Here’s Why You Should Pay Attention to These Tech Giants Today

Markets are trading up on Monday, helped by surging oil prices and a spike in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). A few other stocks trending in the morning hours include Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). So, let’s take a look at what’s going on with these companies, and into what the hedge funds in our database think about them.

We track prominent investors and hedge funds because our research has shown that historically their stock picks delivered superior risk-adjusted returns. This is especially true in the small-cap space. The 15 most popular small-cap stocks among a select group of investors delivered a monthly alpha of 80 basis points between 1999 and 2012 (see the details here).

Facebook Tumbles Ahead Of Meet With Conservatives

Let’s start with Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), which is trading down by more than 1.5% on Monday morning, amid news that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has agreed to meet with conservative leaders on Wednesday, to address allegations that the site is politically biased. A former Facebook employee and prominent conservatives have argued that the social media site left “conservative political stories” out of its trending topics list intentionally. The company has denied such allegations.

As of the end of the first quarter of 2016, two of the largest hedge fund investors in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) were John Armitage’s Egerton Capital Limited and Alex Snow’s Lansdowne Partners. By March 31, these funds held 5.89 million shares and 3.71 million shares of the company, respectively – valued at $672 million and $423 million, correspondingly.

Amazon To Launch New Private-Label Products

Next up is Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), which is also down (about 0.7%) on Monday morning, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company is preparing to expand its private label offerings. In coming weeks, the online retailer plans to roll out other private label products – on top of diapers, including food and household items under the Happy Belly, Wickedly Prime and Mama Bear brand names, among others. The products could appear in the site as soon as late-May, and will be offered to only Prime members at first, people familiar with the matter said. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) saw several hedge funds among those we track make bullish moves over the first quarter of 2016. Among them, we can count James Crichton’s Hitchwood Capital Management, which almost tripled its stake over the period, taking it to half a million shares, worth $296 million as of March 31, Doug Silverman and Alexander Klabin’s Senator Investment Group, which started a new position comprising 255,000 shares over the January to March interval.