Valiant Capital, led by Christopher R. Hansen, recently has filed its latest 13F with the Securities and Exchange Commission, disclosing a public equity portfolio worth $1.46 billion as of the end of the third quarter. Valiant Capital is a global long/short equity hedge fund founded by Christopher R. Hansen in March 2008. Hansen served as managing director of Blue Ridge Capital from 2001 to January 2008 before founding Valiant. The fund has a strong focus on Technology stocks, which represented nearly 50% of its total portfolio on September 30. Below we’ll take a closer look at Valiant Capital’s top five picks, which include one healthcare and four technology stocks.
Top investors spend considerable time and money conducting due diligence on each company they invest in, which makes them the perfect investors to emulate. However, we also know that the returns of hedge funds on the whole have not been good for several years, underperforming the market. We analyzed the historical stock picks of these investors and our research revealed that the small-cap picks of these funds performed far better than their large-cap picks, which is where most of their money is invested and why their performances as a whole have been poor. Why pay fees to invest in both the best and worst ideas of a particular hedge fund when you can simply mimic the best ideas of the best fund managers on your own? A portfolio consisting of the 15 most popular small-cap stock picks among the funds we track has returned 102% and beaten the market by more than 53 percentage points since the end of August 2012 (see more details).
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#5 Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)
– Shares held (as of September 30): 127,700 Class C Shares
– Total Value (as of September 30): $77.70 million
Valiant’s position in Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) represents a new holding that was added in the third quarter. It’s not surprising the Alphabet has attracted the interest of the tech-focused investors, with its shares up by 43% year-to-date, as Google has reorganized itself into the holding company Alphabet. For the third quarter, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) posted earnings per share (EPS) of $7.35 on revenue of $18.7 billion, beating the Street’s estimates of $7.21 in EPS on revenue of $18.5 billion. A total of 119 hedge funds we track held shares of Alphabet at the end of September, up from 107 investors a quarter earlier. The aggregate value of their holdings jumped to $10.18 billion at the end September compared to $8.59 billion a quarter ago. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is also a favorite stock of Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global, which owned 2.53 million class A shares and 1.12 million class C shares of the company at the end of the third quarter.
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#4 Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA)
– Shares held (as of September 30): 996,831
– Total Value (as of September 30): $82.84 million
Valiant Capital’s position in Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) remained unchanged over the quarter. Walgreens Boots Alliance is global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise, with a market cap of $89.22 billion. The company’s financial position looks strong, as it reported a 118.4% increase in earnings for fiscal 2015 to $4.2 billion compared to last year, while earnings per share rose by 100% to $4.00 year-over-year. Its sales in fiscal 2015 increased by 35.4% to $103.4 billion, compared to the same period of the last year. The company’s stock has gained 8.25% year-to-date. Other larges shareholders of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) among those we track include Barry Rosenstein’s JANA Partners and John Armitage’s Egerton Capital Limited, with stakes containing 13.75 million shares and 4.46 million shares, respectively.
On the next page, we’ll take a look at Valiant Capital’s top three stocks.
#3 Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)
– Shares held (as of September 30): 1.04 million
– Total Value (as of September 30): $93.18 million
During the last quarter, Valiant Capital upped its position in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) by 150,600 shares. The company’s stock has gained over 20% since the end of September, and is trading up 33.79% year-to-date. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) posted strong financial results for the third quarter, with its income increasing to $896 million compared to $806 million a year ago. Revenue rose to $4.5 billion, compared to $3.2 billion in the last year’s quarter. Among the hedge funds that Insider Monkey track, Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital is the largest shareholder of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), with ownership of more than 10.70 million shares. The second largest investor in our database is Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management, holding 7.50 million shares of the company.
#2 Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
– Shares held (as of September 30): 207,500
– Total Value (as of September 30): $106.22 million
Valiant Capital added more shares to its stake in Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) during the last quarter, as it previously held 201,778 shares at the end of June. Amazon impressed investors with strong financial performance during the July-September period, having posted a net income of $79 million versus a loss of $437 million a year earlier. The company was able to increase sales by an annual 23% to $25.4 billion. Shares of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) have surged by 114.79% year-to-date. Recently, the company released images of the prototype of drones that will be used for a fastest package delivery. The drones, weighing 55 pounds, will deliver packages within 30 minutes, carrying packages of up to 5 pounds. Another investor betting big on Amazon is billionaire Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management, holding 3.19 million shares of the company.
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#1 Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
– Shares held (as of September 30): 1.14 million
– Total Value (as of September 30): $126.18 million
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) represents Valiant Capital’s top holding, in which the investor increased its position by 331,325 shares. For the third quarter, Apple reported EPS of $1.96 on revenue of $51.50 billion, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.88 in EPS on revenue of $51.02 billion. The company’s stock has inched up by 4.37% year-to-date. At the end of September, the number of hedge funds in our database invested in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) fell to 133 from 144 a quarter earlier, with the total value of their holdings decreasing to $17.41 billion from $21.27 billion. However, the number of billionaires we track with positions in Apple climbed to 18 at the end of September from 15 a quarter earlier. Among these billionaire shareholders is Carl Icahn, who holds 52.76 million shares of the company.
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