JPM, BAC Two Most Beloved Hedge Fund Holdings Last Quarter

Every quarter, many of the world's largest institutional investors file something called a Form 13F.

The Form 13F lists all of the Section 13(f) securities that a fund had long positions in at the end of the most recent quarter. This can include equities, options, debt, etc.

The Form 13F filings can offer some interesting insights, such as which stocks are being accumulated by institutional investors, and which stocks are being dropped.

For the Q1/2010 quarter, we tracked 97 of these institutional investors in our database. Every position was entered into our database, and a very large (230+ pages) report was compiled using the information.

Some of the institutional investors that we are currently tracking in our database? Paulson & Co Inc, SAC Capital Advisors LP, Soros Fund Management LLC, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Most of the largest institutional investors in the world are currently included in our database.

So, let's crack open our report and answer two questions for you:

1) What were the top ten most popular holdings for Q1/2010?

2) What were the top ten most added to holdings in Q1/2010?

Let's start with Question 1. Here is a list of the top ten most popular holdings for Q1/2010 (remember, we are tracking 97 funds in our database):

Stock | Symbol | Number of Funds That Owned as of 03/31/2010

1. JPMorgan Chase & Co. | JPM | 50
2. Bank of America Corporation | BAC | 45
3. Pfizer Inc. | PFE | 44
4. Microsoft Corporation | MSFT | 43
5. Google Inc. | GOOG | 42
6. Apple Inc. | AAPL | 41
7. Visa Inc. | V | 39
8. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. | GS | 37
9. Wells Fargo & Co. | WFC | 37
10. Intel Corporation | INTC | 36

As you can clearly see, financial and technology companies dominated the top ten list.

Now - Question 2. What were the top ten most added to holdings in Q1/2010? To calculate this, we took each stock and figured out the number of funds that added to their existing positions during Q1/2010, and then subtracted from this the number of funds that reduced their existing positions in the stock during Q1/2010.

In the end we were left with a net change number, and the top ten looked like this:

Stock | Symbol | Net Change

1. Adobe Systems Inc | ADBE | +14
2. JPMorgan Chase & Co. | JPM | +13
3. Target Corporation | TGT | +12
4. Calpine Corp. | CPN | +12
5. Viacom Inc Cl B | VIAB | +11
6. Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp | MRX | +10
7. Everest Re Group Ltd | RE | +9
8. Qualcomm Inc. | QCOM | +9
9. PALL CORP | PLL | +9
10. Oracle Corporation | ORCL | +9

Note: Newell Rubbermaid Inc (NWL), Google Inc (GOOG) and Brocade Communications Systems (BRCD) all posted a +9 in terms of net change as well.

To illustrate what I am talking about when I say "net change", let me give you an example.

In Q1/2010, 16 funds added to their existing positions in ADBE, while 2 funds chose to reduce their existing positions in the stock (but not sell their entire position). This left us with a net change of +14, which put ADBE at the top of the list.

Of the 16 funds that added to their existing ADBE positions in Q1/2010, Janus Capital Management LLC added the largest number of shares (+3,428,000 shares).

Source: Q1/2010 Manuel Fund Report (Free)

Filed under: Hedge Fund News