Health care hedge investment on the up 20 August 2015New York Reporter: Stephanie Palmer
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Hedge funds are moving towards health care stocks and away from the technology sector, according to the S&P Capital IQ quarterly hedge fund tracker.
Health care drove the bulk of hedge fund buying for the second quarter in a row, seeing net buys of $7.2 million. This was still a significant increase on Q1, which amounted to $4.8 billion.
The sector now represents 26 percent of the holding for the ten largest hedge funds. Baxter International was the largest health care buy of Q2, as a target of activist investing that saw $1.9 billion bought by Third Point. It now constitutes 18 percent of the Third Point portfolio.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals also saw $1.7 billion in buys, including $1.5 billion from Paulson & Co and $124 million from Viking Global Investors.
The information and technology sector had the most sell-offs, reaching a figure of $3.1 billion. Baidu was most sold at $1.3 billion, while Lone Pine sold out entirely.
Apple also sold $875 million worth of stock, Alibaba sold $644 million, and eBay sold $434 million.
The consumer discretionary sector saw the second highest number of total buys overall, at $2.4 billion, however some of these stocks were also the most sold off.
Some of the larger buys were JD.com with $1.8 billion and Amazon with $1.3 billion, while Netflix saw buys of $1.4 billion and sell-offs of $823 million.
Time Warner Cable and 21st Century Fox saw significant sell-offs of $751 million and $690 million, respectively.
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