Top Funds' Activity in Q1 2025

By

Andrew Barry of Barron's reports Berkshire cuts stake in BofA, eliminates Citigroup:

Berkshire Hathaway eliminated its equity stake in Citigroup and reduced its large holding in Bank of America while adding to its investment in Constellation Brands, according to a 13-F report with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday.

Berkshire sold 14.6 million shares of Citigroup and cut its holding in Bank of America by 48.6 million shares to 631 million shares, while roughly doubling its stake in Constellation Brands to 12 million shares.

Berkshire also requested confidentiality with the Securities and Exchange Commission for one or more equity holdings that it omitted from the 13-F report. This likely reflected a desire by CEO Warren Buffett, who oversees Berkshire’s equity portfolio, to continue accumulating one or more holdings without tipping off investors and potentially driving up the stock price.

Berkshire requested confidentiality when it was accumulating its stake in Chubb, disclosing that holding in 2024.

The new confidential holding, assuming it is one stock, is relatively small at between $1 billion and $2 billion, Barron’s estimates based on information in the Berkshire 10-Q for the first quarter, released earlier in May. That new investment is likely in what Berkshire calls its commercial and industrial group of equity holdings.

Berkshire’s position in Apple, the largest holding in its total equity portfolio of nearly $300 billion, was unchanged in the quarter at 300 million shares, a stake now worth $63 billion.

Berkshire eliminated its investment in Nu Holdings, which operates the Brazilian digital bank Nubank, selling 40 million shares, in the first quarter.

Berkshire reduced its investment in Liberty Formula One by about 50% to 3.5 million shares. It boosted its stake in Pool by about 865,000 shares to 1.5 million shares in the period. And it trimmed its holding in Capital One Financial by 300,000 shares to 7.15 million shares.

Barron’s reported Wednesday that information in Berkshire’s 10-Q filing for the first quarter indicated that Berkshire had been a seller of financial stocks in the period. We wrote that Citigroup, Bank of America, and Capital One were prime candidates for sales by Berkshire in the period.

That projection turned out to be accurate.

Overall, it was a light period of equity buys and sells by Buffett and two investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who together run about 10% of the equity portfolio. Buffett handles the rest.

Many of Berkshire’s smaller equity holdings—those under $2 billion to $3 billion—are managed by either Combs or Weschler. They both generally operate independently of each other and Buffett.

Berkshire was a buyer of $3.2 billion of stocks in the first quarter and a seller of $4.7 billion, according to the 10-Q. The 13-F details changes to individual equity holdings among U.S.-listed stocks.

Janet H. Cho and Liz Moyer of Barron's also report Loeb’s Third Point dumps Tesla and here is what other hedge fund hunchos are doing:

While Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway was busy exiting or trimming stakes in bank stocks, other money managers were shifting their holdings in technology and other sectors.

Daniel Loeb’s Third Point Investors exited a 500,000-share stake of Tesla during the March quarter, according to its quarterly regulatory filing. It also exited a 670,000-share stake of Meta Platforms. At the same time, it reported a new 8.9-million share holding of Kenvue, 3.8 million shares of AT&T, and 1.45 million shares of Nvidia, among other shifts.

The filing reflects holdings as of the end of March, meaning portfolios could have shifted again since then.

David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management reported new holdings in Deutsche Bank (3.75 million shares), L3Harris Technologies (300,000 shares), and Broadcom (130,000 shares). It increased its Uber Technology stake to 3.2 million shares, and exited 1.2 million shares of AMD and one million shares of Intel.

Carl Icahn increased his company Icahn Enterprises’stake in JetBlue Airways to 33.6 million shares from 17.7 million, and trimmed its stake in natural gas company Southwest Gas Holdings to 7.5 million from 9.6 million, according to its 13-F filing.

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square reported a new 30.3-million share stake of Uber Technologies, and exited a 18.8-million share stake of Nike.

Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value cut its stake in Pfizer shares in half, to 7.73 million shares from 15.37 million shares, after an unsuccessful activist effort that said the pharmaceutical maker had failed to deliver for shareholders.

