S&P Global Market Intelligence Finds Apple Topped Hedge Funds' Selling List In 1Q

S&P Global Inc

said that its Market Intelligence quarterly hedge fund tracker found that hedge funds were fleeing the equity market in the first quarter. Significantly, Apple Inc.

topped the selling list of the hedge funds in the first quarter. S&P Global said Apple accounted for $5.4 billion worth of selling and occupied the top position. There is a wide gap between the top second selling stock and the first. PepsiCo was the second biggest stock to witness selling worth $1.8 billion in the three-month period. This was followed by Amazon.com stock witnessing sales worth of $1.4 billion, Priceline $1 billion, and Walgreen Boots Alliance $1 billion. The global market intelligence tracker found that consumer discretionary, as well as, the technology sectors were the biggest concentration of selling in the first quarter. Similarly, the quarterly tracker also found the five Most-Bought Stocks. Facebook topped the list with $2.3 billion, followed by Broadcom for $1.5 billion. Alphabet ranked third in attracting investments of $945 million while Elli Lilly and Willis Towers Watson got the investments of $892 million and $884 million respectively. Most interesting part of the tracking was that Hedge funds have sold off considerable portions of their total equity holdings as they shed more than $18 billion in total equity positions in the first quarter from the fourth quarter. The company indicated that this was the second consecutive quarterly equity sell off among the big hedge funds. The total number equity position fell to just 408 stocks, which was the lowest level witnessed in two-year period. S&P Global Head of Market Development, Pavle Sabic, commented that "Many of the trends unfolding in the broad economy are magnified when viewed through the lens of the hedge fund microcosm. Research has shown that buying and selling patterns among hedge funds are closely correlated to subsequent stock market performance, making this quarterly snapshot of hedge fund activity an incredibly useful benchmark for further investment analysis." Similarly, its Director of ETF Research, Todd Rosenbluth, said, "While some investors may want to use this analysis to spot securities that are in and out favor by hedge fund managers, others may want the diversification benefits and liquidity that ETFs provide. There are a number of ETFs that emulate a hedge fund strategy." The quarterly market tracker pointed out that the top 10 hedge funds were severely impacted by the American stock market performance in the first quarter. In all, the top funds managed about $141 billion in equity holdings in Q1, which was down more than $18 billion from the fourth quarter of the last year. The stock traded 0.35 percent up on Wednesday.