Appaloosa, Coatue and Citadel Led Fund Exodus From FAANGs

(Bloomberg) -- The FAANGs have been losing their bite.

Hedge funds were net sellers of all the tech giants but Facebook Inc. in the first quarter, according to preliminary data compiled by Bloomberg. Billionaire David Tepper -- who tripled his stake in Apple Inc. last year -- did an about-face. His Appaloosa Management sold its entire position, valued at $776 million in the prior period, regulatory filings show.

Larry Robbins’s Glenview Capital Management also ditched its Apple stake, while Philippe Laffont, whose tech bets helped his Coatue Management win big last year, cut its holding in the iPhone maker by more than half.

The stock was about flat in the first quarter, but has since rallied and is now up 10 percent for the year.

Apple isn’t the only FAANG to experience waning interest. Google parent Alphabet Inc. saw hedge funds Citadel and Renaissance Technologies cut their stakes. Coatue axed its entire Alphabet stake, and also brought down its Netflix Inc. exposure. Shares of Alphabet were down slightly in the first quarter.

Hedge funds also said goodbye to Amazon.com Inc. UK-based Lansdowne Partners, Lone Pine Capital and Viking Global Investors trimmed their positions.

Amazon and Netflix rallied 24 percent and 54 percent respectively in the quarter.

The F in FAANG was the only one that was still feeling the love last quarter.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hema Parmar in New York at hparmar6@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Vincent Bielski, Josh Friedman

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