Hedge funds are riding these stocks to better returns, Goldman Sachs says
Hedge fund performance has picked up along with the rest of the stock market since indexes bottomed in mid-June, according to the latest Goldman Sachs survey of 13F filings from almost 800 hedge funds with $2.4 trillion in assets. Goldman said the average equity hedge fund is up more than 4% since the start of July. The bank also said that its basket of "Hedge Fund VIPs" has outperformed the broader market since the June low. This basket consists of the 50 stocks that are most commonly held in the top 10 positions of fundamental hedge funds. During the second quarter, it saw Amazon replace Microsoft as the single most popular long position among hedge funds. Meanwhile, Apple dropped out of the top five, replaced by Visa. Goldman also said the basket, which sees additions and deletions each quarter depending on hedge fund holdings, has outperformed the S & P 500 in 59% of all quarters since 2001. The bank also said that 14 new names made the list, including Advanced Micro Devices, Atlassian, Mercado Libre, PayPal and Charles Schwab. AMD shares dropped 30% in the second quarter but have popped 25% since June 30. Atlassian, Mercado Libre, PayPal and Schwab are also up sharply this quarter. 'High Hedge Fund Concentration' Goldman also looks at stocks where hedge funds control the greatest amount of individual companies' total market capitalization. This basket of the "most concentrated hedge fund positions" in the S & P 500 has outperformed the broader market in 60% of the quarters since 2001. This "High Hedge Fund Concentration" group of 20 stocks has lagged the broader market since May after outperforming earlier in the year. The latest quarter saw six additions to Goldman's high concentration basket: Allegion (9% of total market cap owned by hedge funds as of June 30) CF Industries (10%) Etsy (9%) PENN Entertainment (10%) Seagate Technology (9%) Synchrony Financial (9%) —CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed reporting.