Facebook Dominates List of Most Popular Tech Stocks Among Hedge Funds

3. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s two classes of shares ranked third among hedge funds, with 125 funds owning its class A voting shares and 122 funds owning its non-voting class C shares as of June 30. Those figures were up slightly from 124 and 118 respectively on March 31. Among the owners of both classes of shares were Cliff Asness‘ AQR Capital Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management.

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has recently drawn criticism even among its own employees for its plans to re-enter the Chinese market with a censored search engine. Google operated a similar search engine from 2006-2010 before pulling out of the country. Given its dominant global position in search, which netted the holding company over $28 billion in advertising revenue in Q2, the plans raise serious ethical and moral questions. There would be nothing to stop Google from doing the same in any other market, for whatever reason it deems valid, if censorship is not something the company stands against in all facets. Alphabet shares are down by 3% since the announcement.

2. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) easily holds down second spot, as 161 hedge funds that we follow were long the stock at the end of June, up from 152 a quarter earlier. Jason Karp‘s Tourbillon Capital Partners, Barry Rosenstein’s JANA Partners, and Larry Robbins’ Glenview Capital were among the funds opening Microsoft positions in Q2.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is in the midst of another strong year on the stock market, gaining 25% year-to-date. Microsoft’s Commercial Cloud continued its rapid ascent in the second-quarter, generating $6.9 billion in revenue, a 53% year-over-year hike. The public cloud service Azure did even better, with revenue soaring by 89% from a year ago. Revenue at LinkedIn jumped by 37%, while Microsoft’s Xbox-specific division and its broader gaming division both rose by over 35%.

1. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)

A staggering 193 hedge funds were long Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) at the end of June, representing 30% of the 645 hedge funds in our system that filed 13Fs during the latest period. That was an increase from 180 hedge funds on March 31 and kept Facebook comfortably atop the list of the most popular tech stocks among hedge funds, as well as the list of the most popular stocks overall.

While Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s own social media platform has had its shares of controversies and continues to lose steam among younger demographics, the company’s Instagram platform is more than making up for it. The platform has pushed past 1 billion monthly active users, the vast majority of which are under 35 years of age, and now accounts for more than 25% of Facebook’s revenue. The platform is estimated to be worth $100 billion now, just six years after Facebook paid a paltry $715 million to acquire it.

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