Despite claims by the Tame Apple Press that the fruity cargo cult is at the top of its game after the launch of its new bendy iphone 6, Wall Street hedge funds do not agree.
David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital and Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management, have been selling their stakes in Apple during the last few months in a sign that they are predicting a slump.
To be fair, Apple did well in 2014 with its shares rising nearly 38 percent. This year the company’s stock is up more than 16 percent year to date and reached an intraday record high of $129.45 per share.
Yet Wall Street’s cleverest money men do not think it is going to get much better. Although Apple is the biggest position in Coatue Management’s portfolio, the firm sold 1.7 million shares at the end of the quarter, or more than 15 percent of its stake, leaving it with 8.9 million shares.
Greenlight said it cut Apple holdings by 6.2 percent to 8.6 million shares during the quarter.
Eric Mandelblatt’s Soroban Capital Partners sold 4.3 million Apple call options, liquidating the fund’s position. And David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management hedge fund said it had dissolved its stake in Apple, while Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors sold 808,000 Apple shares to own 383,790 shares at the end of the fourth quarter.
Last week, billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn tried to talk up his technology company’s shares claiming that they should be trading at $216 apiece.
It seems that few others agree.
