Billionaire Julian Robertson’s Top Picks and a Put: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), and Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD)

Julian Robertson‘s Tiger Management has considerably increased the market value of its portfolio during the last quarter (nearly 35%). The fund initiated 16 new positions and increased its stake in another 25 companies, according to the latest 13F filing with the SEC. This puts the market value of the portfolio at $509.75 million, up from $377.26 million at the end of the third quarter. Noteworthy positions of the fund as of this filing include Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD).

Julian Robertson had quite a roller coaster ride during his stock picking years. After he founded one of the first hedge funds, Tiger Management in 1980, Robertson returned 31.7% per year after fees between 1980 and 1998, beating the S&P 500’s 12.7% annual return by a mile. The fund’s terrible performance in 1999 and 2000, owing partly to management’s failure to cash in on the boom in technology stocks at that time, and partly due to the plummeting stock price of US Airways Group Inc (LCC), made Robertson close down the fund.

The new face of Tiger Management makes investments in hedge funds that its former employees, called Tiger Cubs, have opened up over the years, as well as other hedge funds which are ready to give Robertson a stake in the company in return for managing part of his wealth. Tiger Management is primarily focused on funding start ups and also providing seed capital to emerging companies, especially in the technology sector. The fund’s investments in the technology sector constitute about 25.5% of its total portfolio value.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) continues to be the largest holding in Tiger’s portfolio, accounting for about 11.65% of the fund’s invested component. However, the new position is a 53% decrease from that which was disclosed in the previous filing, and is now valued at $59.37 million. This must at least in a way provide some relief for the fund as the e-commerce giant is down nearly 15% from the start of this year.

The Chinese e-commerce juggernaut has met its worrisome fate on Wall Street after its third quarter earnings report showed a revenue miss. Alibaba posted $4.22 billion worth of revenue, which wasn’t close enough to the $4.45 billion figure that analysts had expected it to deliver. While slower Chinese growth is a factor opposing the company’s thus far lightning growth, an increase in active users and also better monetization opportunities from a growing base of mobile users will in all likelihood help Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) post better figures in the future.