Hedge funds cut back on energy, buy agriculture in 2nd quarter

Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Author: Reuters

Philippe Laffont's Coatue Management was bullish on Chipotle's burritos and tacos in the second quarter, while activist hedge fund Jana Partners LLC soured on energy stocks as the firm dumped shares in Marathon Petroleum and Hess Corp.

It is that time of the year again when hedge funds and other big money managers disclose their U.S. stock holdings at the end of the most recent quarter in so-called 13-F filings.

The filings offer a chance for ordinary investors to see what closely watched money managers like Bill Ackman, Warren Buffett, David Einhorn and Dan Loeb are doing with their investors' money.

The second quarter was a difficult one for stocks and hedge funds. The benchmark S&P 500 fell 3.3 percent in the period, while funds on average lost 2.7 percent in the quarter.

The filings from hedge funds, which will be submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission throughout the day Tuesday, will no doubt reveal some of that tumult in the stock market.

For a better analysis of how big money managers traded in the sector quarter, here is a breakdown by sectors and high-profile stocks.

ENERGY

Jana, the hedge fund led by Barry Rosenstein, exited its position in Marathon Petroleum, which had been the fund's largest stock holding at the end of the first quarter. The fund also sold all of it shares in Hess, another oil company.

Tom Steyer's Farallon Capital made a big adjustment to its holding of gas pipeline company Kinder Morgan Inc, which finalized its acquisition of El Paso earlier this year. In the first quarter it held 22.5 million shares but at the end of the second quarter it owned 4 million shares and had warrants to acquire and additional 5.2 million shares.

FOOD and AGRICULTURE

Jana opened a new position in Canadian fertilizer company Agrium, buying 6.5 million shares.

Coatue added 185,000 shares of Mexican restaurant chain Chipotle, bringing its total holdings to 567,102 shares.

FACEBOOK

The popular social networking company had the most closely watched and controversial initial public offering of the quarter.

The first well-known manager to disclose a significant position in Facebook in the period was Chase Coleman's Tiger Global Management with 1.96 million shares. The hedge fund was a pre-IPO investor in Facebook.