Here is How Carl Icahn’s Picks Lost Twice As Much As The Market in Q3

Legendary investor Carl Icahn’s Icahn Capital LP, in its latest 13F filing, reported holding stakes in a total of 48 companies at the end of the second quarter. The value of Icahn Capital’s equity portfolio stood at over $31 billion at the end of June. Our calculations revealed that Icahn Capital’s 19 long positions delivered a weighted average return of -13.71% in the third quarter. S&P 500 ETF (SPY) lost only 6.5% during the same period. Using the same method of calculation, we found that those positions delivered an average loss of 12.7% year-to-date. Since Icahn might be trading around these positions or buying/selling other positions, his actual returns will be different from the numbers we calculated. In this article, we are going to talk about performance and third quarter returns of Icahn Capital’s top stocks, including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).

Icahn is a hedge fund legend that is always on the radar of investors. Icahn recently released a video in which he raised his concerns over the recent global economic trends and the stock market. Icahn seems unhappy with Washington’s policies and the “boardrooms of Corporate America.” In the video, titled “Danger Ahead”, Icahn criticized the US tax code that makes it unattractive for American companies to repatriate funds earned abroad. Talking about the low interest rate environment, Icahn mentioned that rather than spending on core business, companies are spending cash on share buyback programs and takeovers to impress investors and analysts on the Street, while hiding associated costs in their quarterly reports. In this way, earnings that they report are artificially inflated, prompting the stock prices to increase for the wrong reasons.

We don’t just track the latest moves of hedge funds. We are, in fact, more interested in their 13F filings, which we use to determine the top 15 small-cap stocks held by the funds we track. We gather and share this information based on 16 years of research which showed that these 15 most popular small-cap picks outperformed the market, beating the S&P 500 Total Return Index by nearly one percentage point per month in backtests, and by more than 53 percentage points during the first 3 years since the inception of our newsletter at the end of August 2012. Why pay fees to invest in both the best and worst ideas of a particular hedge fund when you can simply mimic only the very best ideas of the best fund managers on your own?

Let’s get back to Icahn Capital’s top stocks and their performance in the third quarter.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Shares Owned by Icahn Capital (as of June 30): 52,760,848

Value of Icahn Capital’s Shares (as of June 30): $6.62 billion

Percentage of Icahn Capital’s Public Equity Portfolio (as of June 30): 21.2%

Third Quarter Returns: -11.66%

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), one of the most popular stocks among the investors we track, wasn’t able to deliver positive returns in the third quarter. The 13F data shows that there was a a slight decline in Apple’s popularity during the second quarter. A total of 15 billionaires had an aggregate investment of $12.16 billion in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) at the end of June, compared to 16 billionaires with $13.05 billion worth of stock at the end of March. A total of 144 hedge funds among those we track were holding stakes in Apple at the end of the second quarter, a decrease from 150 at the end of the first quarter. Shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) have dropped nearly 1% year-to-date. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management is one of the largest investors among those we track of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), with ownership of 11.01 million shares as of June 30.

eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)

Shares Owned by Icahn Capital (as of June 30): 46,271,370

Value of Icahn Capital’s Shares (as of June 30): $2.79 billion

Percentage of Icahn Capital’s Public Equity Portfolio (as of June 30): 8.93%

Third Quarter Returns: -3.60%

eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) is one of popular stocks among billionaires we track at Insider Monkey. The data from 13F filings revealed that 21 billionaires among those we track were holding positions in eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) at the end of the second quarter, with the aggregate value of their investment totaled nearly $7 billion. Of the around 730 funds we track, 99 funds held $11.73 billion of the company’s shares on June 30, compared to 90 funds and $11.86 billion, respectively, at the end of March. Aside from Icahn, William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management holds 16.22 million eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) shares as of June 30.

CVR Energy Inc. (NYSE:CVI)

Shares Owned by Icahn Capital (as of June 30): 71,198,718

Value of Icahn Capital’s Shares (as of June 30): $2.68 billion

Percentage of Icahn Capital’s Public Equity Portfolio (as of June 30): 8.58%

Third Quarter Returns: 10.44%

CVR Energy Inc. (NYSE:CVI), a $3.7-billion market cap company primarily engaged in the petroleum refining and nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing industries, delivered a positive returns during the third quarter. The company’s second quarter income increased to $101.9 million, compared to $83.7 million for the same period last year. These positive earnings seem to have a good impact on the company’s stock, which shows a year-to-date growth of over 10%. Another investor betting big on CVR Energy is Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management, which holds 208,657 shares as of June 30.

Hertz Global Holdings Inc (NYSE:HTZ)

Shares Owned by Icahn Capital (as of June 30): 51,922,405

Value of Icahn Capital’s Shares (as of June 30): $940.83 million

Percentage of Icahn Capital’s Public Equity Portfolio (as of June 30): 3.01%

Third Quarter Returns: -7.67%

Hertz Global Holdings Inc (NYSE:HTZ) is an $8.76-billion market cap company engaged in car rental business. The company reported income of $23 million, or $0.05 per share, for the second quarter, versus income of $72 million, or $0.15 per share, for the same period last year. Total revenues were $2.7 billion, versus $2.8 billion in 2014. The company’s performance has been disappointing, declining over 23% year-to-date. Larry Robbins’ Glenview Capital seems to believe in the future of Hertz Global Holdings Inc (NYSE:HTZ), in which the investor last month disclosed ownership of 23.75 million shares, a 5.20% of stock.

Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF)

Shares Owned by Icahn Capital (as of June 30): 17,000,000

Value of Icahn Capital’s Shares (as of June 30): $936.53 million

Percentage of Icahn Capital’s Public Equity Portfolio (as of June 30): 3%

Third Quarter Returns: -10.71%

Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF) is a global nutrition company, with a market cap of $5.08 billion. The company’s worldwide sales for the second quarter declined by 11% to $1.2 billion due to unfavorable impact of currency exchange rates. Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF) posted income of $82.8 million, or $0.97 per share, versus $119.5 million, or $1.31 per share, for the same quarter last year. The company’s stock has been showing a remarkable growth, increasing 42.51% year-to-date. George Soros’ Soros Fund Management holds 1.97 million shares of the company as of June 30.

Disclosure: none