Tiger Cub John Griffin’s Tech Picks Include Apple Inc. (AAPL)

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Blue Ridge cut its stake in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 20% but still owned 530,000 shares of the stock. With a number of other funds selling out completely, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) lost its place as the most popular stock among hedge funds last quarter, being replaced by American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG). See the rest of the most popular stocks among hedge funds. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is arguably a value stock at 10 times trailing earnings, as the company only needs to maintain its current business without any growth to be undervalued, but many investors worry that lower margins will offset future revenue growth.

Sensors and controls developer and manufacturer Sensata Technologies Holding N.V. (NYSE:ST) was another of the fund’s favorite tech stocks. At a market capitalization of $6 billion, the stock trades at 34 times trailing earnings though the company’s bottom line has been improving and the sell-side consensus places that same valuation at only 13 times earnings for 2014. We wouldn’t be quite so optimistic, and think we’d want to wait for more results from the company. 13F filings show that Bain Capital’s hedge fund Brookside Capital initiated a position of 6.4 million shares between October and December.

Griffin nearly doubled Blue Ridge’s holdings of Equinix Inc (NASDAQ:EQIX), an $11 billion market cap data center services company. The company’s revenues were up 14% in the fourth quarter of 2012 versus a year earlier, helping cause a large percentage increase in net income. A large amount of growth is still priced into the stock, with even the forward earnings multiple being 42, and despite a 52% rise in the last year the most recent data has 15% of the outstanding shares held short. Billionaire John Paulson’s Paulson & Co. reported owning 2.1 million shares of Equinix at the end of December (research more stocks Paulson owned).

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

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