Hedge Funds Prefer These 5 Stocks Over Square

3. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 155 

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is a California-based diversified technology company. It is ranked third on our list of 10 stocks that hedge funds prefer over Square, Inc. (NYSE:SQ).

On September 17, investment advisory Jefferies reiterated a Buy rating on Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock and raised the price target to $3,325 from $3,150. Brent Thill, an analyst at the advisory, issued the ratings update. 

Out of the hedge funds being tracked by Insider Monkey, London-based investment firm TCI Fund Management is a leading shareholder in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) with 2.9 million shares worth more than $7.3 billion. 

In its Q1 2021 investor letter, Artisan Partners, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“Large-cap tech companies have been resilient through the pandemic—Alphabet among them. A top contributor, Alphabet’s Play Store and Google Cloud are in demand as businesses accelerate online activity which, along with strong YouTube user growth, is helping stabilize temporarily weaker search ad revenue trends. Through the lens of our disciplined bottom-up research process, we view Alphabet as one of the best businesses in the world, capable of expanding revenues at a rapid rate for years to come, with a bullet proof balance sheet and an average asking price. It’s a name we’ve owned since 2012 and for which we continue to have high hopes regarding future prospects.”