Founded in 1979, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management is an independent, privately-owned money management firm with tens of billions of dollars in assets under management (AUM). According to the latest reports the fund oversees some $54 billion in AUM, of which around $50 billion is allocated to the firm’s public equity holdings. According to the official website of the fund, Fisher’s clients include over 150 large institutions and over 27,000 high net worth individuals. It is interesting that Fisher has written the Forbes “Portfolio Strategy” column for 30 years, and has authored several New York Times bestsellers on finance and investing. We just cannot pass by such a bright mind in the investment space, and would like to offer you a closer look at the top smid-cap equity picks of the firm (companies with a market cap of between $5 billion and $10 billion), represented by Domino’s Pizza Inc (NYSE:DPZ), East West Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:EWBC) and SVB Financial Group (NASDAQ:SIVB) and how they performed recently.
We pay attention to hedge funds’ moves because our research has shown that hedge funds are extremely talented at picking stocks on the long side of their portfolios. It is true that hedge fund investors have been underperforming the market in recent years. However, this was mainly because hedge funds’ short stock picks lost a ton of money during the bull market that started in March 2009. Hedge fund investors also paid an arm and a leg for the services that they received. We have been tracking the performance of hedge funds’ 15 most popular stock picks in real time since the end of August 2012. These stocks have returned 123.1% since then and outperformed the S&P 500 Index by around 66.7 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe it is important to pay attention to hedge fund sentiment; we also don’t like paying huge fees.
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First up is SVB Financial Group (NASDAQ:SIVB), in which Fisher Asset Management held 1.45 million shares worth some $209.47 million. During the second quarter of 2015 the stock has returned around 13.33%, lifting the total year-to-date gains to 28.58%. Still, analysts believe that there is 14.19% upside potential remaining from the $144.39 where the stock is traded today. Robert Pohly‘s Samlyn Capital owned around 523,500 shares of SVB Financial Group (NASDAQ:SIVB) worth $66.51 million after the first three months of the year.
Following a 6% cut in its ownership of Domino’s Pizza Inc (NYSE:DPZ), Fisher Asset Management finished the second quarter of the year with 1.59 million shares of the company valued at some $179.91 million. Domino’s Pizza Inc (NYSE:DPZ) is a world famous pizza chain with over 11,600 stores in 75 countries around the globe. On a year-to-date basis, its equity has appreciated by 17.87% versus 5.73% for the industry as a whole. One of the major reasons for that hides in the company’s latest quarterly earnings results, for the second quarter of 2015, which proved to be rather successful. Domino’s Pizza Inc (NYSE:DPZ) reported $0.81 in EPS or 21% higher that in the same period last year, mostly on a higher number of franchised stores and improved international sales, the latter being partially offset by the strong U.S dollar effect. Renaissance Technologies, led by Jim Simons, despite a 5% slash in its position, topped the list of the largest investors in the securities of Domino’s Pizza Inc (NYSE:DPZ) as of March 31 among the funds we track, holding 3.45 million shares valued at $346.78 million.
Lastly, Fisher’s fund reported having around 3.00 million shares of East West Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:EWBC) worth $134.62 million after the first six months of the year. East West Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:EWBC) is a $6.42 billion company, engaged, as it pretty much follows from the name, in the banking business. So far this year, investors who decided to pursue the stock of East West Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:EWBC), like Fisher, should be happy with the 15.22% equity returns and 1.79% dividend yield they’ve received. In general, East West Bancorp seems to be a great bank, with an efficiency ratio below 50% and a ROE of 15.7%. Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management held some 1.61 million shares of East West Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:EWBC) worth $65.14 million as of March 31.
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