Amazon is once again the most popular stock among hedge funds.
In the fourth quarter, the stock reclaimed the top spot from Microsoft. (Microsoft leaped over Amazon in the previous quarter, according to an analysis of the most widely held hedge fund stocks by SEI, the most comprehensive database of 13F filings.
As of year-end, 413 hedge funds held positions in Amazon. Fifty-one funds initiated new positions in the fourth quarter, while just 19 fully liquidated their investments. Additionally, 126 hedge funds increased their positions, while 182 reduced their stakes but did not fully exit.
Amazon’s new investors included Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, which made the stock its largest U.S.-listed single-company long position (its largest long positions overall are two exchange-traded funds), Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office, and ValueAct Holdings.
Microsoft is now the second-most popular hedge fund stock, with 408 investors, even as it added a net six new investors in the fourth quarter. The cloud giant’s new investors included Glenview Capital Management, Soros Fund Management, and Sandler Capital Management.
As is typically the case, the most widely held stocks among hedge funds saw little change from quarter to quarter. In fact, the top 12 stocks at year-end were the same as at the end of the third quarter, though in a slightly reshuffled order. It is rare for a new stock to break into the top 10, as Nvidia did earlier in 2024.
Meanwhile, three new stocks entered the top 20 in the fourth quarter: Salesforce, Tesla, and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, which tracks the S&P 500. They replaced Adobe, Merck, and Bank of America.
Tesla, now ranked No. 18 with 189 hedge fund investors, saw by far the largest net gain of investors in the fourth quarter, attracting 61 while losing 23. New investors included Two Sigma Investments, Quantitative Investment Management, Maverick Capital, Magnetar Financial, and Bridgewater Associates.
Salesforce, with 196 investors, saw a net gain of 34 new investors, the second-largest increase among the 20 most popular stocks.
Here are the 20 most widely held stocks among hedge funds as of the end of the fourth quarter:
- Amazon – 413
- Microsoft – 408
- Meta Platforms – 340
- Nvidia – 320
- Alphabet “A” – 319
- Apple – 266
- Visa – 256
- Alphabet “C” – 243
- Mastercard – 221
- UnitedHealth Group – 210
- Broadcom – 208
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing – 208
- Berkshire Hathaway – 203
- JPMorgan Chase – 201
- Netflix – 199
- Salesforce – 196
- Eli Lilly – 193
- Tesla – 189
- Uber Technologies – 187
- SPDR S&P 500 Trust – 184
Source: SEI
