Winton Capital Management was founded as Winton Capital in 1997 by billionaire David Harding. The fund’s investment strategy is similar to that of Renaissance Technologies, headed by Jim Simons, using detailed quantitative analysis to make investment decisions. Winton Capital Management recently filed its 13F for the period of June 30, showing that it had a public equity portfolio value of $10.89 billion, representing a decrease of $1.67 billion sequentially. The fund boasts a diversified portfolio, something that’s also demonstrated by its top picks during the second quarter. In this article, we look at the top four of those picks.
We don’t just track the latest moves of hedge funds. We are, in fact, more interested in their 13F filings, which we use to determine the top 15 small-cap stocks held by the funds we track. We gather and share this information based on 16 years of research which showed that these 15 most popular small-cap picks have a great potential to outperform the market, beating the S&P 500 Total Return Index by nearly one percentage point per month in backtests, and easily beating the most popular large-cap picks of funds, which nonetheless get the majority of their collective capital. Why pay fees to invest in both the best and worst ideas of a particular hedge fund when you can simply mimic only the very best ideas of the best fund managers on your own? Since the beginning of forward testing in August 2012, the Insider Monkey small-cap strategy has outperformed the market every year, returning 118%, nearly two-times greater returns than the S&P 500 during the same period (see more details).
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4. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
First, let’s consider Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), in which Winton Capital Management held 948,777 shares with a market value of $119.00 million. The Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker has long dealt with complaints from customers who say that their iPhone 6 Plus cameras take blurry photos. The technology giant recently offered to replace these cameras for free. There have also been growing concerns that the economic slowdown in China and the devaluation of the yuan might affect the iPhone’s performance in the Asian country, which is its second-biggest market. This is also feared to have the potential to give leverage to iPhone’s competitors in China, which is Apple Inc’s fastest growing market. However, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has dispelled such concerns, saying that the iPhone’s sales performance in the country has continued to grow even during the period of the economic downturn. At the end of the second quarter, Billionaire Carl Icahn‘s Icahn Capital LP remained the biggest shareholder of the company out of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey. The fund held 52.76 million shares valued at $6.62 billion. Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management came a distant second with 11.01 million shares valued at $1.38 billion.
3. Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW)
Now, let’s turn to Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW), a healthcare stock in which Winton Capital Management held a long position of 840,361 shares valued at $119.69 million after reducing its stake in the stock by 16% during the second quarter. The medical equipment company delivered EPS growth of 11.8% last year and is projected to deliver 24.5% growth this year. In terms of stock price performance, Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) is up by 9.04% year-to-date. However, since the beginning of the second quarter, the stock has lost 2.51% of its share price. AQR Capital Management, headed by Cliff Asness, is the biggest shareholder out of the more than 700 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey. The fund held 2.40 million shares with a market value of $342.19 million on June 30, having upped its stake by 25% during the second quarter.
