YWR: Hedge Fund Holdings Analysis
Our monthly data analysis of the Top 21 equity holdings across 344 hedge funds. We cover $2.6 trillion of equity positions across 2,470 unique securities.
Before we get into the holdings, a word on performance.
YTD Performance is Great.
Yes, hedge funds are massively underperforming the index, but imagine the performance fees from generating 9% YTD. Multi-Strategy and Equity L/S are doing well. Macro and CTA’s still suffering. Macro has been terrible for awhile.
YWR Top 21
When we loop through the top 20 equity holdings Amazon is the most popular with 109 funds having it in the top 20. The Alphabet share classes are 95, MSFT 87, Apple 67, Meta 63, Nvidia 54.
The Nvidia underweight. It sticks out that Nvidia has a $3.5 trillion market cap, bigger than MSFT, bigger than APPL, and yet it is the 6th most held position. It signals a real fear of buying NVDA at the top. A contrarian positive.
Tesla Acceptance. Tesla is getting more of a hedge fund following. Earlier in the year we thought it strange that Tesla wasn’t on the list, which is why we decided to do more work (Tesla @ $550).
Uber sticks out in that the market cap at $150bn isn’t that large, yet is a hedge fund favorite.
Most Consensus Hedge Funds
Here we compare the level of overlap of our YWR Top 21 positions with each fund. It is a theme that the big funds tend to be the most consensus (they all own the same stocks).
This month we hit a new record with 2 funds holding 13 of the top 21. Statistically, that is hard to do.
Marshall Wace keeps moving up the list and is now the #3 most consensus fund in the world. That used to be Millennium’s title.
Non-Consensus Funds
We also do the opposite and identify funds where their Top 20 have zero overlap with the YWR Top 21 (I use 21 because Alphabet has 2 share classes). These are the mavericks. They don’t own any of the big tech.
Parvus Deep Dive
Every month I dive into an interesting fund and their holdings. Parvus sticks out as the 3rd largest Non-Consensus fund. Parvus is based in London and runs concentrated high conviction positions. In fact we can only have data for 10 positions (not 20). Let’s look at what they own.
RyanAir: Love it, well hate it, but I accept the fact I keep flying it even though I find Stansted airport, the baggage rules and no seats at the gates annoying is a sign of a great business. They own their own planes, and have the best prices.
Publicis: Interesting one. Social media marketing. If you are a global brand how do you access thousands of influencers across a multitude of platforms. How do you even know who these people are? So much more difficult than when there was TV. But great for Publicis.
IPSEN: French biotech firm.
Flutter and Evoke: Both are UK sports betting companies. Flutter is doing well and Evoke is doing terribly. Parvus probably sees the upside if management can turn Evoke into Flutter.
As you go through the Flutter presentation you realise this a type business where AI could really make a difference. Imaging pricing betting odds across multiple mobile platforms globally in real time on game day. Sports betting. A backdoor AI play.
SBM Offshore: We love this too. It’s not contract drilling (3rd most shorted sector in the world), but it’s close.
Scandinavian Tobacco and British American Tobacco: Not one, but 2 tobacco companies in the top 10 holdings. Parvus is a one of a kind. We got positive on tobacco last year (Who am I?) on the idea vaping and pouches change tobacco from a death spiral to either stable or possibly growing. We hold BATS in Dirty Dividends (YWR Portfolios).
Full Dataset
I encourage you to check out the full hedge fund equity holdings dataset with the link below. Also available at www.ywr.world under the Datasets tab.
Full disclosure these are publicly stated equity holdings. It doesn’t reflect that their may be associated short positions, convertible bond or merger arbitrage strategies.