The most popular hedge fund stocks lagged the broad market averages in the first quarter.
The 20 most widely held stocks among hedge funds lost 6.3 percent in the first three months of the year, according to an Institutional Investor analysis of SEI’s comprehensive database of hedge fund holdings. This compares with a 4.6 percent drop for the S&P 500 during the same period. The group of 20 fared better than the Nasdaq Composite, which fell 10 percent in the first quarter, but only because several of the popular stocks are not tech-oriented.
Altogether, 12 of the 20 most widely held hedge fund stocks lost money in the first quarter, all of them tech stocks. Just one fared better than the Nasdaq index: Facebook parent Meta Platforms. The third-most-popular stock, it was down just 1.6 percent for the period. At least two prominent Tiger Cubs counted Meta as their largest U.S. long position at year-end: Stephen Mandel Jr.’s Lone Pine Capital and Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management.
The worst performer for the quarter was Tesla, which declined by nearly 36 percent. Several hedge fund firms had established new positions in the stock in the fourth quarter, including Two Sigma Investments, Quantitative Investment Management, Maverick Capital, Magnetar Capital, and Bridgewater Associates.
Chip maker Broadcom fell amost 28 percent in the first quarter.
The eight stocks that were in the black are mostly health care and finance-related companies. The top performers were Uber Technologies, up nearly 21 percent, and Warren Buffett investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway, which rose 17.5 percent for the quarter. At year-end, Uber was Bridger Management’s second-largest U.S. long position.
Here are the first-quarter performances of the 20 most widely held stocks among hedge funds as of the end of the fourth quarter, as tracked by SEI:
Amazon down 13.3 percent
Microsoft down 10.9
Meta Platforms down 1.6
Nvidia down 19.3
Alphabet “A” down 18.3
Apple down 11.3
Visa up 10.9
Alphabet “C” down 18
Mastercard up 4.1
UnitedHealth Group up 3.5
Broadcom down 27.8
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing down 15.9
Berkshire Hathaway up 17.5
JPMorgan Chase up 2.3
Netflix up 4.6
Salesforce down 19.7
Lilly up 7
Tesla down 35.8
Uber Technologies up 20.8
SPDR S&P 500 Trust down 4.6