It's that time of the year again where we get a sneak peek into the portfolios of the world's top money managers with a customary 45-day lag. 

That means we get a snapshot as of March 31st, right before Trump's Liberation Day wreaked havoc on the markets.

Since Liberation Day, stocks experienced a sharp selloff and an incredible V-shaped recovery which bodes well for stocks if this continues:

Of course, there are plenty of bears out there including elite hedge fund managers who are bracing for a retest of April lows or sold their stocks and bought puts:

And there are bears on the economy that still think we are headed into a recession and stocks are headed lower:

No wonder fund manager sentiment remains extremely bearish:

Of course, CTAs/ quants with hundreds of billions under management love squeezing bearish fund managers and that's exactly what they're doing, buying more stocks as prices rise.

Welcome to wacky world of stock investing. Just look at the top performing US large cap stocks over the past month and how much they rallied from their lows:

What does this tell me? Despite rising rates, there's still plenty of global liquidity to drive risk assets higher.

Of course, at one point valuations will get stretched again and stocks will pull back. 

And if a recession develops, they'll pull back hard and stay down.

But I'm hardly convinced a recession is imminent, stocks are sure not acting as if it is. 

Neither are credit spreads.

Anyway, back to 13-Fs and what top funds bought and sold last quarter.

Clearly all the action has been happening this quarter but I would invite you to click on the links of the funds, look at heir top holdings, where they added and sold and always keep in mind the data is lagged.

Lastly, I note that shares of Unitedhealth have sold off sharply over the past month and rallied today as as investors reacted positively to a flurry of insider buying in the beaten-up stock. 

The only thing I will say about UNH is tread carefully here, a stock that is this broken rarely experiences a V-shaped recovery and there's always a risk that another shoe will drop dragging it lower:

 

Yes. it's massively oversold and can bounce from here but the stock chart is so broken that every rally will be met with selling pressure as dip buyers look to get out.

We shall see next quarter which funds bought the big dip here.

Alright let me wrap it up here because I have a lot of great clips to share at the end of this comment including a recent interview with Citadel founder Ken Griffin.

The links below take you straight to their top holdings and then click to see where they increased and decreased their holdings (see column headings and click on them).

Top multi-strategy, event driven hedge funds and large hedge fund managers

As the name implies, these hedge funds invest across a wide variety of hedge fund strategies like L/S Equity, L/S credit, global macro, convertible arbitrage, risk arbitrage, volatility arbitrage, merger arbitrage, distressed debt and statistical pair trading. Below are links to the holdings of some top multi-strategy hedge funds I track closely:

1) Appaloosa LP

2) Citadel Advisors

3) Balyasny Asset Management

4) Point72 Asset Management (Steve Cohen)

5) Millennium Management

6) Farallon Capital Management

7) Shonfeld Strategic Partners 

8) Walleye Capital 

9) Verition Fund Management 

10) Peak6 Investments

11) Kingdon Capital Management

12) HBK Investments

13) Highbridge Capital Management

14) Highland Capital Management

15) Hudson Bay Capital Management

16) Pentwater Capital Management

17) Sculptor Capital Management (formerly known as Och-Ziff Capital Management)

18) ExodusPoint Capital Management

19) Carlson Capital Management

20) Magnetar Capital

21) Whitebox Advisors

22) QVT Financial 

23) Paloma Partners

24) Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisors

25) York Capital Management

Top Global Macro Hedge Funds and Family Offices

These hedge funds gained notoriety because of George Soros, arguably the best and most famous hedge fund manager. Global macros typically invest across fixed income, currency, commodity and equity markets.

George Soros, Carl Icahn, Stanley Druckenmiller, Julian Robertson  have converted their hedge funds into family offices to manage their own money.

