The Most Popular Healthcare Stocks Among Hedge Funds Include Pfizer

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New Dow Jones Industrial Average component UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH), a $57 billion market cap health insurer, had ownership tick down slightly to 52 funds. Eagle Capital Management was one of the hedge funds that was a major shareholder of UnitedHealth.

Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) was owned by 50 hedge funds and other notable investors at the end of December. Blue Ridge Capital, managed by Tiger Cub John Griffin, added shares during the quarter and closed the year with 4 million shares (check out Blue Ridge’s stock picks).

We counted 50 hedge funds with positions in Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT), down from 54 in the third quarter of 2012. D.E. Shaw, a large hedge fund named after billionaire founder David Shaw, owned a small position at the beginning of October and increased it to 1.8 million shares (see more stocks D.E. Shaw bought).

Hedge funds continue to like Walgreen’s for many of the same reasons as Express Scripts, and so that company remained in the top ten healthcare stocks as well. Billionaire Steve Cohen and the investment team at SAC Capital Advisors reported a position in Walgreen’s.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (NYSE:TEVA) closed out our list of the most popular healthcare stocks with 46 of the 13Fs we track including shares of the stock. Billionaire Israel Englander’s Millennium Management moved heavily into the stock.

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.

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