitable eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)  would be without PayPal in the face of competition from the likes of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA). The e-commerce company was also downgraded in March by Piper Jaffray to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Neutral’. Another shareholder of eBay is Carl Icahn, who holds some 46.27 million shares of eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) valued at $2.6 billion.

Disclosure: none