Rob Citrone founded Discovery Capital Management in 1999. Headquartered in South Norwalk, Connecticut, the hedge fund manages a number of pooled investment vehicles and invests primarily in the technology, services, basic materials and financial sectors. According to the latest 13F filing submitted to the SEC for the reporting period of March 31, Rob Citrone’s top tech stocks at the end of the first quarter are Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) and Universal Display Corp (NASDAQ:OLED).
Following the activity of investors like Mr. Citrone can help generate market-beating returns, as has been shown through empirical studies conducted by the founder of Insider Monkey, Dr. Ian Dogan. He determined that the 15 most popular small-cap ideas of great investors beat the market by around 1.0 percentage point per month on average and generate an annual double-digit alpha. Based on the results of backtests, we launched our small-cap strategy in August 2012 and over the last 2.5 years it has performed just as predicted, returning over 139%, outperforming the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 80 percentage points (read more details here).
Discovery Capital Management’s largest tech holding is represented by Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA), also the fund’s top overall pick. As of the end of March 2015, Citrone’s fund has 8.77 million shares of the Chinese online retailer and wholesaler, valued at $730.36 million. The financial results show Alibaba’s growth was strong during its fiscal fourth quarter of 2015, even factoring in the lofty expectations on the company. It posted a 45% increase in revenue year-over-year to $2.81 billion, while net cash from operating activities increased to $930 million, a 220% increase from the same quarter of fiscal 2014. Another hedge fund with a significant stake in Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global, which added 3.24 million shares to its position, boosting it to 6.94 million shares valued at $578.07 million.
Mr. Citrone reduced his stake in Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) during the first quarter by 41% from the previous quarter, leaving him with 4.65 million shares of the Cupertino-based tech giant, worth $579.08 million, and ranking the position as both the second-largest tech holding and overall pick of his equity portfolio. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) recently reached an agreement on a partnership between itself and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) to introduce its payment system Apple Pay into China. As China is Apple’s second-biggest market, this deal will Apple further expand into the country and grow its revenue there over the next couple of years. Among the funds we track, Carl Icahn’s Icahn Capital, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management and Adage Capital Management, run by Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, all have Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares in their equity portfolios.