Forty-five days after the end of each quarter, many investors have to reveal their equity holdings in filings with the SEC called 13f’s. The filings give the rest of us a look (though somewhat dated) at where the big shots are putting their money.
On Monday and Tuesday, we got a glimpse of the portfolios of some top investors, including Warren Buffett, Daniel Loeb, Ralph Whitworth, David Einhorn, Jim Simons, David Tepper, John Paulson, Barry Rosenstein, Bruce Berkowitz, and George Soros. Check out some of the stocks they’re buying and selling below (compiled by Avi Salzman, Brendan Conway and Tiernan Ray):
Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) added General Motors (GM) to its portfolio in the first quarter, buying up 10 million shares as of March 31, according to an SEC filing released after the market closed on Tuesday. Warren Buffett also took a stake in Viacom (VIAB), adding 1.6 million shares.
Buffett also upped his stake in Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) to nearly 47 million shares from 39 million at the end of the previous quarter.
Some of Buffett's holdings were kept confidential, under an SEC rule that allows investors to keep some of their bets private for a certain period of time. Buffett was able to delay disclosure of his IBM (IBM) stake last year using the same rule.
David Tepper
David Tepper's Appaloosa Management powered up its Apple (AAPL) stake last quarter and rebuilt a position in Bank of America (BAC), a regulatory filing revealed late on Monday.
The Short Hills, N.J.-based hedge fund reported holding 685,000 Apple shares as of March 31, up from 181,850 shares at the end of last year. The position, which more than tripled in size, was worth about $382 million at Monday's closing price.
The nearly 7.5 million-share Bank of America stake reopens a stock position the company held as recently as mid-2011. Appaloosa had eliminated the stake as of its filing up to Sept. 30 and didn't show any in the last disclosure.
Appaloosa's new stake of nearly 322,000 shares in the iShares DJ US Home Construction Index Fund (ITB) also caught our eye. So did an increased stake in Masco (MAS), which makes KraftMaid cabinets, Delta faucets and paint.
The home-construction ETF had been on a tear until recently and is still up 31% on the year. 13F filings give no particular insight why a fund manager buys any stock or fund. But ETF sometimes play the role of placeholder for a thesis that will later be refined. This one would appear to be housing-bullish.
Besides the homebuilder ETF stake and the bigger position in Masco, Appaloosa has a stake in Beazer Homes (BZH) that didn't change last quarter.
Bruce Berkowitz
Bruce Berkowitz cut his stakes in financial stocks by the end of the first quarter, the head of Fairholme Capital Management revealed in an SEC filing.
Berkowitz cut his entire 213,000 share stake in Goldman Sachs (GS) and pared back his Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) exposure.
Berkowitz's Citi stake slid to 399,400 shares from 2.1 million, and his Berkshire stake fell to about 970,000 from 2.7 million.
That said, Berkowitz added warrants for Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC).
John Paulson
Hedge-fund manager John Paulson's quarterly portfolio disclosure shows a small new stake in Sara Lee (SLE) as of March 31 and an apparent decision to stand pat in a large gold position.
The 70,000-share Sara Lee stake wasn't in Paulson & Co.'s filing last quarter.
Paulson reported the same 17.3 million shares in the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) he showed last time around.
The bigger news may be the hedge-fund manager's decision to back off Hartford Financial Services Group (HIG). Paulson said in a Monday regulatory filing that he is stepping back from an activist role vis-a-vis Hartford. He has urged the property-casualty and life-insurance company to split in two.
David Einhorn
Hedge fund legend David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital filed a form 13F showing that in the three months ended in March, the firm liquidated the 3 million shares of Yahoo! (YHOO) it held previously, which had been valued at about $49 million.
Greenlight kept its stake in Apple (AAPL) the same at 1.5 million shares, though the value of that stake rose from $593 million to $877 million.
Greenlight trimmed its stake in Dell (DELL) from 14.1 million shares in Q4 to 11.96 million shares. Greenlight also cut its stake in Microsoft (MSFT) in half, from 15.2 million to 7.5 million.
Daniel Loeb
Third Point LLC's portfolio disclosure shows why the hedge fund's battle with Yahoo (YHOO) has taken on extra importance for its own prospects: Dan Loeb's fund added more than 14 million shares of Yahoo's stock in the first quarter.
Third Point disclosed 70.5 million Yahoo shares in its quarterly securities filing this evening. Last time around, Third Point said it held 56 million shares and call options on another 10 million as of Dec. 31.
The hedge fund also disclosed a 362,000-share stake in Apple (AAPL).
Jim Simons
Jim Simons, the math whiz and founder of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, added positions in hundreds of stocks in the first quarter, according to a filing released on Tuesday. According to his filing, he has a whopping 2,805 holdings.
Simons stake in Google (GOOG) rose to 456,948 shares by March 31 from 84,000 on Dec. 31, 2011. His stake is worth about $300 million.
Simons' top position at the end of the quarter, was McDonald's (MCD), according to InsiderScore.com. He owned 4.7 million shares at the end of the quarter and apparently added all of them in just three months; McDonald's doesn't show up on the 13f he filed at the end of the fourth quarter.
He also cut his stake in Apple (AAPL) from 1.3 million shares to 736,619 shares.
Barry Rosenstein
Barry Rosenstein's hedge fund Jana Partners LLC reported a new stake in DirecTV (DTV) this morning but gave no mention of Google (GOOG) in its quarterly portfolio disclosure.
The stake of nearly 158,000 DirecTV shares is the third-largest position Jana disclosed.
Jana last came in for mention on this blog after buying a pile of Barnes & Noble (BKS) shares a few days before news of Microsoft's (MSFT) $605 million investment in the Nook. The Microsoft deal sent Barnes & Noble's stock on a tear.
Meanwhile, the nearly 37,000 Google shares disclosed last time around were nowhere to be seen in this quarter's filing.
George Soros
Soros Fund Management picked up a new stake in J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) in the first quarter, sold out of Google (GOOG) and nearly quadrupled exposure to the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), a quarterly portfolio disclosure this evening shows.
Soros' fund held about 606,000 J.P. Morgan shares as of March 31 and call options to buy another 95,000, according to the filing. A stake of nearly 260,000 Google shares disclosed last time around was nowhere to be seen.
The filing also shows a bigger gold ETF stake: about 320,000 shares, versus 85,000 at the end of last year.
Ralph Whitworth
Shares in PepsiCo (PEP) were on the rise Wednesday after a new stake of nearly nine million shares at Ralph Whitworth's activist hedge fund Relational Investors spurs analysts to talk of the soft-drink giant's potential breakup.
CLSA analysts Caroline Levy and Michael S. Lavery upgraded the stock to “outperform” from “underperform” this morning and set a $75 price target. “For many years, we have been analyzing the sum-of-the-parts value of PepsiCo and believed that it is more valuable as separate, focused entities than as one,” they write in a client note. “We now believe such an event is more likely than not, as major shareholders and activists both seem interested in pushing PepsiCo towards it. Like many investors, we have been dissatisfied with 'powerof-one' initiatives and believe PepsiCo is more valuable in its parts.”
Adds MKM Partners' Keith Moore: “Relational's reputation and the recent disappointing operational performance at PEP will most likely cause the company's approach toward restructuring the business's lines to change at some point this year.”
PepsiCo's stock is up 1.1% at $68.61 this morning. Here's the Relational Investors filing.
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