These 5 Tech Stocks Are in More Smart Money Portfolios Than Any Others

#3 Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)

Investors with Long Positions (as of September 30): 128

Aggregate Value of Investors’ Holdings (as of September 30): $8.95 Billion

Even though its shares have soared by 37.3% year-to-date, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has had a slight decline in popularity, possibly because funds that bought into the company early-on are now booking their profits. The number of hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey that reported owning a stake in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) declined by five during the third quarter and the aggregate value of their positions in the company also saw a drop of almost $100 million during that period. In a recent post on the platform, the founder and CEO of the company, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that he and his wife intend to give away 99% of their shares to charity during their lifetime. Owing to the spectacular run shares of the company have had since July 2013, some analysts believe that the valuation of the company has gone too high and that its shares will, if not experience a correction, stay range-bound in the short to medium-term at the least. D E Shaw, founded by billionaire David E. Shaw, increased its stake in the company by 270% to over 4.7 million shares during the third quarter.

#2 Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Investors with Long Positions (as of September 30): 129

Aggregate Value of Investors’ Holdings (as of September 30): $11.3 Billion

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Investors with Long Positions (as of September 30): 119

Aggregate Value of Investors’ Holdings (as of September 30): $10.18 Billion

After remaining range-bound for almost two years, shares of Alphabet Inc [formerly Google Inc] started moving upwards beginning in the second-half of this year and this has been one of the main reasons that both classes of the company’s stock i.e. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) have seen their popularity increase among hedge funds. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) was owned by 115 hedge funds in our database at the end of June, while Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) was owned by 107 funds. On Monday Mark Mahaney, renowned analyst from RBC Capital, released a note to clients in which he reiterated his ‘Outperform’ rating  and $880 price target on the stock. Although Mr. Mahaney did not change his price target on the stock, he highlighted in the note that the stock has the potential to touch the $1,000 mark. Daniel Benton‘s Andor Capital Management was one of the hedge funds that initiated a stake in Alphabet Inc during the third quarter; it held 100,000 shares of the company as of September 30.

#1 Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Investors with Long Positions (as of September 30): 133

Aggregate Value of Investors’ Holdings (as of September 30): $17.4 Billion

Finally, even though its popularity among hedge funds experienced a noteworthy decline during the third quarter, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) retained its spot as the most-loved tech stock among the hedge funds covered by Insider Monkey. While Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s stock saw an 11.6% drop during the third quarter, the number of hedge funds tracked by us that reported a stake in the company fell by 11 and the aggregate value of their Apple stakes also came down by $3.86 billion. In a post published recently on his blog, former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassee discussed why Apple might come out with an electric car soon. On December 1, analysts at Wells Fargo reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating and $130 price target on the stock, which suggests minimal near-term upside of just over 10%. Legendary activist investor Carl Icahn‘s Icahn Capital LP didn’t made any changes to its stake of 52.76 million shares of Apple Inc. during the third quarter and continued to remain the largest shareholder of the company in our database.

Disclosure: None