10 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Apple Isn’t Number One!

Insider Monkey tracks more than 300 hedge funds and a few mutual funds with very respectable track records like Bruce Berkowitz’s Fairholme. We finished compiling hedge fund holdings and posted them on our free website. We will be providing some summary tables to help you understand what hedge funds are thinking about the stock market and individual stocks. The first interesting thing we wanted to do is to determine the most popular stocks among hedge funds. We excluded hedge funds when they have a put option on a security even when they have call options and/or shares of the same security. Here are the top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds:

FAIRHOLME (FAIRX) Bruce Berkowitz

1. Citigroup (C): Hedge fund rating of 96, meaning there were 96 hedge funds with bullish positions on Citigroup’s stock price. These 96 hedge funds collectively had $9.9 Billion in Citigroup. It is surprising that Apple isn’t the most popular stock. John Paulson’s Paulson & Co. had more than $1.8 Billion in C.

2. Microsoft (MSFT): Hedge fund rating of 93. Hedge funds had $5.4 Billion in MSFT at the end of March. Boykin Curry’s Eagle Capital had $427 Million in MSFT.

3. Apple (AAPL): Hedge fund rating of 85. Hedge funds had $7.3 Billion in AAPL. Rob Citrone’s Discovery Capital had $633 Million in AAPL at the end of March.

4. JP Morgan (JPM): Hedge fund rating of 83. Hedge funds had $7 Billion in JPM at the end of March. Steve Heinz’s Lansdowne, Jonathan Jacobson’s Highfields Capital, and Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global are among the hedge funds with huge JPM positions.

5. Google (GOOG): Hedge fund rating of 75. Hedge funds had $3.9 Billion in Google. Ken Griffin’s Citadel wasn’t among the 75 hedge funds that are bullish about GOOG. However, Citadel had $665 Million in GOOG shares, $548 Million in GOOG call options, and $804 Million in GOOG put options. These numbers don’t tell us how bullish/bearish Griffin is about Google.

6. Pfizer (PFE): Hedge fund rating of 72. Hedge funds had $5.3 Billion in Pfizer.  David Einhorn’s Greenlight, Frank Brosens’ Taconic Capital, and Ken Garschina’s Mason Capital are among the hedge funds with large PFE holdings at the end of March.

7. Bank of America (BAC): Hedge fund rating of 67. Hedge funds had $5.6 Billion in BAC. Eric Mindich’s Eton Park had a $281 Million position.

8. Qualcomm (QCOM): Hedge fund rating of 65. Hedge funds had 3.8 Billion in QCOM. Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital had the largest position in Maverick among the 300+ hedge funds we track.

9. LyondellBasell (LYB): Hedge fund rating of 58. Hedge funds had $2.9 Billion in LYB. James Dinan’s York, Howard Marks’ Oaktree and Dan Loeb’s Third Point had large positions in LYB at the end of March.

10. Johnson&Johnson (JNJ): Hedge fund rating of 55. Hedge funds had $4.7 Billion in JNJ at the end of March. Warren Buffett is the largest holder with a $2.5 Billion position.