1) Soros Fund Management

2) Icahn Associates

3) Duquesne Family Office (Stanley Druckenmiller)

4) Bridgewater Associates

5) Pointstate Capital Partners 

6) Caxton Associates (Bruce Kovner)

7) Tudor Investment Corporation (Paul Tudor Jones)

8) Tiger Management (Julian Robertson)

9) Discovery Capital Management (Rob Citrone)

10 Moore Capital Management

11) Rokos Capital Management

12) Element Capital

13) Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust (Michael Larson, the man behind Gates)

Top Quant and Market Neutral Hedge Funds

These funds use sophisticated mathematical algorithms to make their returns, typically using high-frequency models so they churn their portfolios often. A few of them have outstanding long-term track records and many believe quants are taking over the world. They typically only hire PhDs in mathematics, physics and computer science to develop their algorithms. Market neutral funds will engage in pair trading to remove market beta. Some are large asset managers that specialize in factor investing.

1) Alyeska Investment Group

2) Renaissance Technologies

3) DE Shaw & Co.

4) Two Sigma Investments

5) Cubist Systematic Strategies (a quant division of Point72)

6) Man Group

7) Analytic Investors

8) AQR Capital Management

9) Dimensional Fund Advisors

10) Quantitative Investment Management

11) Oxford Asset Management

12) PDT Partners

13) TPG Angelo Gordon

14) Quantitative Systematic Strategies

15) Quantitative Investment Management

16) Bayesian Capital Management

17) SABA Capital Management

18) Quadrature Capital

19) Simplex Trading

Top Deep Value, Activist, Growth at a Reasonable Price, Event Driven and Distressed Debt Funds

These are among the top long-only funds that everyone tracks. They include funds run by legendary investors like Warren Buffet, Seth Klarman, Ron Baron and Ken Fisher. Activist investors like to make investments in companies where management lacks the proper incentives to maximize shareholder value. They differ from traditional L/S hedge funds by having a more concentrated portfolio. Distressed debt funds typically invest in debt of a company but sometimes take equity positions.

1) Abrams Capital Management (the one-man wealth machine)

2) Berkshire Hathaway

3) TCI Fund Management

4) Baron Partners Fund (click here to view other Baron funds)

5) BHR Capital

6) Fisher Asset Management

7) Baupost Group

8) Fairfax Financial Holdings

9) Fairholme Capital

10) Gotham Asset Management

11) Fir Tree Partners

12) Elliott Investment Management (Paul Singer)

13) Jana Partners

14) Miller Value Partners (Bill Miller)

15) Highfields Capital Management

16) Eminence Capital

17) Pershing Square Capital Management

18) New Mountain Vantage  Advisers

19) Atlantic Investment Management

20) Polaris Capital Management

21) Third Point

22) Marcato Capital Management

23) Glenview Capital Management

24) Apollo Management

25) Avenue Capital

26) Armistice Capital

27) Blue Harbor Group

28) Brigade Capital Management

29) Caspian Capital

30) Kerrisdale Advisers

31) Knighthead Capital Management

32) Relational Investors

33) Roystone Capital Management

34) Scopia Capital Management

35) Schneider Capital Management

36) ValueAct Capital

37) Vulcan Value Partners

38) Okumus Fund Management

39) Eagle Capital Management

40) Sasco Capital

41) Lyrical Asset Management

42) Gabelli Funds

43) Brave Warrior Advisors

44) Matrix Asset Advisors

45) Jet Capital

46) Conatus Capital Management

47) Starboard Value

48) Pzena Investment Management

49) Trian Fund Management

50) Oaktree Capital Management

51) Fayez Sarofim & Co 

52) Southeastern Asset Management 

Top Long/Short Hedge Funds

These hedge funds go long shares they think will rise in value and short those they think will fall. Along with global macro funds, they command the bulk of hedge fund assets. There are many L/S funds but here is a small sample of some well-known funds.

1) Adage Capital Management

2) Viking Global Investors

3) Greenlight Capital

4) Maverick Capital

5) Pointstate Capital Partners 

6) Marathon Asset Management

7) Tiger Global Management (Chase Coleman)

8) Coatue Management

9) D1 Capital Partners

10) Artis Capital Management

11) Fox Point Capital Management

12) Jabre Capital Partners

13) Lone Pine Capital

14) Paulson & Co.

