The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We have processed the filings of the more than 873 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their June 30th holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.
Is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) a good stock to buy? Prominent investors were turning bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets advanced by 11 lately. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was in 138 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 152. Our calculations also showed that AAPL ranked 9th among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are a multitude of tools stock market investors employ to size up stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading activity. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a very impressive margin (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 (through August 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 79 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .
Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. We go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a look at the key hedge fund action regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).
Do Hedge Funds Think AAPL Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the second quarter, a total of 138 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 9% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards AAPL over the last 24 quarters. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, Berkshire Hathaway was the largest shareholder of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), with a stake worth $121502.1 million reported as of the end of June. Trailing Berkshire Hathaway was Fisher Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $8883.2 million. Citadel Investment Group, D E Shaw, and Adage Capital Management were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Berkshire Hathaway allocated the biggest weight to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), around 41.46% of its 13F portfolio. Value Star Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 19.58 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AAPL.
As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds have jumped into Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) headfirst. Harvard Management Co, managed by Rick Slocum, assembled the most valuable position in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). Harvard Management Co had $333.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Sander Gerber’s Hudson Bay Capital Management also initiated a $267.1 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Brad Dunkley and Blair Levinsky’s Waratah Capital Advisors, Zach Schreiber’s Point State Capital, and Aaron Cowen’s Suvretta Capital Management.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) but similarly valued. These stocks are Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK-B), and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM). This group of stocks’ market values resemble AAPL’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSFT | 238 | 62465125 | -13 |
| AMZN | 271 | 60492350 | 28 |
| GOOGL | 190 | 26833902 | 5 |
| FB | 266 | 42349769 | 9 |
| TSLA | 60 | 9296858 | -2 |
| BRK-B | 116 | 22380662 | 5 |
| TSM | 64 | 10694405 | -12 |
| Average | 172.1 | 33501867 | 2.9 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 172.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $33502 million. That figure was $145521 million in AAPL’s case. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is the least popular one with only 60 bullish hedge fund positions. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for AAPL is 66.7. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 24.1% in 2021 through September 20th and still beat the market by 6.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on AAPL as the stock returned 4.5% since the end of the second quarter (through 9/20) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Follow Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Follow Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Suggested Articles:
- 11 Best T-Shirt Design Websites
- Billionaire Lee Cooperman’s Top 10 Stock Picks
- Top 25 Places to Visit in the US
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
