Influential Hedge Funds’ Most Interesting Moves in the Tech Space

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

While billionaire Warren Buffett and Leon Cooperman through Berkshire Hathaway and Omega Advisors initiated a stake in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) during the first quarter, there were several hedge funds that sold off their entire positions in the company during that period. Funds that belonged to the latter group included Renaissance Technologies, which unloaded 4.46 million shares, and Appaloosa Management LP, which liquidated its stake of 1.26 million shares. Though Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s stock ended first quarter with marginal gains, the weaker than expected quarterly numbers released by the company in April has caused its stock to plummet heavily since then. As a result, it is currently trading down 12.34% year-to-date. The EPS of $1.90 and revenue of $50.60 billion it reported for the first quarter missed analysts’ projection by $0.10 and $1.37 billion, respectively. The iPhone maker recently invested $1 billion in Chinese ride sharing company Didi, which analysts believe is a sign that the company is finally thinking about deploying the excessive amount of cash on its balance sheet to spur future growth. At the end of March, Berkshire Hathaway held 9.8 million shares of Apple Inc.

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) emerged as one of the favorite large cap stocks for leading hedge funds in the first quarter. While Renaissance Technologies initiated a stake in the company by purchasing 163,999 class A shares during that period, Third Point did that by buying 700,000 class A shares. Like Apple Inc.’s stock, shares of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) have also seen heavy declines since the company reported its first quarter numbers. Nevertheless, at this point analysts are relatively more bullish on Alphabet Inc than Apple Inc. with some of them even forecasting that the former will overtake the mantle of world’s largest company (in terms of market capitalization) from the latter soon. At the company’s recently concluded annual I/O event, Alphabet launched several new products including Google Assistant, a “conversational” assistant service that will compete with Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, and Allo, an internet messaging app that will support Google Assistant and other third-party chatbots.

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