Billionaire Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Bets on Technology and Finance Stocks This Quarter

Moore Capital Management is a US-based hedge fund that was founded in 1989 by billionaire Louis Bacon. He uses macro based themes such as inflation, economic growth, central bank policy and national politics to devise broad themes and strategies for investment. According to the Wall Street Journal, Moore Capital Management cut management fees on its largest fund, Macro Managers, from 3% to 2.5% as the hedge fund industry comes under investor redemption. Moore’s biggest macro fund suffered significant draw downs in the first few months of 2016 and was down by 3.8% as of the end of the third quarter 2016. Moore Capital Management had a portfolio value of $3 billion at the end of December with technology and finance amassing the largest shares.

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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) was the top technology stock of Moore Capital Management despite the fund selling 370,750 shares and reducing its total position to 429,508 shares worth $49 million at the end of December. On the other hand, Andreas Halvorsen‘s Viking Global Investors bought an additional 228,753 shares of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) and held 18.98 million shares at the end of December. The company recently announced a “video first” strategy as it thinks that the next content wave will be video and could help the company tap into TV budgets. For the fourth quarter, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) reported earnings of $1.41 per share on revenues of $8.8 billion, beating analyst estimates of $1.31 and $8.5 billion, respectively. Revenues were driven by increasing mobile video ad revenue. While Instagram reported having more than 600 million monthly active users, both WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger has over 1 billion monthly active users at the end of the last quarter. According to our database, the number of funds long Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) decreased by three to 146, while the value of their holdings declined by 23% during the October-December.

During the fourth quarter, Moore Capital Management boosted its stake in Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) by 260% and held 2 million shares worth $44.2 million. Tiger cubs Stephen Mandel and Philippe Laffonte also grew bullish on the stock as they initiated positions during the fourth quarter. Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC)’s stock has performed extremely well after Donald Trump’s election victory similar to other financial stocks. Shares of Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) are up by 11% year-to-date. The market thinks that financial companies will do well as Trump has said that he would cut the regulations stopping the growth of financial companies. The number of investors from our database, having a stake in Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) advanced to 139 from 112 during the fourth quarter and the value of their holdings increased by 72% to $12.48 billion quarter-over-quarter.

Moore Capital Management added online restaurant delivery company GrubHub Inc. (NYSE:GRUB) to its equity portfolio during the fourth quarter and disclosed ownership of 875,000 shares worth $$32.9 million in its latest 13F. During the same period, D.E. Shaw & Co. also bought 58,516 shares in GrubHub Inc. (NYSE:GRUB) increasing its total holding to more than 1.0 million shares. The company provides deliveries from more than 45,000 restaurants in its network to consumers in more than 1,100 cities across the U.S. The stock price has vaulted up by 80% over the last year and its market value currently stands at $3.2 billion. In the fourth quarter, revenue grew by 38% to $137.5 million, while the number of active diners increased by 21% to 8.17 million, against analysts’ expectations of 7.99 million. However, sales and marketing expenses also rose by 19% to $29.6 million. At the end of 2016, GrubHub Inc. (NYSE:GRUB) had a delivery network expanding to 70 markets across the country. The company expects full 2017 revenue to range between $620 million and $660 million. A total of 20 funds from our database held around 38.3% of the company’s stock at the end of December, down from 29 funds a quarter earlier.

Moore Capital Management initiated a position in eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) during the fourth quarter, as it purchased 700,000 shares valued at $20.8 million at the end of 2016. eBay Inc.’s (NASDAQ:EBAY) stock has climbed up by 50% over the last year, recently gaining ground on the back of better-than-expected earnings $0.54 per share for the fourth quarter, versus analyst estimates of $0.53. The company expects full-year earnings of up to $2.03 per share. The company recently expanded its home decor items inventory to provide shoppers with a variety of affordable, stylish and unique items across every retail category. According to our data, the number of hedge funds bullish on eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) increased by 11 to 64, but the total value of their holdings declined by almost 33% to $2.49 billion during the fourth quarter.

Moore Capital Management exited its position in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) as it sold 97,955 shares during the fourth quarter. Besides being one of the world’s leading retailers, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) also has a strong presence in the cloud computing segment. The company’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) segment focuses on the sales of computer, storage, database and other service offerings for start-ups, enterprises, government agencies and academic institutions. At the end of the fourth quarter, 123 funds from our database held shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) worth $14.44 billion, versus 150 funds with stakes valued at $20.79 billion at the end of September.

Dislosure: None