Facebook Dominates List of Most Popular Tech Stocks Among Hedge Funds

Privacy concerns and slowing user growth haven’t dampened hedge funds’ enthusiasm for Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) in the slightest. The latest hedge fund ownership data compiled by Insider Monkey shows that the social media giant is far and away the most popular stock among the funds that we track, based on the latest quarterly 13F filings, the deadline for which was Tuesday.

It’s an exciting time for Insider Monkey’s subscribers, who are given access to the latest batch of quarterly stock picks shortly after the filing period ends. Those subscribers have good reason to be optimistic about their new stock picks; Insider Monkey’s flagship “Best Performing Hedge Funds Strategy” has returned 107.5% since its May 2014 inception, crushing the S&P 500 by over 40 percentage points during that time. Check out a detailed analysis of Insider Monkey’s past performance and quarterly stock picks for all the details.

In this article, we’ll share the list of the five most popular tech stocks among the hedge funds in our system as of June 30, beginning with the first trillion-dollar public company.

5. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) actually fell to sixth behind NXP Semiconductors NV (NASDAQ:NXPI) as of June 30 in terms of tech stock hedge fund ownership. However, as we don’t traditionally include M&A plays on these rankings, Apple holds on to fifth on the list.

Some hedge funds don’t seem to have been overly impressed with Apple’s fiscal second-quarter results released at the end of April, as multiple hedge funds sold off the stock during the second-quarter, including Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments, and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management. 90 hedge funds in our system owned the tech giant on June 30, down from 97 on March 31.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)  became the first publicly-traded U.S company to hit a $1 trillion valuation on August 2, two days after the release of strong fiscal Q3 results. However, Dan Niles of AlphaOne Capital Partners recently told CNBC that the U.S/China trade war should “really concern” investors, noting that China accounted for 18% of Apple’s revenue during its latest fiscal quarter. AlphaOne Capital Partners unloaded most of its relatively small Apple position in Q2.

4. Altaba Inc (NASDAQ:AABA)

Hedge funds were overweight Altaba Inc (NASDAQ:AABA) far more than any other tech stock on this list, owning 37.8% of its shares on June 30, though the number of hedge funds owning the stock declined to 95 from 100 during the second-quarter. Among the funds that were long Altaba on June 30 were David Abrams’ Abrams Capital Management, Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, and Daniel Och’s OZ Management.

Altaba Inc (NASDAQ:AABA) manages the former assets of Yahoo! that weren’t included in that company’s sale to Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ). Those assets include billions in cash, a nearly 15% stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) (which its performance closely mirrors) and a diminishing stake in Yahoo! Japan. Altaba agreed to sell a third of its stake in Yahoo! Japan to Softbank in July, which will give the Japanese conglomerate majority ownership of Yahoo! Japan.

Head to the next page to uncover the 3 runaway favorite tech stocks among hedge funds.