Billionaire hedge fund manager David Tepper bolstered Appaloosa’s portfolio of tech stocks in the second quarter of the year, as per the fund’s recently released 13F filing. Indeed, it seems Tepper became even more convinced of the legs of the burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) industry last quarter.
According to the regulatory filing released Monday, Appaloosa both opened new positions and boosted previous holdings of a number of major tech and AI stocks last quarter. The firm added the likes of AMD (NASDAQ:AMD), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) to its roster with 2.31 million shares, 480,000 shares, 6.78 million shares, and 1.85 million shares, respectively.
The fund also increased its previous holdings of Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), to 4.48 million shares from 100,000 shares, as well as Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), to 3.16 million shares from 2 million shares, and Meta (NASDAQ:META), to 1.5 million shares, from 700,000 shares.
Appaloosa did make some cuts, however. The firm reduced its stakes in U.S. liquid natural gas (LNG) company EQT (NYSE:EQT) to 2.06 million shares from 2.55 million shares and retailer Macy’s (NYSE:M) to 5 million shares from 6 million shares.
Meanwhile, the firm dumped its entire holdings of Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS), and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA).
Tepper’s Tech Stock Shuffle Reflects New AI Ecosystem
Tepper’s investments reflect a clear trend towards both e-commerce, tech, and AI and a general avoidance of more retail-centric businesses. Reasonably so. With concerns of both domestic and global recessions continuing to fluctuate with any given economic report or monetary policy adjustment, siding with the nigh-guaranteed potential of growth is seemingly a safer bet than retailers, which stand to suffer from slowdowns in consumer spending.
Tepper stands in contrast to another major investor, Big Short subject Michael Burry. Burry’s second-quarter investments, via his own Scion Asset Management hedge fund, were also recently published in a 13F filing. Unlike Tepper, Burry largely bet against the stock market. Indeed, Burry purchased millions worth of S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite put options. These securities will increase in value should the S&P or Nasdaq fall relative to the options’ strike prices. Given the tech-centric nature of the Nasdaq, this is, in a sense, a bet against many of the tech stocks Tepper opted to buy into in Q2.
Burry did make some purchases, however. Scion took new positions in MGM (NASDAQ:MGM), Generac (NASDAQ:GNRC), and Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE).
On the date of publication, Shrey Dua did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
