Pandora, Yahoo Favorite Among hedge Funds, Apple Not So

Regulatory filings, on Thursday, revealed that Pandora Media Inc (P), the online music company was the favorite among the hedge funds while one of the most popular brand Apple Inc. (AAPL) was not on the preferred list of many of the fund houses, reports Reuters.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings confirmed that Pandora attracted funds such as Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management and Patrick McCormack’s Tiger Consumer Management, who invested in 1.1 million and 2.9 million shares respectively.

Facebook preferred, Apple not

In the third quarter, Tiger Consumer ended the stake in Facebook Inc (FB) while Coatue bought a large stake in the social networker up to 9.2 million shares. Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global also initiated a stake in Facebook with 4.4 million shares. These three funds come under the name of Tiger Cubs, which was started with the seed money from Julian Robertson of Tiger Management.

Coatue and Viking Global joined other popular hedge funds, which reduced their exposure in the iPhone maker, in the third quarter. Some of the popular hedge funds that either lowered or fully withdrew their investments from Apple include Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors, David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management, Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital and Manish Chopra’s Tiger Veda Management.

Yahoo in, Google out

Google Inc (GOOG) was abandoned by Cooperman’s Omega and Tiger Veda, who withdrew their investments in the search engine giant, whereas another internet company, Yahoo attracted the hedge fund managers, during the same period.

Yahoo Inc (YHOO) was preferred by two major fund; Tiger Global Management managed by Chase Coleman and Feroz Dewan, and Viking Global, which acquired up to 9 million shares. On the other hand, Farallon Capital Management significantly lowered its investments in Yahoo, from 11.275 million shares to 1.8 million shares.

The investors eagerly wait for these quarterly disclosures to see the stocks these savvy traders are buying and selling. Although the disclosures of the stock holdings do not tell about the short positions, and it releases 45 days after the quarter end, still it assists the investors to make a decision on their investment style.