Wall Street’s whales turned on Alphabet . Hedge fund managers and billionaire investors alike lightened up on shares of the Google parent — or dumped them all together — in the fourth quarter of 2023, regulatory filings revealed. While backward-looking, these disclosures nevertheless shine a light on the moves influential investors have made. The sales of Alphabet came during the final three months of a strong year for the Club name and the overall stock market. Shares jumped 58.3% in 2023 — more than double the S & P 500 ‘s 24.2% advance. In the fourth quarter, specifically, shares of Alphabet rose 6.75%. So far in 2024, the stock was up 1% — underperforming the S & P 500’s year-to-date gain of 5%. GOOGL 1Y mountain Alphabet’s stock performance over the past 12 months. Dan Loeb’s Third Point hedge fund and billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller sold their entire stakes in the search engine giant during the three months ended Dec. 31, according to 13F disclosures with the Securities and Exchange Commission released this week. Third Point owned Alphabet for less than a year , while Druckenmiller traded in and out of the stock in recent quarters. Both of their holdings had been worth more than $100 million. Third Point and Druckenmiller’s exits were among the Club-stock-related trades that surfaced this week in the latest collection of 13Fs, which institutional investors with at least $100 million in assets are required to submit to the SEC every quarter. The Q4 disclosure cycle revealed a slew of sales in tech stocks that rode Wall Street’s wave of artificial intelligence optimism to impressive performances in 2023. Of course, the motivations behind the pros’ decisions cannot be determined from the regulatory filings alone. But, in general, the decision to take something off the table in a high-flying stock during the fourth quarter is understandable because we took similar action at the start of January , trimming our positions in eight holdings that…
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