Jim Simons’ Medallion Fund is a phenomenon, by far the best hedge fund with 34% annual alpha. The problem is its strategy has a size constraint. So Jim Simons has had to return outsiders’ capital. Jim Simons is making at least a couple of billions of dollars every year from his investments in the Medallion Fund. In 2005, Simons launched Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund (RIEF) for outside investors with the goal of managing tens of billions of dollars. The fund was said to have a theoretical capacity of $100 Billion. It was expected to beat the S&P 500 index by 4 to 6 percentage points per year on the average. Through September 2007, RIEF had an annualized return of 12.8% and $28 Billion under management. In 2008, RIEF lost 16% followed by a 6% loss in 2009. RIEF’s return was in line with S&P 500 in 2010, returning 16.5%.
Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies has more than 2700 securities. Insider Monkey, your source for free insider trading data, compiled Rentec’s top 30 stock holdings. All of these stock holdings are larger than $100 Million and most of them were also among the largest stock holdings in Rentec’s portfolio at the end of the previous quarter. Here are Jim Simons’ top 30 stock holdings:
| Company | Ticker | Return | Value (in Millions) |
| APPLE INC | AAPL | 10.6% | 438 |
| LORILLARD INC | LO | -4.7% | 360 |
| JOHNSON & JOHNSON | JNJ | -1.9% | 342 |
| DIRECTV | DTV | 8.9% | 184 |
| BOEING CO | BA | 11.2% | 169 |
| SALESFORCE COM INC | CRM | 7.2% | 163 |
| GOOGLE INC | GOOG | 5.1% | 161 |
| ABBOTT LABS | ABT | -4.0% | 160 |
| TEVA PHARMACEUTICAL INDS LTD | TEVA | -1.7% | 156 |
| NOVO-NORDISK A S | NVO | 5.5% | 156 |
| COCA COLA CO | KO | -3.3% | 148 |
| COLGATE PALMOLIVE CO | CL | -1.1% | 145 |
| ALCON INC | ACL | 0.4% | 145 |
| HUMANA INC | HUM | 6.5% | 137 |
| CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL INC | CMG | 26.4% | 133 |
| HEWLETT PACKARD CO | HPQ | 15.5% | 129 |
| ALTERA CORP | ALTR | 16.5% | 125 |
| MCDONALDS CORP | MCD | -0.8% | 125 |
| INTEL CORP | INTC | 4.4% | 123 |
| PEPSICO INC | PEP | -2.2% | 120 |
| FAMILY DLR STORES INC | FDO | -11.2% | 118 |
| CF INDS HLDGS INC | CF | 11.3% | 117 |
| VERISIGN INC | VRSN | 12.4% | 108 |
| LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP | LMT | 16.9% | 108 |
| PHILIPPINE LONG DISTANCE TEL | PHI | -6.8% | 107 |
| PRUDENTIAL FINL INC | PRU | 11.0% | 102 |
| GILEAD SCIENCES INC | GILD | 5.9% | 102 |
| NEWMONT MINING CORP | NEM | -7.4% | 102 |
| POTASH CORP SASK INC | POT | 21.7% | 100 |
| FRANKLIN RES INC | BEN | 15.6% | 100 |
Jim Simons’ top 30 holdings returned 4.9% since the end of December, underperforming the SPY by 1 percentage point. Jim Simons’ largest holdings seem to underdeliver in 2011 as well. Their best performing positions are among other hedge fund managers’ favorite holdings.
Apple (AAPL) is in the portfolios of Daniel Loeb’s Third Point, Zweig-DiMenna, Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global, Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital, Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners, Craig Effron and Curtis Schenker’s Scoggin, and David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital.
Potash Corp became a hedge fund favorite. Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global, Perry Capital, Mohnish Pabrai are among the hedge funds that own Potash.
It’s a secret that Renaissance Tech uses momentum strategies in the Medallion Fund. It seems like they are employing momentum strategies in their longer term holdings too. Salesforce (CRM), Chipotle (CMG), and Altera are high momentum stocks. Altera is also among one of the stocks Wall Street Analysts expect to dive the most.
