Insiders and Billionaire George Soros Like American International Group Inc (AIG) and More

We track quarterly 13F filings from hundreds of hedge funds and other notable investors, including billionaire George Soros. These filings can be used to help develop investment strategies- for example, we have found that the most popular small cap stocks among hedge funds earn an average excess return of 18 percentage points per year (learn more about our small cap strategy)– and we can also comb through individual filings. By screening Soros’s top picks in a number of areas, including stocks with recent insider purchases, we can identify initial investment ideas which might be of interest to investors. Read on for our quick take on Soros’s five largest holdings as of the end of March with at least one insider purchase in the last three months (or compare these picks to Soros’s previous filings).

In early March, a Board member at Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR) purchased over 1,700 shares at an average price of $87.06 per share; Soros, meanwhile, had the TV, Internet, and phone company as one of his largest stock holdings in the 13F. Charter Communications’s business is relatively unaffected by broader economic conditions, and as a result the stock’s beta is 0.4. The stock is valued at a trailing EV/EBITDA multiple of 9.1x, which seems a bit high given the stable financial performance per recent quarterly reports. Billionaire Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital owned 4.6 million shares of Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR) (find Mandel’s favorite stocks).

Multiple insiders were buying shares of $12 billion market cap energy company EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT) in early April; our analysis of studies on insider trading has shown that stocks bought by multiple insiders are particularly likely- though not certain- to outperform the market. Read more about studies on consensus insider purchases. EQT’s share price is up 82% in the last year, with revenue and earnings also rising strongly. A good deal of future improvements are already priced in- the forward P/E is 26- but growth has been high enough that EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT) still might be worth a look. Soros increased his stake by 49% between January and March, to a total of 3.1 million shares.