Hedge Funds Embrace Facebook Again While Selling Apple Stock
Hedge Funds Embrace Facebook Again While Shunning Apple Shares
(Bloomberg) -- Hedge funds took a shine to Facebook Inc. in the third quarter after dumping the stock in the prior period.
Ken Griffin’s Citadel was among the biggest buyers of Facebook, adding a net 1.33 million shares for a total of $222.1 million, using the volume-weighed average stock price for the third quarter. Other buyers were Tiger Global Management, Appaloosa Management and Balyasny Asset Management, according the regulatory filings Tuesday.
Among other FAANGs, Alphabet Inc. and Netflix Inc. remained favorites of hedge funds. They ended the quarter as the No. 2 and No. 3 companies on the list. But Apple Inc. was the biggest loser. Investors pulled a net $444 million in the third quarter. Arrowstreet Capital sold 3 million shares for a total of $460.8 million and Greenlight dumped 1.7 million shares.
Tech stocks have soared this year on the strength of strong revenue and profit growth. Facebook jumped 13 percent in the third quarter. Apple rose 7.5 percent while Amazon was down 0.7 percent.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. was among the big buyers of the iPhone maker in the third quarter. Berkshire’s investment climbed by about 4 million shares in the period and was valued at roughly $21 billion.
--With assistance from Hema Parmar and Simone Foxman
To contact the reporters on this story: Brandon Kochkodin in New York at bkochkodin@bloomberg.net, Alan Mirabella in New York at amirabella@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Vincent Bielski
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