Ken Griffin Slashes Apple (APPL), Amazon (AMZN) Positions

After increasing its stake by 73% during the January-March period, Citadel reduced its holding in tech behemoth Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 43% to 1.84 million shares in the April-June period. As of June 30, the stake was worth $231.45 million. Unlike Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), shares of Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) have dropped considerably since it reported its latest quarterly earnings, on July 21, even though the company reported EPS of $1.85 on revenue of $49.60 billion, which was better than analysts’ expectations of EPS of $1.81 on revenue of 48.73 billion. According to most experts, this decline came due to the company not meeting the bullish iPhone sales estimates on the Street. Recent reports have suggested that the company might launch an upgrade to its Apple TV and possibly the iPhone 6S at a media event in September. The recent 13F filing of Icahn Capital LP shows that one of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s long-time bulls and largest shareholders Carl Icahn continued to own over 52.76 million shares of the company at the end of June. However, we at Insider Monkey think that Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) has already seen its best days and are long-term bearish on the stock, mostly since it relies heavily on just one product (iPhone) for its fortunes.

During the April-June period, Citadel Investment Group sold 902,144 shares of Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC) to bring down its total holding to over 2.16 million shares worth $170 million as of June 30. On August 12, the company announced that its Chairman Tom Pardun will be retiring, with Matthew Massengill, a former chairman, president and CEO of the company succeeding him. Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC) reported mixed results on July 29 for its fiscal fourth quarter of 2015 ending June 30. While Wall Street was expecting EPS of $1.41 on revenue of $3.35 billion, the company declared EPS of $1.51 on revenue of $3.20 billion. On August 2, analysts at BMO Capital Markets reiterated their ‘Outperform’ rating on the stock, with a price target of $92, suggesting potential upside of about 12%. Curtis Macnguyen’s Ivory Capital, which initiated a stake in the company during the March quarter, reduced its holding by 3% during the June quarter, to about 1.04  million shares.

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