The 10 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds, Part II

7. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)

 – Elite Investors with Long Positions (as of September 30): 113

 – Aggregate Value of Elite Investors’ Holdings (as of September 30): $14.98 Billion

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s strong results are making a believer out of many investors, as it pushed into the top ten from being ranked 11th a quarter earlier. 113 investors in our database were long Amazon on September 30, up from 103 on June 30. The value of their positions also soared by $4.5 billion, helped along by the 18% appreciation in the stock during the quarter, a rarity in the tough quarter. Amazon is finally delivering income that analysts long worried would never come, buoyed by the rapidly growing success of Amazon Web Services, which pulled in $2.1 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter, and hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. That may be just a drop in the bucket of its revenue potential, as a recent report from Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) predicts that number could rise to $20 billion annually by 2020. Chase Coleman‘s Tiger Global became a lot more bullish on Amazon in the third quarter, adding 2.45 million shares to its position, lifting it to the second spot in the firm’s $8.12 billion public equity portfolio.

6. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)

 – Elite Investors with Long Positions (as of September 30): 113

 – Aggregate Value of Elite Investors’ Holdings (as of September 30): $19.31 Billion

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is the final entrant in part II of our most popular stocks list (don’t forget to check out part I). There was also an increase in ownership of Microsoft during the third quarter, though unlike Amazon, its stock was essentially flat during the period. There were six more investors in our database long Microsoft by the end of the quarter, and the value of their stakes ticked up by $1 billion. While the third quarter results were different than Amazon’s, the fourth quarter results have been the same, with each stock making big gains and rewarding their new shareholders. Microsoft is up by over 21% now in the fourth quarter, pushing its year-to-date gains to over 14%. Investors are pleased with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s transition towards being a service-based company, rather than primarily a software one, as cloud revenue and usage rates for Office 365 soar. Jeffrey Ubben’s ValueAct Capital remains a staunch supporter of Microsoft, holding over 75.27 million shares on September 30.

Disclosure: None