In this article we present the list of top 10 stocks billionaire Mets owner Steve Cohen just added to his portfolio. You can skip our comprehensive analysis of Steve Cohen’s history, investment philosophy, and hedge fund performance and go directly to Top 5 Stocks Billionaire Mets Owner Steve Cohen Just Added to His Portfolio.
Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO), and Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) is among the newest major additions to the 13F portfolio of billionaire money manager and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen.
Billionaire money manager Steve Cohen is the founder, president, chairman, and CEO of Point72 Asset Management, a New York-based hedge fund that manages $24.2 billion in assets as of the beginning of 2022. Cohen’s hedge fund reopened to outside investors in 2018 after serving a two-year supervisory bar handed down by the SEC after his former hedge fund, SAC Capital, pled guilty to insider trading charges.
The hedge fund titan, who has a personal fortune estimated at $17.4 billion by Forbes, has also become a titan among MLB owners, throwing money around with reckless abandon in an effort to guide his childhood team back to the top of the N.L East standings. The Mets have pushed their payroll beyond $260 million for 2022, topping the club’s previous record set last year, which was Cohen’s first as the owner of the team.
Cohen put himself in a position to buy the Mets and throw money at Max Scherzer by delivering exceptional returns for his clients over the years. Cohen ranked as the 14th best performing hedge fund manager of all time in terms of net gains since inception according to research conducted by LCH Investments. Cohen’s funds have generated net gains of $27.7 billion since 1992 according to LCH, including $1.7 billion in 2021.
Thanks to that 2021 performance, Point72’s 13F portfolio continued to increase in value throughout the year, rising for the 7th-consecutive quarter in Q4 to $25.04 billion. The fund was invested most heavily in tech and healthcare stocks at the end of 2021, with a balanced distribution across various other sectors beyond those two.
There was quite a bit of turnover in Cohen’s 13F portfolio during Q4, as there usually is, as the money manager unloaded 359 former holdings during the quarter while building up new stakes in 403 equities. We’ll take a look at the ten most prominent new stakes he purchased during Q4 in this article.
Our Methodology
We took a look at Point72 Asset Management’s 13F filing with the SEC for the December quarter to uncover the fund’s largest new positions and have ranked them according to their value. We follow hedge funds like Point72 Asset Management because Insider Monkey’s research has uncovered that their consensus stock picks can deliver outstanding returns. All hedge fund data is based on the exclusive group of 900+ funds tracked by Insider Monkey that filed 13Fs for the Q4 2021 reporting period.
Top 10 Stocks Billionaire Mets Owner Steve Cohen Just Added to His Portfolio
10. Mirati Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRTX)
Value of Point72 Asset Management‘s 13F Position: $70.39 million
Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 47
First up is biotech Mirati Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRTX), which Steve Cohen bought 479,845 shares of during Q4, building a stake valued at just over $70 million as of December 31. Hedge fund ownership of MRTX was unchanged during the fourth quarter, but is down by 20% since the end of Q1.
Mirati Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRTX) shares have been battered since the end of October, losing over 55% of their value.
Mirati Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRTX) has been hit with a pair of recent setbacks in regards to its non-small cell lung cancer treatment adagrasib, for those with the KRAS G12C mutation. In January, rival Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) received European regulatory approval for its competing treatment Lumakras, giving it a headstart in that region.
Mirati was hit with further disheartening news in February when its NDA for adagrasib was approved by the FDA, but with a lengthy target action date of December 14, 2022, giving Amgen plenty of time to secure its lead in the U.S, where it’s also received approval for Lumakras.
Baron Opportunity Fund isn’t overly concerned about Amgen’s competing treatment however, having this to say about Mirati Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRTX) in its Q4 2021 investor letter:
“We established a position during the period in Mirati Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel therapeutics targeting the genetic and immunologic drivers of cancer. The company’s lead drug, known as Adagrasib, targets a protein called KRAS that is a central node in driving tumor growth. We think Adagrasib has a best-in-class profile in a multi-billion dollar drug category. Currently, Amgen has a competing drug on the market, but clinical data on Adagrasib presented at the recent European Society of Medical Oncology meeting gives us confidence that Mirati’s drug has better attributes including residence time on target, efficacy response rates, longer duration of treatment, combinability opportunities, and blood-brain-barrier penetration.”
While Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO), and Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) may be some of the more stable additions to Cohen’s 13F portfolio during Q4, Mirati certainly has some intriguing long-term potential given its best-in-class treatment.
9. Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX)
Value of Point72 Asset Management‘s 13F Position: $84.31 million
Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 42
Hedge funds are pouring back into Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX), unsurprisingly, as soaring oil and energy prices bode well for the midstream energy company. Cohen bought a stake of over 1.16 million PSX shares during the quarter, becoming one of the many new shareholders of the refiner, which has seen a 62% surge in hedge fund ownership over the past two quarters.
Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) crushed adjusted earnings per share expectations by more than $1.00 during Q4, pulling in $2.94. The company’s chemicals division was a big performer last year, pulling in $1.9 billion in adjusted earnings, more than triple what it managed in 2020. Phillips also generated $1.8 billion in operating cash flow during the latest quarter and $6 billion for the year, which allowed it to pay down its long-term debt by $1.5 billion last year and raise its dividend. Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) has also expressed a desire to begin buying back some of its shares this year, while continuing to further pay down its debt.
8. Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)
Value of Point72 Asset Management‘s 13F Position: $86.38 million
Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 58
Cohen bought over 1.36 million shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) during Q4, during which shares gained 16%. Cisco shares have slumped by 11% so far in 2021.
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) grew revenue by 6% during its Q2 of fiscal year 2022, hitting $12.7 billion. Its internet for the future segment was its fastest growing, expanding revenue by 42% during Q2 to $1.32 billion. On the other hand, its hybrid work segment shrank by 9% during the quarter to $1.07 billion as the division’s market share continues to be eaten away by rivals like Five9 Inc (NASDAQ:FIVN).
The ClearBridge Large Cap Value Strategy likes what Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) has been doing on the R&D and growth fronts, saying this about the company in its Q3 2021 investor letter:
“We reinvested a portion of the proceeds into existing holding Cisco Systems, which also has highly valuable technology and an improving secular growth story with its leading position in core networking hardware, as well as in its growing software and services business. Cisco has refocused on winning share in the large and growing hyperscale market and has been investing aggressively in R&D to support growth. We believe Cisco has found new legs after previously ceding some growth opportunities in cloud while maintaining its strong presence in the carrier and enterprise markets. Cisco boasts a strong balance sheet and accelerating multiyear growth while trading at a modest multiple of earnings.”
7. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (NASDAQ:WBA)
Value of Point72 Asset Management‘s 13F Position: $87.17 million
Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 43
There was a 13% uptick in the number of hedge fund shareholders of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) during Q4, thanks in part to the new stake of 1.67 million shares purchased by Cohen’s hedge fund. Nonetheless, hedge fund ownership of WBA is about half of what it was six years ago.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) isn’t a company that’s going to wow anyone with its growth projections, though the pharmacy retailer is looking into several new initiatives that could somewhat accelerate its sales, such as offering primary care services in locations adjacent to its existing pharmacies.
What Walgreens does provide is a stout dividend that yields 4.25% as of March 31 and which is extremely safe, with the company fast approaching dividend king status thanks to its 46-year run of hiking its dividend payments every year.
That dividend and the company’s low valuation certainly attracted Miller Howard Investments to the stock. Here is what it had to say about Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) in its Q3 2021 investor letter:
“While optimistic about a recovery, we continue to balance our cyclical holdings with dividend-payers in stable, less economically-sensitive industries. We took a position in Walgreens (WBA) based on its low valuation, high dividend yield, and stable business model.”
6. Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI)
Value of Point72 Asset Management‘s 13F Position: $96.38 million
Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 53
Closing out the first half of the list Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI), hedge fund ownership of which has dipped by 16% over the past two quarters. Cigna shares are virtually flat over the last year.
Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI) is another pharmacy and healthcare stock that Cohen bought during Q4 which won’t wow anyone with its growth, but which provides stable returns for shareholders. The company returned $9 billion to shareholders last year. Cigna plans to drive future growth by capitalizing on what it believes to be three major trends in the healthcare space: the growing understanding of the link between mental and physical health, the growing proliferation of biosimilars, and the growing usage of alternative sites of care.
Davis Opportunity Fund likes Cigna and other healthcare names in a world with several rapidly aging populations. Here is what the fund had to say about Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI) in its Q4 2021 investor letter:
“Healthcare is included in the portfolio both for company-specific reasons, as well as big picture trends. At the company level, we hold select companies in pharmaceuticals, healthcare services and health insurance at attractive valuations. This is at a time when the average age of the U.S. population is fast approaching 40, older than Asia-Pacific and a little younger than the aged populations of Europe and Japan. The number of seniors in the U.S.—i.e., 65 years or older— now surpasses 54 million, or about 15% of the population. Seniors, on average, take a much greater number of medications and account for a large and disproportionate share of healthcare spending, and we expect that trend to continue due to both raw demographics and a proliferation in the number of available treatments and services available now, the latter being driven by innovation and investment in the healthcare industry. Representative holdings in the Fund include Cigna, United Health Group, Viatris and Quest Diagnostics.”
In the second half of this article we’ll take a look at Cohen’s Q4 purchases of Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO), and Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT), among other stocks.
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Disclosure: None. Top 10 Stocks Billionaire Mets Owner Steve Cohen Just Added to His Portfolio is originally published at Insider Monkey.
