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Which 9 Gurus All Hold Motorola Solutions?

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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 Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI) 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.

Click here to find out 10 S&P 500 Components Hedge Funds Are Buying »

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 MSI positions for each of the titans that reported holding some amount of MSI 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 -153 +$4
Leon Cooperman (Omega Advisors) Existing -187,900 -$5,379
Ray Dalio (Bridgewater) Existing -34,845 -$2,215
Joel Greenblatt (Gotham Asset Management) Existing -299,247 -$19,020
Ken Griffin (Citadel) Existing +19,308 +$1,333
Barry Rosenstein (Jana Partners) NEW +6,513,477 +$433,602
Jim Simons (Renaissance Tech) Existing +1,051,568 +$71,539
George Soros (Soros Fund Management) Existing -462,495 -$25,546
Brian Taylor (Pine River) NEW -267,400 -$17,800
Aggregate Change: +6,332,313 +$436,518

In terms of shares owned, we count 2 of the identified titans above having increased existing MSI positions from 03/31/2014 to 06/30/2014, with 5 having decreased their positions and 2 new positions. Worth noting is that Chase Coleman (Tiger Global) — also deemed to have "titan" status — exited MSI common stock as of 06/30/2014.

Looking beyond these particular hedge funds of interest, we tallied up the MSI share count in the aggregate among all of the funds which held MSI 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 MSI 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 MSI. We found that between these two periods, hedge funds increased their holdings by 2,722,848 shares in the aggregate, from 221,080,426 up to 223,803,274 for a share count increase of approximately 1.23%. The overall top three hedge funds holding MSI on 06/30/2014 were:

Fund Shares of MSI Held
1. ValueAct Holdings L.P. 28,907,623
2. Capital Research Global Investors 18,538,593
3. Morgan Stanley 12,691,014
4-10 Find out the full Top 10 Hedge Funds Holding MSI

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 Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI).


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