Renaissance Technologies is a New York-based hedge fund founded in 1982 by mathematician James “Jim” Simons. Simons, who retired in 2009, is estimated to have a net wealth of $14 billion and Renaissance Technologies is said to be one of the most successful hedge funds of all time. Renaissance Technologies managed to generate mind-numbing returns by utilizing mathematical models and automated algorithmic trading. Like many other hedge funds, Renaissance Technologies suffered from the high volatility in the markets in 2007 and 2008 and lost 8.7% of its Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund’s value in August 2007. However, our research shows that RenTech is one of the best funds to imitate if your goal is to pick promising large-cap stocks. According to the latest round of 13F filings RenTech’s public equity portfolio is valued at $47 billion and is distributed among sectors as follows: 18% towards technology, 16% in finance, and 15% in healthcare. During the first quarter, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) were among the biggest new positions initiated in the technology sector by RenTech.
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In Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Renaissance Technologies bought a stake of 1.15 million shares with a value of $429 million, which has been a wise pick thus far as Amazon.com has increased by 40.1% year-to-date. Video game streaming platform Twitch, which was about to be acquired by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), was instead was bought by Amazon.com after that deal feel through, though Twitch is set to receive a dangerous new competitor in YouTube, which is about to launch YouTube Gaming in the U.S and U.K during the summer. The launch will indeed put pressure on the popular Twitch and force it to develop its products and platforms as it attempts to keep up with YouTube. Hedge funds flocked into Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) during the first quarter. There were 96 hedge funds with bullish AMZN positions at the end of March. This figure was only 76 at the end of December. Billionaire Rob Citrone was among the billionaires who initiated brand new positions in Amazon.
In Marc Zuckerberg’s Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Renaissance Technologies purchased a stake of 2.65 million shares with a value of $217.60 million during the first quarter. Facebook has returned 5.8% year-to-date and is up by 27.9% during the last year. Facebook and Marc Zuckerberg surprised the market last year by announcing the purchase of Oculus and its Rift virtual reality (VR) headset. When the news was announced, the markets were fairly skeptical but now it seems like Zuckerberg knew what he was doing, since the VR market is projected to explode in the coming years. The market of 1.2 billion gamers isn’t however the only market Zuckerberg is after, as he’s revealed that the VR technology could be applied to any kind of video conference call, appointment, or event. Christopher Lord of Criterion Capital seems to think that it was a great idea, since he added 16% to his stake in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), giving him 2.76 million shares. Facebook is the third-most popular stock among hedge funds (see the rankings here).
Lastly, in San Francisco-based Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), Renaissance Technologies bought a stake of 2.62 million shares with a value of $131.38 million. Twitter, with a slightly negative return now year-to-date, announced earlier in June that its CEO Dick Costolo had resigned and would leave the company on July 1. Twitter is now about to enter into the Artificial Intelligence race, competing with giants like Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) after its announced acquisition of Whetlab last week. This acquisition is in line with Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s purchase of Madbits last year. Indeed, Twitter has to do something in order to increase its revenues, which had a low growth rate in the first quarter. Scott Fine and Peter Richards from Empire Capital Management also bought a stake in Twitter during the first quarter, of 260,856 shares.
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