Valiant Capital Betting Big on China in 2016, Reduces Exposure to U.S Tech Stocks

Moving on, amid a 15% rise in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)‘s stock during the fourth quarter, it seems Valiant Capital decided to take some more profits off the table, reducing its stake in the company by 18%.  Valiant Capital was among the largest shareholders of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) at one point in time, owning 36.3 million shares of the company before its IPO. Those shares recently made their lifetime high of $117.59, after the company reported its fourth quarter numbers on January 27. While analysts were expecting Facebook to report $0.68 in EPS on revenue of $5.36 billion, it managed to blow their estimates out of the water by declaring EPS of $0.79 on revenue of $5.84 billion. Following the earnings release, several analysts have raised their price target on the stock over the last few days. Among them are analysts at MKM Partners, who reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating on the stock and increased their price target on it to $135 from $130, on February 11.  John Armitage‘s Egerton Capital Limited increased its stake in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) by 22% to nearly 5.2 million shares during the fourth quarter.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was another tech stock in which Valiant Capital reduced its stake during the fourth quarter. The fund sold 119,300 shares of the company to bring its total holding down to slightly above 1.0 million shares. As of December 31, this stake was worth $107.86 million. Interestingly, while the fund reduced the number of shares it held of the company during the quarter, it increased its position of call options underlying shares of Apple by 15% during the same time. In the last few months shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) have fallen significantly over fears that the company won’t be able to grow its revenue and earnings any further in the foreseeable future. These fears were validated by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) recently, when it provided fiscal year 2016 second quarter revenue guidance that would be lower by 9.2% year-over-year. Nonetheless, on February 9, analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated their ‘Outperform’ rating and $135 price target on the stock. Billionaire Ken Fisher‘s Fisher Asset Management increased its stake in Apple by 1% to 11.27 million shares during the fourth quarter.

Even though Valiant Capital reduced its stake in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 18% during the fourth quarter, the company managed to jump a spot quarter-over-quarter and become the fund’s largest equity holding at the end of the quarter. As of December 31, Valiant held 168,800 shares of Amazon worth $114.1 million. While 2015 was a dream year for the e-commerce behemoth, with its stock more than doubling during that period, 2016 is turning out to be rather dismal, as it has lost over 25% of its market cap since the start of the year. On February 2, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s board approved a $5 billion buyback program with no expiration date. Analysts feel this will insulate the stock from falling heavily in the near future. In its most recent 10-K filing, the company mentioned major logistics companies as its potential customers, which several investors see as a positive development. According to them, this shows that the company is trying to reduce its dependency on other infrastructure and logistics companies. Donald Chiboucis‘ Columbus Circle Investors also reduced its stake in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) during the fourth quarter, by 3%.

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