Hedge Fund Masters 2008…Everyone Loves Qualcomm

Feeling a little contrarian today? Seth Klarman is, and he is buying some beaten down SLM with a full third of his portfolio. . .

The 13Fs are arriving and below I update the two tracking portfolios.

(For background on this approach, check out Show Me Your Hand – Betting on the Smart Money.)

Below is a table of updated performance figures for the two strategies we track, followed by individual fund holdings and commentary. In our previous backtests, we found that the strategies outperformed the stock indexes by 6-12% per year since 2000 with similar volatility. 2007 was the first year out of sample and the performance was quite strong.

A subjective and non-scientific observation is that the portfolios generally track the market on the downside, but have much higher upside volatility.

Performance:

Hedge Fund Consensus – Top holdings owned by 15 value hedge funds, ranked by # of funds with the same position. Google was the worst performer at -27%.

QCOM (5)
AMX (4)
AXP (3)
MA (3)
MSFT (3)
WMT (3)

The list of double repeats is at the end of the post.

Hedge Fund Best Ideas – Top two holdings from each of 10 value hedge funds listed below. Apple was the worst performer at -40%. (Since AMX and QCOM are repeats, I took the next two stocks – SWN and MA.):

AMX
BBBY
CA
CVA
CVS
DISCA
GOOG
HLX
HPQ
KO
MA
MCO
NWS
ORCL
QCOM
ROST
SLM
SWN
TGT
WFC

—-

Baupost Group

Wow. A full third of Klarman’s portfolio is in SLM. When one of the best investors on the planet has this sort conviction, that is good enough for me. Link to a Klarman’s speech at MIT.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:

Financials 57%
Services 12%
Energy 14%

Top 10 holdings are:

SLM
NWS
LINE
HRZ
FAF
APL
UFS
EXH
ELOS
MAQ

Blue Ridge Capital

Sold off a little Discovery Holdings, and doubled positions in Target, Coach, and Starbucks.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:

Services 43%
Financials 18%
Technology 15%

Top 10 holdings are:

CVA
DISCA
SCHW
TV
AMX
LVLT
AXP
WMT
BR
TGT

Warren Buffett

Top 10 holdings are:

KO
WFC
AXP
PG
BNI
KFT
JNJ
WSC
USB
BUD

Eminence Capital

New positions in Lab Corp and Viacom, and added a bit to the largest position Ross Stores.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:

Services 33%
Technology 30%
Financials 12%
Conglomerates 11%

Top 10 holdings are:

ROST
ORCL
PHG
FISV
QCOM
AXP
SAI
AMAT
IGT
CSCO

Greenlight Capital

A big increase in the top position Target, and new positions in Walgreens and Health Management Corp.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:

Services 27%
Financial 17%
Technology 16%
Energy 15%
Capital Goods 12%

Top 10 holdings are:
TGT
HLX
AMP
MSFT
MDC
BAGL
VOV
SAI
MIM
URS

Lone Pine Capital

Beefed up the position in Qualcomm, and initiated positions in Sandridge Energy and Mastercard.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:

Services 34%
Technology 22%
Financials 9%
Basic Materials 8%

Top 10 holdings are:

AMX
QCOM
SWN
GOOG
PCLN
BAM
SLB
COH
FAST
BNI

Maverick Capital

Supposedly had an awful January. But talk about nice timing on that new purchase of $200 million in Yahoo shares. Other than adding some AMD and paring some AAPL, not much has changed.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:

Technology 27%
Services 32%
Financials 13%
Healthcare 13%

Top 10 holdings are:
QCOM
CVS
AMX
TMO
RTN
AAPL
GME
AMD
WU
BK

Okumus Capital

Lost of turnover here. 80% of the portfolio is in the top 4 holdings with BBBY accounting for almost 40%.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:

Services 95%

Top 10 holdings are:

BBBY
MCO
LTD
ODP
MHP
PZZA
ARB
M
CMCSA
HOTT
SHOO
URI

Private Capital

Sold off a bit of the top holdings, but not much.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:

Services 37%
Technology 27%
Financials 26%

Top 10 holdings are:

CA
HPQ
MGM
BEAS
SYMC
NTRS
RCL
BSC
EK
IGT

Tiger Global

New positions in Mastercard, Longtop, Priceline, and Research in Motion.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:

Services 33%
Technology 40%
Financial 11%

Top 10 holdings are:

GOOG
AMX
MA
AMT
BIDU
FMCN
LFT
PCLN
MELI
TDG

List of double repeats:

AMAT
BAM
BBBY
BIDU
BNI
BRK
CME
COH
CSCO
CVC
DGX
EMC
ETFC
EXP
GOOG
HRZ
IGT
M
MCO
MDC
ODP
ORCL
PCLN
SAI
SBAC
SLM
TGT
TMO
TT
TXT
UTX