It’s no big secret that hedge funds had a rocky third quarter. However that did not stop them from adding certain equities to their holdings in hopes of boosting their returns. The top 50 hedge funds boosted their exposure to equities by $28.16 billion (14.4%) in the third quarter to a total of $223.33 billion.
The most heavily purchased stock in the quarter was PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL), a company that came public in mid-July and of which the top hedge funds added $3.2 billion worth of stock to an aggregate portfolio. Activist investor Carl Icahn added $1.4 billion in PayPal stock to the portfolio of Icahn Associates.
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) had the second-most heavily purchased stock in the third quarter, with the top 50 funds adding $3.19 billion in Amazon shares to an aggregate portfolio. Tiger Global Management added $1.2 billion of that total to its existing stake, and Lone Pine Capital took a new stake valued at $992 million.
The most heavily sold shares were those of AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T). As a group, telecom stocks sold off $3.4 billion in shares during the quarter, and AT&T sales accounted for $3.2 billion of that total. Highfields Capital Management, Pentwater Capital Management and D.E. Shaw Group combined to sell about $1.9 billion in AT&T stock.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was the second-most sold stock among the top 50 hedge funds. Aggregate sales of Apple shares totaled $1.2 billion in the third quarter. Icahn Associates, which owns 52.8 million Apple shares, maintained its position even though the stock slid nearly 13% during the quarter.
The sector attracting the most new purchases in the third quarter was health care, and the equities everyone wanted to buy came from Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX) and Allergan PLC (NYSE: AGN). The top 50 funds purchased $2.1 billion worth of Baxter shares and $1.7 billion worth of Allergan shares in the quarter out of a total investment of $16.3 billion in the health care sector.
The data were reported Thursday by FactSet Research.
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