$50 Billion Quant Fund Is Making New Bets On These Stocks

Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) isn’t a popular stock like Alphabet or Microsoft, but this didn’t stop RenTech’s algorithms to invest $318 million in the retail giant. The number of funds from our hedge fund database that are long Costco Wholesale Corporation stood at 50 at the end of September. This number was only 39 at the end of June. This means a bunch of hedge funds actually initiated brand new positions in Costco Wholesale Corporation in Q3. Costco Wholesale Corporation reported its October month sales at $9.11 billion, up 4% from $8.78 billion a year ago (To learn more about department store stocks, read our article here).

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) is the fourth stock in our list which is flat for the year. The company offers a dividend yield of 3.71%. Renaissance Technologies boosted its holding of the stock by 390% during the September quarter to 8.56 million shares. The market value of the holding stands at $290 million and forms 0.51% of Renaissance Technologies’ portfolio. 94 hedge funds from our database have positions in Pfizer, with total holdings of about $5.66 billion at the end of June. In contrast to RenTech other hedge funds dumped the stock and the total number of hedge funds with bullish positions in Pfizer declined to 83 by the end of September. The company announced its collaboration with National Cancer Institute for studying three immunotherapy agents for multiple cancers. Pfizer will work with NCI’s Center for Cancer Research for arranging and conducting preclinical and clinical trials.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (NYSE:BMY) stock dipped more than 20% this year. The stock was trading above $75 mid-July and its stock price dipped below $55 by the end of September. RenTech’s algorithm’s probably detected a buy signal after the large losses and boosted its BMY position by 782% during the quarter. The investment firm held 4.74 million shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb worth $255 million at the end of September. 61 hedge funds we track hold about $2.37 billion of Bristol-Myers Squibb stock as on the end of June quarter, in comparison to 59 funds holding stock worth $2.28 billion at the end of September. More recently the company reported preliminary data from a phase I/II open-label study, CheckMate-032, on Opdivo, for treating locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC) in patients who have been previously treated with platinum-based therapy. The results were largely positive with promising efficacy and safety results.

If you want to outperform the market by buying large-cap stocks RenTech’s portfolio is one of the best places to check out to come up with promising investment ideas.

DISCLOSURE – NONE