market folly

Continuing our coverage of Apple (AAPL) today, we present the top hedge funds that own Apple. After all, we've previously highlighted how Apple is the most important stock to hedge funds.

Without further ado, here is the breakdown of the top hedge fund owners of Apple as of September 30th, 2010. This data was taken from the most recent SEC 13F filings. The newest 13F's won't be released for about another month at which point we'll get an updated look as to who owned AAPL at 2010 year-end, so this data should be taken with a grain of salt. Keep in mind that MarketFolly.com will of course be analyzing the latest hedge fund positions in our newsletter, Hedge Fund Wisdom.


Hedge Funds That Own The Most Apple (AAPL):

1. Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital: Owns 0.29% of AAPL (2,707,106 shares)

2. David Shaw's D.E. Shaw Investment Management: 0.26% of AAPL (2.39 million shares)

3. Jim Simons' Renaissance Technologies (RenTec): 0.21% of AAPL (1.96 million shares)

4. Shumway Capital Partners (Chris Shumway): 0.2% of AAPL (1.8 million shares)

5. Rob Citrone's Discovery Capital Management: 0.17% of AAPL (1.5 million shares)

6. Philippe Laffont's Coatue Management: 0.17% of AAPL (1.5 million shares)

7. Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital: 0.15% of AAPL (1.3 million shares)

8. Chase Coleman's Tiger Global: 0.14% of AAPL (1.25 million shares)

9. John Griffin's Blue Ridge Capital: 0.13% of AAPL (1.22 million shares)

10. David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital: 0.09% of AAPL (837k shares)

11. Kleinheinz Capital Partners (John Kleinheinz): 0.09% of AAPL (782k shares)

12. Ken Griffin's Citadel Investment Group: 0.08% of AAPL (753k shares)

13. David Stemerman's Conatus Capital: 0.08% of AAPL (714k shares)

14. Kingdon Capital Management: 0.08% of AAPL (701k shares)

15. Jeff Vinik's Vinik Asset Management: 0.07% of AAPL (621k shares)


Of the list above, you'll notice an overarching theme: Tiger Cubs. Of the top hedge fund owners of AAPL, seven are 'Tiger Cub' hedge funds. These are funds that employ long/short equity strategies similar to those learned from the respective manager's time working at Julian Robertson's Tiger Management. This strategy focuses on intensive fundamental research and often focuses on value or G.A.R.P. (growth at a reasonable price) investments.

Singling out a few of the other managers on the list above, we previously detailed that Apple is Kleinheinz Capital's top position when we examined their letter to investors. Additionally, in the past we've touched on David Einhorn's rationale for buying Apple as his cost basis is around $248 per share.

Earlier this morning we highlighted Goldman Sachs' research on AAPL where they kept the stock on their Conviction Buy List despite CEO Steve Jobs' medical leave of absence. Additionally, we highlighted in-depth what this means for AAPL investors.

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