Hedge Fund Valiant Capital’s Favorite Tech Stocks Include Apple Inc. (AAPL)

Valiant slightly increased its holdings of Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) to a total of about 140,000 shares. Billionaire Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital had sold shares on net between July and September but still closed the third quarter with 1.1 million shares of Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its portfolio (check out Mandel’s stock picks). Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is another stock with an apparently attractive forward P/E- 14 in this case- but we can see the potential for strong earnings growth as Motorola Mobility Holdings is integrated and the search business continues to perform well.

The fund owned about 580,000 shares of Baidu.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) at the beginning of 2013. The Chinese search engine reported very strong growth last quarter, with revenue and net income each up by about 40%. While the trailing earnings multiple is 21, growth rates similar to what the company has been experiencing recently would easily leave Baidu undervalued at that price and we’d note that the five-year PEG ratio is 0.6. As with other Chinese companies it’s important to be comfortable with country-specific factors, including macro trends, before investing. Orbis Investment Management recently initiated a large position in Baidu.

Hansen and his team kept their stake in OpenTable Inc (NASDAQ:OPEN) about constant during the quarter at just under 1.1 million shares. 42% of the outstanding shares of OpenTable are held short as traders express doubt that the company can continue its growth, which is somewhat limited by the addressable market of restaurants. The stock trades at 50 times trailing earnings and that’s high enough that we would advise avoiding the stock. Steadfast Capital Management, managed by Robert Pitts, reported owning 1.3 million shares at the end of the third quarter (research more stocks that Steadfast owned).

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.