Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds: Part 1 – Tech Giants in Spotlight

One of the top performing stocks last year was Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and the company’s strong results attracted the attention of more investors from our database. The popularity of both of Alphabet’s classes of stock increased considerably, as at the end of December, 154 funds held shares of the company’s class A stock and 142 funds disclosed owning class C shares, huge increases from 129 funds and 119 funds, respectively, a quarter earlier. This places Alphabet’s class A stock on the second spot in our list, while the class C stock ranked as the fourth-most popular. In addition, the aggregate value of investors’ class A holdings surged to $15.10 billion from $11.30 billion, while the total value of positions in Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s class C stock went up to $14.22 billion from $10.18 billion.

Amid a growth in advertising revenue, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) registered an increase in revenue to $21.33 billion in the fourth quarter, topping the estimates of $20.77 billion, while its quarterly earnings of $8.67 per class A share were above the expectations of $8.10. Viking Global Management cut its exposure to Alphabet’s class A stock during the fourth quarter, reporting ownership of more than 1.85 million class A shares in its latest 13F filing. At the same time, Viking inched up its Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) class C holding by 2% on the quarter to 1.15 million shares.

Another stock that became more popular among the funds we track during the fourth quarter was Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), in which 145 funds from our database reported stakes worth $10.71 billion in aggregate as of the end of December, which compares to 128 funds holding $8.96 billion worth of stock a quarter earlier. Facebook’s stock was also a star performer last year, climbing by more than 34% as the company delivered results above expectations and showed substantial growth in monthly active users, as well as solid growth in the mobile segment.

For the fourth quarter of 2015, the social media giant posted EPS of $0.79 on revenue of $5.84 billion, which was better than the highest estimates of $0.75 in EPS on $5.67 billion in revenue. Facebook’s Monthly Active Users metric amounted to 1.59 billion in the fourth quarter, versus expectations of 1.58 billion, while the mobile segment accounted for more than 90% of the monthly active users and the mobile ad revenue accounted for 80% of the total ad revenue of $5.64 billion. Among the investors we track, Stephen Mandel‘s Lone Pine Capital is one of the largest shareholders of Facebook, holding 9.79 million shares, according to its latest 13F filing.