When hedge fund manager "titans" think alike, investors are wise to pay attention. At Holdings Channel, we have reviewed 3,729 13F filings for the 06/30/2014 reporting period, and noticed that International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) was held by 9 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.
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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 IBM positions for each of the titans that reported holding some amount of IBM at 06/30/2014:
| Fund Manager | New Position? | Change In Share Count | Change In Market Value ($ in 1000's) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Louis Bacon (Moore Capital Management) | Existing | UNCH | -$27 |
| Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) | Existing | +1,818,894 | -$437,233 |
| Ray Dalio (Bridgewater) | Existing | +74,500 | +$11,990 |
| Jeremy Grantham (GMO) | Existing | -1,511,077 | -$381,317 |
| Joel Greenblatt (Gotham Asset Management) | Existing | +128,768 | +$23,139 |
| Ken Griffin (Citadel) | Existing | -98,062 | -$19,493 |
| Jim Simons (Renaissance Tech) | Existing | +1,446,890 | +$260,001 |
| Brian Taylor (Pine River) | Existing | +56,152 | +$10,774 |
| Prem Watsa (Fairfax) | Existing | UNCH | -$14 |
| Aggregate Change: | +1,916,065 | -$532,180 | |
In terms of shares owned, we count 5 of the identified titans above having increased existing IBM positions from 03/31/2014 to 06/30/2014, with 2 having decreased their positions.
Looking beyond these particular hedge funds of interest, we tallied up the IBM share count in the aggregate among all of the funds which held IBM at the 06/30/2014 reporting period (out of the 3,729 we looked at). We then compared that number to the sum total of IBM shares those same funds held back at the 03/31/2014 period, to see how the aggregate share count held by hedge funds has moved for IBM. We found that between these two periods, hedge funds reduced their holdings by 8,606,214 shares in the aggregate, from 575,704,945 down to 567,098,731 for a share count decline of approximately -1.49%. The overall top three hedge funds holding IBM on 06/30/2014 were:
| Fund | Shares of IBM Held | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Berkshire Hathaway Inc | 70,173,978 |
| 2. | Vanguard Group Inc. | 53,757,918 |
| 3. | State Street Corp | 53,381,893 |
| 4-10 | Find out the full Top 10 Hedge Funds Holding IBM |
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 International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM).
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