15) Bronson Point Management

16) Hoplite Capital Management

17) LSV Asset Management

18) Hussman Strategic Advisors

19) Cantillon Capital Management

20) Brookside Capital Management

21) Blue Ridge Capital

22) Iridian Asset Management

23) Clough Capital Partners

24) GLG Partners LP

25) Cadence Capital Management

26) Honeycomb Asset Management

27) New Mountain Vantage

28) Penserra Capital Management

29) Eminence Capital

30) Steadfast Capital Management

31) Brookside Capital Management

32) PAR Capital Capital Management

33) Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co

34) Brahman Capital

35) Bridger Management 

36) Kensico Capital Management

37) Kynikos Associates

38) Soroban Capital Partners

39) Passport Capital

40) Pennant Capital Management

41) Mason Capital Management

42) Tide Point Capital Management

43) Sirios Capital Management 

44) Hayman Capital Management

45) Highside Capital Management

46) Tremblant Capital Group

47) Decade Capital Management

48) Suvretta Capital Management

49) Bloom Tree Partners

50) Cadian Capital Management

51) Matrix Capital Management

52) Senvest Partners

53) Falcon Edge Capital Management

54) Park West Asset Management

55) Melvin Capital Partners (Plotkin shut down Melvin after reeling rom Redditor attack)

56) Owl Creek Asset Management

57) Portolan Capital Management

58) Proxima Capital Management

59) Tourbillon Capital Partners

60) Impala Asset Management

61) Valinor Management

62) Marshall Wace

63) Light Street Capital Management

64) Rock Springs Capital Management

65) Rubric Capital Management

66) Whale Rock Capital

67) Skye Global Management

68) York Capital Management

69) Zweig-Dimenna Associates

Top Sector and Specialized Funds

I like tracking activity funds that specialize in real estate, biotech, healthcare, retail and other sectors like mid, small and micro caps. Here are some funds worth tracking closely.

1) Avoro Capital Advisors (formerly Venbio Select Advisors)

2) Baker Brothers Advisors

3) Perceptive Advisors

4) RTW Investments

5) Healthcor Management

6) Orbimed Advisors

7) Deerfield Management

8) BB Biotech AG

9) Birchview Capital

10) Ghost Tree Capital

11) Soleus Capital Management

12) Oracle Investment Management

13) Palo Alto Investors

14) Consonance Capital Management

15) Camber Capital Management

16) Redmile Group

17) Casdin Capital

18) Bridger Capital Management

19) Boxer Capital

20) Omega Fund Management

21) Bridgeway Capital Management

22) Cohen & Steers

23) Cardinal Capital Management

24) Munder Capital Management

25) Diamondhill Capital Management 

26) Cortina Asset Management

27) Geneva Capital Management

28) Criterion Capital Management

29) Daruma Capital Management

30) 12 West Capital Management

31) RA Capital Management

32) Sarissa Capital Management

33) Rock Springs Capital Management

34) Senzar Asset Management

35) Paradigm Biocapital Advisors

36) Sphera Funds

37) Tang Capital Management

38) Thomson Horstmann & Bryant

39) Ecor1 Capital

40) Opaleye Management

41) NEA Management Company

42) Sofinnova Investments 

43) Great Point Partners

44) Tekla Capital Management

45) Van Berkom and Associates

Mutual Funds and Asset Managers

Mutual funds and large asset managers are not hedge funds but their sheer size makes them important players. Some asset managers have excellent track records. Below, are a few funds investors track closely.

1) Fidelity

2) BlackRock Inc

3) Wellington Management

4) AQR Capital Management

5) Sands Capital Management

6) Brookfield Asset Management

7) Dodge & Cox

8) Eaton Vance Management

9) Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co.

10) Geode Capital Management

11) Goldman Sachs Group

12) JP Morgan Chase & Co.

