Telecoms and healthcare were the hedge fund sector’s major buys in Q4 2013, according to S&P Capital IQ’s latest study of 13F filings of US pure play hedge funds.

S&P Capital IQ performs its hedge fund analysis quarterly in order to help investors understand what the most prominent US-based hedge funds are buying, holding and selling.
 
"Our firm develops its analysis through an examination of SEC filings accessed via proprietary Excel based models. In turn, clients can use these models to better spot global trends in various asset categories and see what some of the largest investors are targeting," says Tony Elyahou, senior director, S&P Capital IQ.
 
"Looking at recent filings as well as S&P Capital IQ's Holding Aggregator and Investor Profile Reports, available on the S&P Capital IQ platform, aggregate holdings of the ten top 10 pure play hedge funds - as determined by their total equity assets from 13F filings - shows telecoms and healthcare as the major buys," says Pavle Sabic, credit market development, S&P Capital IQ. "It's interesting to note that healthcare, the top sell sector last quarter, is now the second top buy."
 
Extended Stay America saw six hedge funds buy-into this IPO, making it the largest overall new position (in terms of number of hedge fund buys and dollars invested) with over USD1.47bn invested.
 
Vodafone, Apple and Facebook have the top three spots in the Top 10 Increases in Existing Position, with USD1.1bn, USD1.1bn and USD1bn respectively.
 
Netflix, Comcast and eBay were the top three overall sells among these hedge funds, with over USD2.6bn sold off in total.
 
Search engine companies Yahoo! and Google also saw sell offs of USD627m and USD579m respectively.