It’s widely known in the mutual fund community that poor performing stocks which are heavily owned by institutional money managers can be targets of ”window dressing” at the end of a quarter.
Window dressing is a tactic where portfolio managers sell their worst performing stocks and buy more of their best performing stocks into the end of the quarter. When they report the quarter-end holdings of their portfolios, after a little window dressing, they tend to look a little smarter when they have a book of nicely performing stocks, after purging the weaker performers.
At BillionairesPortfolio.com, what’s most interesting about this practice to us is that it can create an opportunity for us to buy billionaire-owned stocks at a price cheaper than what the billionaire paid for his shares.
Below is a list of four of the highest conviction stocks of four of the top billionaire investors in the world. Each of the stocks listed got a little cheaper in the past couple of weeks, likely due to some mutual fund window dressing, along with a dose of some broad market risk aversion:
1) Qualcomm (QCOM) – Billionaire Barry Rosenstein’s activist hedge fund Jana Partners owns $2 billion worth of Qualcomm. It’s the fund’s largest holding. Jana paid around $66 to $68 for their QCOM shares. That’s about 10 % higher than what it is selling for today. Qualcomm dropped six straight days into the end of June, typical behavior of window dressing selling. Qualcomm now has 3.05% dividend yield and sells for just 14 times earnings with one of the best balance sheets of any S&P 500 company.
2) Monsanto (MON)- Billionaire Larry Robbins of Glenview Capital was named the number one hedge fund manager by Barron’s with a 57% annualized return over the past 3 years. Monsanto is Glenview Capital’s largest position, and the fund’s average cost for Monsanto is around $112 a share. That’s 5% higher than what Monsanto sells for today. Robbins stated at hedge fund conference that Monsanto could be worth $220, or a double from its price today.
3) Chesapeake Energy (CHK) – Billionaire Carl Icahn owns 11% of Chesapeake at $17 a share, and recently added to his stake in March at $14. Chesapeake has been hammered ever since. The stock is down 25% over the past month and 10% this week alone. CHK now has a 3.2% dividend yield and sells at just two-thirds of its $15.50 book value.
4) Micron Technology (MU) – Micron is David Einhorn’s second largest position in his hedge fund Greenlight Capital. Einhorn paid around $21 a share for his nearly $1 billion position. The stock now sells for $18.78 – about 11% cheaper than what Einhorn paid. MU sells for just 6 times earnings and 4 times cash flow. Micron looks like the classic window dressing stock as it dropped 22% over the past week.
Billionairesportfolio.com, run by two veterans of the hedge fund industry, helps self-directed investors invest alongside the world’s best billionaire investors. By selecting the best ideas from the best billionaire investors and hedge funds, our exited stock investment recommendations have averaged a 27% gain since 2012.
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