Point72 Asset Management, the legal successor to the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, is a family office hedge fund firm established by Steven A. Cohen in 1992. The Connecticut-based successor hedge fund was officially launched in April 2014 with approximately $9 billion in funds. Steven Cohen’s former SAC Capital was shut down in 2013 and paid a substantial fine to settle criminal insider-trading charges. Moreover, SAC Capital’s successor, Point72 Asset Management, is prohibited from managing money for outside investors as part of settling these criminal insider-trading charges with the Justice Department, though Cohen is reportedly interested in managing outside money again. Regardless, Steven Cohen’s freshly-launched family office hedge fund has been nearly as profitable as his former fund. Point72 focuses primarily on a long/short equity investing approach and makes significant quantitative and macro investments. According to the fund’s latest 13F filing with the SEC, Cohen and his team at Point72 manage a public equity portfolio worth $14.67 billion as of March 31. In the following article, we will consider some of Steven Cohen’s major tech investments, which include the following companies: Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) and Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB).
We follow hedge funds like Point72 Asset Management because our research has shown that their stock picks historically managed to generate alpha even though the filings are up to 45-days delayed. We used a 60-day delay in our back tests to be on the safe side and our research showed that the 15 most popular small-cap stocks among hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 Total Return Index by an average of 95 basis points per month between 1999 and 2012. After adjusting for risk, our calculations revealed that these stocks’ monthly alpha was 80 basis points. We have also been sharing and tracking the performance of these stocks since the end of August 2012, during which time they have returned 142%, outperforming the S&P 500 ETF by nearly 84 percentage points (see more details here).
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Point72 Asset Management increased its equity stake in Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 70,100 shares, ending the quarter with 330,100 shares valued at $122.83 million. The shares of Amazon have grown by over 40% year-to-date and are currently trading at around $436 per share. The company has just introduced an improved Kindle Paperwhite with upgraded display and updated software features created for book lovers. The freshly-introduced Kindle is priced at $119 and is already available for pre-order, with the shipments anticipated to begin by the end of this month. Amazon is aiming to produce and market the world’s best e-reader by constantly delivering upgrades and new features. In the meantime, the new Kindle might boost the company’s revenues in the upcoming months as Amazon continues to hold a dominant position in the online book market. Within our database, Boykin Curry’s Eagle Capital Management is among the largest investors in Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), holding 2.23 million shares.
Another move made by Cohen’s family office during the most recent quarter was the initiation of a long position in QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM). Point72 acquired a stake of 1.54 million shares in the company that is worth $106.56 million as of March 31. The stock has fallen by 9% since the beginning of the current year amid a period of turbulence for the company in China. Just recently, QUALCOMM announced the appointment of Frank Meng as its chairman for China, the region which generates half of the company’s total revenues. The U.S. chipmaker has been experiencing some turmoil lately in the world’s biggest smartphone market, thus, it is anticipated that the freshly-appointed chairman will assist the company in improving its competitiveness in the Chinese market. Barry Rosenstein’s JANA Partners represents one of the many hedge fund firms that is bullish on QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM), owning 28.54 million shares.
Finally, Point72 Asset Management reported selling a stake of 1.12 million shares in Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), ending the quarter with 1.22 million share valued at $100.66 million. Facebook’s stock is currently trading at $84.74 per share, an increase of 8.61% year-to-date following a 2.7% gain yesterday thanks to a bullish Piper Jaffray price target of $120 being put on the stock. Analysts see huge potential in Facebook as the company has been catching up to Google’s YouTube when it comes to video advertising. They claim that Facebook has a good understanding of consumer behavior, which is one of the main factors that allows it to gain ground on its rivals as an online advertising channel for companies seeking to market their products through online video. Therefore, it is highly probable that Facebook will manage to boost its revenues from online advertising going forward. From the large pool of hedge funds that we track, Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital is the largest shareholder of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), holding 8.11 million shares.
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