Hedge Funds Were Fleeing From These 5 Stocks In Q3

#3 Sunedison Inc (NYSE:SUNE)

 – Elite Investors with Long Positions (as of September 30): 73

 – Aggregate Value of Elite Investors’ Holdings (as of September 30): $10.57 billion

 – Percentage of Shares Owned by Elite Investors (as of September 30): 46.80%

Shares of Sunedison Inc (NYSE:SUNE) have crumbled by 85% this year, and by more than 90% since the middle of July, when liquidity concerns reared their very ugly head in the company’s direction. The company is now valued at just $1 billion, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) noting that it’s now priced as if a bankruptcy is imminent, which it does not believe will happen. Nonetheless, it has downgraded the stock to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’. On the other hand, Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE:DB) recently reiterated its ‘Buy’ rating and has a $16.00 price target on it, representing substantial upside of over 400%. While the hedge funds that we track do still own 46.80% of Sunedison Inc (NYSE:SUNE)’s shares, there were 20 less shareholders of the company in our database by the end of the third quarter. Dan Loeb, Richard Driehaus, and Dmitry Balyasny were among the investors getting out of SunEdison in the third quarter.

#2 Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)

 – Elite Investors with Long Positions (as of September 30): 27

 – Aggregate Value of Elite Investors’ Holdings (as of September 30): $248.32 million

 – Percentage of Shares Owned by Elite Investors (as of September 30): 1.40%

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) also had 20 less shareholders by the end of the third quarter than it did at the start of it, but unlike SunEdison, the investors we track are also quite bearish in general towards the social media company, owning just 1.40% of its shares now. After a big dip in the second quarter, Twitter shares fell again in the third quarter, as investors continue to worry about Twitter’s stagnant user growth. On the other hand, the company has begun to do a better job monetizing its service, with revenue continuing to make strong (though slowing) year-over-year leaps. Nonetheless, there don’t seem to be many catalysts for growth for the stock unless Twitter can find ways to attract more users to its service. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies were two of the firms to sell out of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) last quarter.

#1 Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA)

 – Elite Investors with Long Positions (as of September 30): 60

 – Aggregate Value of Elite Investors’ Holdings (as of September 30): $3.79 billion

 – Percentage of Shares Owned by Elite Investors (as of September 30): 2.60%

Lastly is Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), which has fallen a long way from the 110 investors that held its shares shortly after its record IPO last year. That number fell by 25 to 60 in the latest quarter, as fears of a slowing China coupled with what had already been underwhelming numbers for Alibaba this year caused many investors to head for the exits. Among them was billionaire David Tepper, who made a quick reversal on the stock and got rid of it just one quarter after adding it to his portfolio. Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value also sold off its Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) stake, and after pressuring Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) to do the same with its large stake, has recently come out and said that it should hold on to the position due to its decline in value and the uncertainty of whether or not the sale would be taxed. Starboard Value still owns 7.10 million Yahoo shares.

Disclosure: None