During the third quarter, the fund has made some interesting changes to its equity portfolio, by adding 18 new positions and dropping 27 companies, pushing its total down to 212 holdings. Among the newcomers to the fund’s portfolio valued at $337.14 million, is position in Amazon.com,Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), which occupies 0.01%. The fund purchased 17 company’s shares for $34000, and it will be quite interesting to see what will be its next move, since FAANG stocks weren’t spared either during October’s turmoil. Nevertheless, they are still among the stocks billionaires are crazy about, and investing in them might be a smart thing to do.
The biggest addition to the fund’s portfolio was the position in HP Inc (NYSE:HPQ), a company that provides its consumers with personal computing and other access devices, printing products, and related technologies and software for twenty years. As of September 30th, the fund owns 193,190 shares of the company, valued around $4.98 million. This stock isn’t particularly popular among the smart money investors from Insider Monkey’s database, however, the hedge fund interest in it is still above the average. They were bullish on HP Inc (NYSE:HPQ) over the last few months with the number of those with long positions in the company being 35 at the end of Q3 2018, compared to 34 in Q2 2018. In addition, the company has a market cap of $32.8 billion.
The fund is quite optimistic when it comes to Salesforce Com Inc (NYSE:CRM), an American cloud-based software company, since it substantially boosted its stake in it by 749%, to 2,010 shares worth $320 000. Over the past six months, its stock has lost 8.02%, and at the moment of writing, it’s trading at $147.55, at price-to-earnings (PE) ratio of 138.33. In addition, it has a market cap of $112.8 billion. At the end of the third quarter, 86 smart money investors were long Salesforce Com Inc (NYSE:CRM), up by four from the previous quarter. The fund also raised its stake in Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), by purchasing 400 of its shares for $90 000, which is an increase of 20% compared to the previous quarter. However, since iPhone sales are dropping, while the company’s stock has lost around 33% by the end of the year, and it’s currently trading at $152.29, Mr. Dan Niles questions whether holding a position in this company is a good idea these days. He suggests that China’s Apple resellers who slashed iPhone prices by up to 22% aren’t the companies biggest problem. While waiting for a US-China trade war to end, the fact that 18% of Apple’s revenues come from China, definitely affects investor sentiment and, consequently, market values.
Meanwhile, the fund substantially trimmed its positions in Microchip Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MCHP), an American manufacturer of specialized semiconductor products, and in a multinational telecommunications and internet provider company, Gtt Communications Inc. (NYSE:GTT), by 98% and 96%, respectively. At the end of Q3, the fund owned 170 shares of Microchip Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MCHP) worth $13 000, and 3,630 shares of Gtt Communications Inc. (NYSE:GTT) valued at $158 000.
One of the biggest positions the fund decided to completely sell during the third quarter was in JD.com Inc (NASDAQ:JD), China’s largest online retailer, and also one of the main responsible for lowering iPhone prices. The fund previously held 38,000 shares of the company. In addition, it also said goodbye to 123,873 shares of Lumentum Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LITE).
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
