These 12 Gurus All Bought Alphabet
When hedge fund manager “titans” think alike, investors are wise to pay attention. At Holdings Channel, we have reviewed 6,938 13F filings for the 09/30/2023 reporting period, and noticed that Alphabet Inc (Symbol: GOOGL) was held by 12 of the particular managers we have flagged as “titans” most widely followed by investors. It is not every day we see this many notable hedge fund managers thinking alike, so we wanted to take a closer look.
Before we continue, it is important to point out that 13F filings do not tell the whole story, because these funds are only required to disclose their long positions with the SEC, but are not required to disclose their short positions. A fund making a bearish bet against a stock by shorting calls, for example, might also be long some amount of stock as they trade around their overall bearish position. This long component could show up in a 13F filing and everyone might assume the fund is bullish, but this tells only part of the story because the bearish/short side of the position is not seen.
Having given that caveat, we believe that looking at groups of 13F filings can be revealing, especially when comparing one holding period to another. Below, let’s take a look at the change in GOOGL positions for each of the titans that reported holding some amount of GOOGL at 09/30/2023:
Fund ManagerNew Position?Change In Share CountChange In Market Value ($ in 1000’s)Bill Ackman (Pershing Square)
Existing
+2,169,824+$308,328Louis Bacon (Moore Capital Management)
Existing
+1,847,079+$242,211Chase Coleman (Tiger Global)
Existing
+1,523,200+$241,869Leon Cooperman (Omega Advisors)
Existing
UNCH+$7,254Ray Dalio (Bridgewater)
Existing
-381,016-$27,987Jeremy Grantham (GMO)
Existing
-30,080+$46,653Joel Greenblatt (Gotham Asset Management)
Existing
-7,189+$3,296Ken Griffin (Citadel)
Existing
+3,216,513+$429,901Daniel Loeb (Third Point)
Existing
-525,000-$52,798Jim Simons (Renaissance Tech)
Existing
-2,341,500-$277,214George Soros (Soros Fund Management)
Existing
-20,000+$13,276Prem Watsa (Fairfax)
Existing
UNCH+$3,718Aggregate Change:
+5,451,831+$938,507
In terms of shares owned, we count 4 of the identified titans above having increased existing GOOGL positions from 06/30/2023 to 09/30/2023, with 6 having decreased their positions.
Looking beyond these particular hedge funds of interest, we tallied up the GOOGL share count in the aggregate among all of the funds which held GOOGL at the 09/30/2023 reporting period (out of the 6,938 we looked at). We then compared that number to the sum total of GOOGL shares those same funds held back at the 06/30/2023 period, to see how the aggregate share count held by hedge funds has moved for GOOGL. We found that between these two periods, hedge funds increased their holdings by 19,559,800 shares in the aggregate, from 4,413,054,459 up to 4,432,614,259 for a share count increase of approximately 0.44%. The overall top three hedge funds holding GOOGL on 09/30/2023 were:
We’ll keep following the latest 13F filings by hedge fund managers and bring you interesting stories derived from a look at the aggregate information across groups of managers between filing periods. While looking at individual 13F filings can sometimes be misleading due to the long-only nature of the information, the sum total across groups of funds from one reporting period to another can be a lot more revealing and relevant, providing interesting stock ideas that merit further research, like Alphabet Inc (Symbol: GOOGL).
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.