After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 900 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of March 31st. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL).
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) was in 185 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic was previously 179. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. GOOGL has seen an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 179 hedge funds in our database with GOOGL positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that GOOGL ranked 4th among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
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Ole Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global
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Do Hedge Funds Think GOOGL Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of March, a total of 185 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 3% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards GOOGL over the last 23 quarters. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, holds the number one position in Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL). Citadel Investment Group has a $4.4602 billion call position in the stock, comprising 1.2% of its 13F portfolio. On Citadel Investment Group’s heels is Fisher Asset Management, managed by Ken Fisher, which holds a $3.5443 billion position; the fund has 2.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining members of the smart money that are bullish comprise Chris Hohn’s TCI Fund Management, Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position AltaRock Partners allocated the biggest weight to Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), around 25.08% of its 13F portfolio. Fosse Capital Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 21.91 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GOOGL.
As industrywide interest jumped, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Whale Rock Capital Management, managed by Alex Sacerdote, initiated the biggest position in Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL). Whale Rock Capital Management had $596 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Christian Leone’s Luxor Capital Group also made a $235.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new GOOGL positions are Warren Lammert’s Granite Point Capital, Bruce Kovner’s Caxton Associates LP, and Adam Parker’s Center Lake Capital.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) but similarly valued. These stocks are Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA), Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (NYSE:TSM), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK-B), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), and Visa Inc (NYSE:V). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to GOOGL’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| FB | 257 | 40967433 | 15 |
| TSLA | 62 | 10013166 | -6 |
| BABA | 135 | 15497689 | -21 |
| TSM | 76 | 10870661 | 4 |
| BRK-B | 111 | 19880791 | 1 |
| JPM | 111 | 5253689 | -1 |
| V | 164 | 26588103 | -2 |
| Average | 130.9 | 18438790 | -1.4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 130.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $18439 million. That figure was $24574 million in GOOGL’s case. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is the least popular one with only 62 bullish hedge fund positions. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GOOGL is 88.5. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 25.8% in 2021 through August 6th and still beat the market by 6.7 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on GOOGL as the stock returned 31.6% since the end of Q1 (through 8/6) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
