Whiz Kid Chase Coleman Is Insanely Bullish About These Stocks

This is the perfect investment environment for Chase Coleman. LinkenIn doubled yesterday, which is extremely good news for Chase Coleman’s investors. Tiger Global’s Chase Coleman is one of the most successful tiger cubs. Coleman worked for Julian Robertson between 1997 and 2000, and then launched Tiger Global in 2001 with funds from Robertson. Coleman has $4.4 Billion under management and achieved an average 21% return per year since 2001.It’s not very fair to compare Chase Coleman’s returns to the S&P 500 index though. Coleman invests significant amounts in illiquid technology stocks and start-up companies. Fortunately for his investors, Coleman has a Midas touch, whichever stock his purchases turns into gold. Coleman is one of the early investors in Facebook, and his share of the company gained more than $1 Billion during the past couple of years.

During the first quarter of 2011, Coleman made a $200 Million bet on Netflix (NFLX). Last year Whitney Tilson lost a bundle on his NFLX shorts and closed his position in February. John Griffin’s Blue Ridge had a $239 Million position in NFLX at the end of March. Philippe Laffont’s Coatue, John Thaler’s JAT Capital, Curtis Macnguyen’s Ivory Capital, and John Hurley’s Cavalry Asset Management are other investors who had large positions in NFLX at the end of December. David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments and Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital had large put options on Netflix with no offsetting long positions. Netflix is clearly a battleground stock where hedge funds have diverging opinions.

Coleman also made new disclosures on RenaissanceRe Holdings (RNR), Youku (YOKU), and Bitauto (BITA). Coleman probably became the largest holder of RNR among the 300+ funds we are following. Robert Pitts’ Steadfast Capital had $73 Million in RNR at the end of 2010. Richard Schimel’s Diamondback Capital and Manish Chopra’s Tiger Veda are also among the largest holders.

The table below summarizes Coleman’s portfolio activity during the first quarter of 2011: