Billionaire Louis Bacon Bets Big on Finance, Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)

Big Bet On Citigroup

Louis Bacon and his team have also placed a big new bet on Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C). Over the course of the second quarter, Moore Global amassed a little over 1.5 million shares reportedly worth $63.6 million. Analysts are also bullish on Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C). Of the 24 analysts polled by Yahoo! Finance, eight recommend the stock as a ‘Strong Buy’ and 15 see it as a ‘Buy’, with an average price target of $54 per share. This implies an upside potential of 13% given Thursday’s closing price of $47.36 per share. The company has a market cap of $138 billion and pays an annual dividend of $0.31 per share, which provides investors with a 0.65% yield. Hedge fund sentiment towards Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) cooled down a bit during the quarter, as the number of long hedge fund positions fell to 97 from 101 registered at the end of March. Harris Associates, owned by Natixis Global Asset Management, held the largest stake in the company, having indicated ownership of 28.3 million shares worth $1.2 billion in its latest 13F filing.

Analysts Like BofA Too

Having liquidated his prior investment in Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) during the first quarter, Louis Bacon has changed his mind and has bought back most of the shares he had dumped. According to its latest regulatory filing, Moore Global held 5.0 million shares of Bank of America, a position valued at $66.3 million. So far this year, Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) has been slowly crawling back after the strong sell-off that started in December, 2015. Shares are currently trading at $16 apiece, down by 2.7% year-to-date. With the Federal Reserve looking more and more likely to increase interest rates in the near future, investors have grown optimistic about banking stocks, pushing BofA up by 11% in August alone. Analysts at Robert W. Baird have recently upgraded the stock to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Buy’, while Goldman Sachs has reiterated its ‘Conviction-Buy’ rating and the $17 price target. At the end of June, Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) could be found in the equity portfolio of 102 of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, down from 110 a quarter before. Billionaire Ken Fisher is also betting big on BofA, with his fund, Fisher Asset Management, holding 43.3 million shares, up by 1% during the quarter.

Hedge Funds Just Love Amazon

Louis Bacon has replaced Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) with Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) as his number one bet. Moore Global had its stake in the e-commerce giant increased by 69% to 133,126 shares worth $95.2 million at the end of the quarter. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) was the third most popular stock among the funds in our database at the end of the quarter, with 145 of them having reported a long position, up from 133 recorded at the end of the previous quarter. Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global also has a sizable stake in Amazon, having reported ownership of 3.28 million shares in its latest 13F filing, down 5% from the previous quarter. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has announced today a partnership with South Korea’s LG Electronics to integrate Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa with its electrical appliances, allowing users to control them via voice-recognition technology. In exchange, LG will add Amazon’s Dash technology to its devices, which will help users order household items more easily.

Disclosure: none.