Top Five Equity Holdings of Quant Billionaire Cliff Asness of AQR Capital

#2. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)

– Shares owned by AQR Capital Management as of March 31: 13.13 Million

– Value of AQR Capital Management’s holding as of March 31: $725.15 Million

AQR Capital Management lifted its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 1.26 million shares during the January-to-March period to 13.13 million shares. The increased stake was worth $725.15 million at the end of the March quarter and made up roughly 1.3% of the firm’s entire portfolio. Just recently, Microsoft announced it would pay a massive $26.2 billion for LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD), but some investors may not have been overly excited given Microsoft’s history of bad acquisitions such as the one of Nokia’s phone business. Yet, there are some analysts and investors who are certain that the benefits of the LinkedIn-acquisition will exceed the seemingly high cost, as the access to more than 430 million LinkedIn members will enable the cross selling of Microsoft’s office productivity software and cloud services. Microsoft shares are 7.8% in the red year-to-date. Jeffrey Ubben’s ValueAct Capital had 56.62 million shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its portfolio on March 31.

#1. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

– Shares owned by AQR Capital Management as of March 31: 6.70 Million

– Value of AQR Capital Management’s holding as of March 31: $730.33 Million

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was the largest equity holding in Cliff Asness’ portfolio at the end of the March quarter, consisting of 6.70 million shares valued at $730.33 million. Mr. Asness and his team trimmed the Apple stake by 9% during the first three months of the year. The market value of the iPhone maker has declined by 9% since the beginning of the year, mainly due to investor worries over slowing iPhone sales. However, while iPhone unit sales will most likely keep falling in the years ahead due to market saturation, Apple could seek to make more money out of each iPhone user. For instance, the company’s Apple Music, which provides iPhone users unlimited streaming for a fee, could add to Apple’s bottom- and top-figures. Moreover, as Apple has roughly $216 billion in cash on its balance sheet and is allegedly interested in driverless cars, some believe that a possible acquisition of Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) would make perfect economic sense. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway acquired a new stake of 9.81 million shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) during the March quarter.

Disclosure: None