A Look At 7 Stocks Institutional Investors Bought Like Crazy In Q3

• With the third quarter 13F season over, it’s time to look at some stats.
• This article will look into some of the most popular stocks among institutional investors, measured by the number of firms that started new stakes over the quarter.

Stats can be tricky when they are not supplemented by some qualitative research. A quick look into the WhaleWisdom’s stats for the third quarter shows that the two most popular stocks –in terms of new stakes- were Kraft Heinz Co KHC and Paypal Holdings Inc PYPL, with 902 and 879 newcomers, respectively. However, these two stocks started trading in the Nasdaq in the third quarter, on July 7.

The data is not to be disregarded; these stocks were in fact very popular among institutional investors. However, in order to make a better comparison – and draw better conclusions about the bullishness of investment firms on certain stocks, this article will focus on stocks that have been around for more than six months.

In this line, the most popular company was Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, which saw 163 institutional investors (among those tracked by WhaleWisdom) start new positions over the third quarter, another 510 increase their stakes, 390 others trimming their wages and 52 closing out their stakes.

Among new stakes, Lone Pine Capital’s was the largest. The hedge fund managed by Stephen Mandel started a position comprising 1,937,002 shares of the online retailer, worth almost $1 billion, over the third quarter.

Another big newcomer was Sands Capital Management, which acquired 1,745,554 shares of the company, worth almost $900 million.

However, and in spite of a 3 percent reduction in its exposure, Capital World Investors continued to be the largest institutional investor in the company, with 23,146,363 shares, worth more than $11.8 billion.

Among hedge funds, Tiger Global Management seemed to be the most bullish. After more than quadrupling its stake over the quarter, the firm disclosed ownership of 3,193,590 shares of Amazon, worth $1.6 billion.

Other very popular stocks were Netflix, Inc. NFLX, Alphabet Inc GOOGL, AT&T Inc. T and Facebook Inc FB, which respectively saw 148, 133, 126 and 120 institutional investors start new stakes over the third quarter of the year.

The largest new position in Netflix was held by Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global Investors, which acquired 4,517,202 shares, worth more than $460 million.

The biggest newcomer at Alphabet was investment firm State Street, with 22,215,008 shares, or $13.8 billion in stock.

At AT&T, it was none other than Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway who started the largest new stake, comprising 59,320,756 shares, worth almost $2 billion.

Finally, the largest new wage seen at Facebook was held by Jackson Square Partners, which disclosed ownership of 4,434,349 shares, worth almost $400 million.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.