13) Morgan Stanley

14) Manulife Asset Management

15) UBS Asset Management

16) Barclays Global Investor

17) Epoch Investment Partners

18) Thornburg Investment Management

19) Kornitzer Capital Management

20) Batterymarch Financial Management

21) Tocqueville Asset Management

22) Neuberger Berman

23) Winslow Capital Management

24) Herndon Capital Management

25) Artisan Partners

26) Great West Life Insurance Management

27) Lazard Asset Management 

28) Janus Capital Management

29) Franklin Resources

30) Capital Research Global Investors

31) T. Rowe Price

32) First Eagle Investment Management

33) Frontier Capital Management

34) Akre Capital Management

35) Brandywine Global

36) Brown Capital Management

37) Victory Capital Management

38) Orbis Allan Gray

39) Ariel Investments 

40) ARK Investment Management

Canadian Asset Managers

Here are a few Canadian funds I track closely:

1) Addenda Capital

2) Letko, Brosseau and Associates

3) Fiera Capital Corporation

4) West Face Capital

5) Hexavest

6) 1832 Asset Management

7) Jarislowsky, Fraser

8) Connor, Clark & Lunn Investment Management

9) TD Asset Management

10) CIBC Asset Management

11) Beutel, Goodman & Co

12) Greystone Managed Investments

13) Mackenzie Financial Corporation

14) Great West Life Assurance Co

15) Guardian Capital

16) Scotia Capital

17) AGF Investments

18) Montrusco Bolton

19) CI Investments

20) Venator Capital Management

21) Van Berkom and Associates

22) Formula Growth

23) Hillsdale Investment Management

Pension Funds, Endowment Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Fed's Swiss Surrogate

Last but not least, I the track activity of some pension funds, endowment, sovereign wealth funds and the Swiss National Bank (aka the Fed's Swiss surrogate). Below, a sample of the funds I track closely:

1) Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMco)

2) Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan

3) Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

4) Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec

5) OMERS Administration Corp.

6) Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP)

7) British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI)

8) Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments)

9) PGGM Investments

10) APG All Pensions Group

11) California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS)

12) California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS)

13) New York State Common Fund

14) New York State Teachers Retirement System

15) State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System

16) State of Wisconsin Investment Board

17) State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund

18) Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio

19) STRS Ohio

20) Teacher Retirement System of Texas

21) Virginia Retirement Systems

22) TIAA CREF investment Management

23) Harvard Management Co.

24) Norges Bank

25) Nordea Investment Management

26) Korea Investment Corp.

27) Singapore Temasek Holdings 

28) Yale Endowment Fund

29) Swiss National Bank (aka, the Fed's Swiss surrogate)

Below, CNBC's Leslie Picker joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio moves in Q1.

Next, 13-F filings are out and Bloomberg's Charlie Wells digs into them. Michael Burry took fresh bearish wagers on Nvidia and China-related stocks.

Third, as markets soared on a truce in the trade war between the US and China, Citadel founder Ken Griffin reflected on the past month, suggesting it would have been better to sit on the sidelines in cash. Griffin spoke with Bloomberg's Sonali Basak during a taping of an episode of the upcoming series Bullish for Bloomberg Originals at the Four Seasons in Miami.

Fourth, CNBC's Joe Kernen reports on why Point72's Steve Cohen who earlier this week said "multiples matter and growth will slow" as to why he thinks stocks will retest their April lows. Jim Chanos also explain why he's still shorting Tesla's stock.

Fifth, Jim Chanos, Chanos & Co., joins 'Closing Bell' to discuss Chanos' thoughts on equity markets, investment opportunities and much more.

Sixth, in this episode of In the Money with Amber Kanwar, Dan Niles shares why he's sitting on cash, even as tech rebounds, and why this moment reminds him more of past bubbles than a new bull run. He warns that a 50% market drop is very much on the table, drawing parallels to painful drawdowns during the dot-com crash and the financial crisis.

Seventh, investment legend Jeremy Grantham, known for his prescient market calls, warns the US stock market is as expensive as it's ever been and advises looking overseas for superior values.

Lastly, I'll end on a bullish note. Fundstrat's Tom Lee joins CNBC's 'Closing Bell' to discuss why the risk-reward scenario for equities is better now than the before the trade war.

Comments

Post a Comment